Real time, almost –
Today we will make three files for each song – a master mix, an instrumental mix, and a vocals only mix. Then we will make lots of copies and safety copies of everything.
First thing – If I were a song. We get the guitars in the right place and then adjust the pedal steel accordingly. Thankfully this song is a complicated arrangement so this works well enough. However, when I try to EQ Matt’s guitar to make the notes more apparent it makes the guitar too loud in places so it needs to be completely redone. Mick isn’t too thrilled about this but we get it done. Send final mix to Dave to make sure we haven’t ruined something that was already fine. He’s good with it.
Matt’s guitar on The Flipside and Man Overboard just need a tiny bit of mid/high mid adding to make the difference. This only takes a minute or two. Then we print both of them. No other changes.
On That’s Alright we revisit Joan’s guitar and move it a bit further to the left – I suggest having it had left with Matt’s chorus, Mick thinks a lead track shouldn’t be that far out. We end up somewhere mid left. And we turn it up and keep it dry, ride it up a little in verse 3. Done. We turn the harmony down a hair and the lead guitar up a hair at the start of Ch2 and we print.
Rhinestones – I’d made a note that the mandolin lead lines didn’t sound like they were played by the same player as the rhythm (we’d overdubbed them to get them tighter). So we work a while on this, not as simple as I’d hoped, as turning the rhythm up means it now sounds too bright. Mick and I have a discussion on what a mandolin should sound like and we end up with me saying that this might indeed be the case, but I don’t like it.. I want the sound of a mandolin that doesn’t have super bright new strings – so we EQ it a little and it works. The song is noticeably improved (there is so little going on that a tiny change can be key…).
Broken Record (the instrumental version is printing right now – 3.00PM) – I want a little less steel at the front so my little guitar figure doesn’t need turning up. Mick rides this and it’s much better. Then when we do the ‘final’ listen through I spot a nasty ‘b’ at the start of Ch1. Upon investigation Mark’s vocal has a nasty noise on it, so we remove it. He’s now missing a ‘b’ but Dave’s is loud enough for two.
Lunch.
Writers Retreat! – Lead guitar fine tuning is all. Print.
2 minute break for me to show Mick The Beasts of Bourbon ‘I don’t care about nothing anymore’ video.
Oh Genevieve – Check bass sound, OK. Raise steel in solo. Print.
Why In The World? – No issues, or so we thought. Mick spots a distortion spike on the acoustic track when we are running the instrumental version. So we fix it (find the same chord from earlier in the song and copy/paste), then we have to print all files again.
Inverse Midas Touch. No issues, except what to put in the instrumental and vocal only mixes. We include the dialogue in the vocal, but no ambient noise in the instrumental.
Double Happiness – No issues. Print.
Dave emails – maybe vocal on Oh Genevieve is a little quiet. So we make a vocal up mix. We try the standard 1db up, but it’s too much. It’s been amazing how much difference .5 db can make. We end up .6db up in the verses and .3db up in the choruses. Print.
Onto last song at 6.55 PM – Westchester County Jail – No issues. Print. Listening to the last harmony this could be a contender for final track.
Re – check Mick’s work on the first song. It’s fine. Album mixing over.
Start file organisation. M burns me a CD of running order take two (Starting with If I Were A Song and ending with Westchester), hopefully I can hear this soon…
Day 36 is already booked for May 12th at The Lodge in NYC. Until then, over and out!