The band came over Saturday for a mixing session. By myself, I’d been unable to produce a mix of the song we’d been working on. Seriously, deafness and whatever else are just bad for mixing music. Kerry had expressed interest in mixing, so I was more than happy to have her expertise (in addition, I was so discouraged with my efforts that I didn’t want to touch the song ever again). I gave Kerry some pointers about Sonar and she was on her way to getting the mix in order.
We ate badly. Between Friday night and Saturday, I consumed:
- Two glasses of merlot.
- Potato skins.
- Three martinis.
- Pizza with artichokes, basil and whole tomatoes.
- A margarita.
- Denny’s breakfast.
- 25 Dunkin Donuts munchkins.
- A large coffee coolatta.
- 4 energy bars.
- Diet Vanilla Pepsi.
- Dinner at the 9’s (buffalo chicken fingers and fries).
- More Dunkin Donuts munchkins.
We listened to the same song like 500 times during the mixing process. Kirsten and I had been out the night before (accompanied by many drinks then me falling asleep in her bed for an hour and a half before I drove home), and I got up at 6:30am on Saturday, so I hit a wall on Saturday by 3pm. I needed to take a nap on my couch for about an hour. When I fell asleep at 3pm, the song was playing in the background. When I woke up at 4pm, the song was still playing in the background.
I went back downstairs and the mix was taking shape. Kerry and the boys had made a lot of progress, and it was really starting to sound like a song — not the muddy mess I’d sploshed onto mp3 a few days earlier. I also noticed that Kerry had added effects everywhere and CPU utilization on my recording system was at 90% (when this happens, playing back audio becomes near-impossible). Yup, after 4 years of good service, it’s time to buy a new system!
The result of everyone’s efforts is a pretty good song. We still have one more (short) round of changes to the overall mix and some vocals/effects issues to address, but I think the core mix is done to everybody’s satisfaction. Stay tuned.
