And what happens when I’m left to my own devices
(A quick note to those who aren’t in the know, I procrastinate and wait for things to be perfect when I know they never will be. This blog is a pretty good example of that. Well, for now I’m not going to procrastinate any further.)
First things first!! (PAUSE. Why is that a saying? How fucking dumb is that? Of course the first thing is first, IT’S FUCKING FIRST!!!) If you’ve followed my blog at all or if you’ve liked the INTELLIGI Facebook page (You have, HAVEN’T YOU??) you’ve probably figured out that the old demos that I had previously posted didn’t have live drums on them. I took a snare from here, a kick from there, and a whole bunch of MIDI cymbals, threw them together into a big ol’ pile o’ suck and called them drum tracks. And for what they were, I guess they worked. They allowed me to track guitars and bass, to get my head wrapped around what the track will sound like, and to give any potential musicians that were interested in INTELLIGI an idea as to where the music was going. So I can’t really get to upset at the quality, if the end result accomplished what it was intended to. But holy gawd, I can’t tell you how much better the live drums sound.
SO I WON’T
I’ve got a few very good reasons why I shouldn’t be posting this right now, but I’m tired of waiting, and tired hoping things will line up so that they all fit into my little world’s plans.
So without further ado
If you missed either of the trailers for the new tracks
If you’d
rather pump real authentic metal into your earballs
YOU LIKE?!?!
I like!
DUSTIN
I can’t tell you how amazing it is to hear the music that I’ve written with live drum tracks. Or how friggin’ awesome of a job Dustin’s been doing. He doesn’t half ass anything, and he’s put the same amount of care and emotion into his drum parts that I’ve put into writing the rest of the tracks. He busts his ass, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get the best sound and the best performance possible. . . like when we redid all of the recorded drums cause they weren’t recorded up well enough. That’s right. We don’t fuck around.
ENGINEER
Holy balls, there’s something to be said for those brave men and women that engineer bands in the studio. It’s particularly grueling in a hot garage where the only fans available are so loud that they mess with the recordings. Even besides that it’s a long arduous journey that will make you sit in one uncomfortable chair for hours on end hitting two buttons on a keyboard over and over and over again while listening to a musician play the same friggin’ thing over an over and over again. And then you find you did it all wrong and you have to redo it all. Engineers deserve every penny they earn.
MASTERING
Now this is a whole new world for me. But I feel that even just a little effort and a few hours of nit picking (And if you want to go balls out, spend a ton of cash on plug-ins) and you’ll get a much better sound out of a recording. I’m not saying that it’ll be a finished product, but if you go and compare these two tracks to the previously posted tracks, you’ll hear the difference. SO! All of you little recording musicians out there that are looking for some extra oomph behind your recordings, read up on some mastering walkthroughs, watch some tutorials, and spend loads of money on plug-ins*
*Optional
Image credit: Monku
If there was one word to describe how I feel about these tracks and the tracks to follow? Ecstatic probably doesn’t cover it. What’s a higher emotion than ecstatic? I’m whatever that would be. It’s just another step, but the amount of work that goes into these recorded tracks is so great that when Dustin and I get results like this, I’m over the moon. Jubilant? JUBILANT. I like that. THAT’S WHAT I AM. Not even an exclamation point there. I’m not exclaiming, I’m making an incontestable statement that is written in my own blood and sweat. And a lot of sweat on Dustin’s part too. New Life is NOT an easy song to play, and he had to play it a few times. Which is a testament to it’s difficulty, cause he’s a “one take” guy that can nail a recorded track the first time it’s put to tape. (Humanities next great achievement will be removing all references to “tape” as a recording medium from the English language) And we weren’t recording these tracks in the middle of October! NOPE. We were happily tracking in the SoCal heat in the middle August. That poor guy did two days of setting up, recording, listening, recording again, and breaking down in that heat. LOTS of sweat.
In Closing
Usually when I’m writing these posts I’ve got the reader in the back of my head, and I’m always making an attempt to keep the shit I write interesting and the posts full to burst with content. But this time I’m closing it up early. And I can hear you know, “Wait. WAIT. What the shit?!?! All of these blog posts have been novellas that span multiple topics and range from angry metal musician to guilty white middle-American!! YOU CAN’T STOP NOW!!!” WELL GUESS WHAT?!?!
YOU ONLY GET A BIT THIS TIME!!!!
(Why I can’t get a girlfriend? Because I enjoy yelling at the people that are listening to me)
That’s right. I’ve waited three months to post (Gad, I’m an asshole) and then I’m only going to give you a bit of what’s on my mind. BUT. I promise that the next post will come much sooner. And that the next post will be MUCH less INTELLIGI news, and more about other more derpy stuff. I understand that INTELLIGI is important to me, and as such must be important to the readers that follow this, but c’mon. There must be a little part of you that thinks it’d be nice to here about. . . “other” stuff every once and a while.
And really quick before I wrap this post up, look what just came in the mail!!!!
CeeDubH
Shout Outs
No shout outs this post. Since it was mainly INTELLIGI updates and news, and there haven’t been any personnel changes in the INTELLIGI camp, there’d only be one person to give a shout out too. Dustin. but Dustin’s already got his, and I don’t want him to get all pompous and shit. I can only imagine how annoying he’d be if he knew how much ass he kicks. But there will be some shout outs next post. So don’t get on my case, ya hear?
