You wouldn't like me when i'm angry....

Having had a home based recording studio for some years now (10!) i've evidently arrived at some level of proficency in setting things up like pre amps, compressors, effect, patchbays, and computers. As a result, i often get questions from people starting down the same road of home recording on how do do certain things, and i'm always up for helping people and giving advice - i enjoy doing that. It always seems like most questions are computer related, as they are the source of most mystery and headache in the small home setup. Now, with respect to computers, they present an interesting dicotomy in the recording world. They make it very easy to get certain jobs done fast and efficiently, but on the other hand, they are complex systems that can easily get screwed up so bad, they make work impossible.
I hate them.
Which is really funny, in a sad sort of way, because both my primary career (software engineer) and secondary job (recording engineer / musician) both rely heavily on them. The last thing in the world i want to do is fix computers. When they break on me, i basically turn into the Incredible Hulk. I get the bugged out eyes and the white hot rage, i want to do things like break though cinder block walls and flip cars over, or run down the highway barefoot. I don't have the green body paint, huge muscles, and ripped wranglers of course, and there's also no crazy newspaper reporter following me around trying to catch me in my alter-ego (as far as i know), but you get the picture.
Anyway - on sunday i broke yet another rule that i always warn people about.
Never upgrade any part of your computer (hardware or software) during a project if you don't really have to. Especially when the project is near completion.
So, guess what i did... yep. I decided that it wouldn't be a big deal to go ahead and update my OS to 10.4.5 from 10.3.something for no good reason. Midway throught the update, the Apple updater program warns me about something that has failed
and the system needs a re-bootin'. Ooooooh Kaaaaaay. Reboot.
wait
wait
wait
Nothing.
machine will not come back up.
*eyes turn white and begin darting around the room ala David Banner*

I will spare you all the horrors that soon followed, but suffice it to say it looked a little something like this:

In the end i got really lucky, after doing an OS re-install i only had to reinstall
the MOTU drivers for my 2408, the drivers for my little remote control thingy, and copy all my plugs back into the library folder and when i brought up DP, (and the New Ancients project) everything worked. (as far as i can tell). Whew!
So last night we had quite a large crowd stuffed down there; little Nick showed up:

and we finished up the main vocal for "Jesus Master". Christian's voice was still recovering from 2 weeks ago, but he had just enough gas to get about 5 takes of the song down. As soon as we heard him getting tired, we sent Steph and Alex out for some Riccola throat drops... (Ricco-Recon). In the past, i've had great results with this little bottle of throat drops called "Singer's Saving Grace". It's a super expensive herbal tonic of sorts that helps give extra life to a tired voice with only a few drops down the hatch. When we were tracking vocals for Million Time Winner's "Writing The Broken Line", Christian was drinking this stuff constantly, and it really worked! Give him another one Stpeh:

It worked! Here's Christian excited about finishing yet another main vocal part:

Next, it was on to some horn parts for the choruses of"Happy Souls". Matt Pucci came in with his trombone and quickly nailed his part:

He needed a music stand for the notes he wrote, but of course all my music stands have somehow mysteriously dissapeared into the briney depths of the ORB basement. It's like the Bermuda Triangle down there. Here's what i'm now resorting to:

About an hour later, Blue showed up with the trumpet again and played a part over Matt's 'bone. Warm up, QUICK!

Eventually everyone left leaving me and Blue to finish his part up, giving us peace and quiet to get work done. We pushed Blue's lips pretty hard... he hit some crazy high notes for the rideout of the song. Let's just say he wont be blowing up balloons any time soon. I bet this morning his lips are swelled up like 2 big red hotdogs. Ok - 2 more sessions and this thing is done, for real. Thanks as always to the great Tom Sasso for pics and vids.
So there it is.
And here IT is, your moment of Zen, courtesy of Alex:

so i crossed NJ 6 times in 3 days....

Uh Oh...what's this?!?!?!

This past friday i headed to 17th Ave Productions in Dayton NJ (yes there is a Dayton, NJ) to have the final mix of "Dying Faith" mastered by Plinky for the documentary that Christian Smith and Revelation Studios are doing. I got there late in the morning and after talking shop for a while we got the song (along with about 6 others) transfered onto the studio's system only to find out all the files were corrupted, screwed up, and unusable. I think steam actually came out of my ears. I had to drive an hour all the way back across NJ to my place, get my hard drive with all the files on it, grab some cheese and pretzels for lunch, then immediately drive an hour west back to plink's studio to master the 3 versions of the song that Revelation Studios in Pasedena needed. That left me with exactly one hour to get back to Middletown, pack my crap, and head over to Shrewsbury to where the ORB high school retreat was leaving for the weekend in Hammonton NJ (i was asked to go along to help out). Once i arrived in Shrewsbury, we promptly got on the road for a refreshing 3 hour trip (yes, for some reason it took us 3 hours to get to Hammonton) to the camp where we were headed.
So this weekend in the blueberry capital of the world was something to behold to say the least. I'm sure there will be tons of pictures up on the ORB website fully covering the entire event, so I will just say that this was one super-high-quality group of people to get to know. There is just too much to say about everything that went down - and this is the recording blog, so....
In light of the retreat, i decided to give everbody the night off last night from recording, as we were all totally run down and in desparate need of sleep/repeated showerings/backrubs/baths/hot tea/extra long toilet time etc. Also, Christian has NO voice left after multiple talks and constant yelling, screaming, and laughing. Barely enough to even talk. So as i predicted, no singing was to take place. I ended up working alone last night comping vocals for "Life is So Bright"; one of the last 3 songs to have the finishing touches put in. Looks mighty different in the studio when no one else is there:

You can almost hear the crickets in that picture.

Jeff Ulrich will hopefully be doing vocals this week and i will schedule another mastering trip (this time with the hard drive in tow!).
Finally, just to let you all know, the pre-buy is going very well. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that we're *about* halfway there to paying for the pressing. Keep spreading the word and convincing friends to join the pre-by club. OK - that's all the news i have for now. Next week we'll have more of course!

stay clean -

pete

The Girls Are Done! The Girls Are Done! *ahem*...

Hi Inter-netters...

Lots of news and stuff to report this week, so i'll get right to it.
First off, we are well on our way to paying for the CD pressing now. BIG UPS and thank yous for everyone who has coughed up money for a pre-buy - we've had lots of response already which is good because the faster we get the money, the fast the CD will be in your hands. Again - if you haven't done so already, you can give me (pete) some cash or write me a check and i will be sure to get you on the waiting list. You can also donate online through paypal (which people have done already! thanks internet superheros!) by sending payment to sales@jerkrecords.com with a note that it's for The New Ancients CD pre-buy.

During the last week i finished "Boundless Love" by re-recording a guitar part (thanks for the help Sabrina Nilsen) and redoing the drum part. For the drums i ended up playing a super small set made up of Sammy's 20" Ludwig kick, my '67 Rogers snare, and my super old and decroded (<- from what movie? anyone?) Zildian hi-hats. One microphone in the room set back from the kit was all the song needed i think for the super-stripped down feel it has. i think it works...
So last night we finished up Michelle's final vocal parts for "Happy Souls". Congradulations girl, you're done! She celebrated by quietly knitting in the background. And by "quietly knitting" i actually mean talking loudly while i tried to make critical listening decisions on the mixes. It's cool, that's what everybody does down there. We had Joe sitting in on the session noodling around on my old nylon string acoustic i had when i was a pup:


I also finished up my vocal parts for "Life is So Bright", so now that one is basically in the bag. Steph looks excited about that:


We added some more little toy sounds to "Boundless Love" to finish that up for good as well. Here's a pic a Christian rummaging through the ancient suitcase i carry all my noisemakers around in:


All that's left now is final lead vocals for "Jesus Master" and "Happy Souls". Now, we just need Christian to stay healty and not blow his voice out. And that's a tall order, trust me.
What else?
Rumor has it that this week our own Brian Jones and Dave Ulrich are getting together in NYC to hash out design details for the packaging. I only hope the musical content will be up to par with what these two come up with. Seriously... they do fine work. Want to see one of our previous projects that Dave has done? Sure you do:
They liked Dave's work so much they still use it in the catalog!This is the company who will duplicate the CD.

In other developments:
Christian Smith, author of Soul Searching
and professor at UNC Chapel Hill, is doing a documentary on kids and how they relate to religion and the church these days. He found out about ORB and had to come check it out. Soooo, a few weeks back there was a film crew here from Revelation Studios in South Pasadena, CA getting footage of ORB and following a couple kids around their daily routines and whatnot. The director found out that we were recording these songs and were interested in hearing what we had. Long story short: they want to use "Dying Faith" in their film. That means, friday I'm on my way to get a few versions of it mastered. Now, i consider myself a pretty shoddy 2-bit tracking and mix engineer for the most part, but i am even worse at mastering, so i will be taking the final mixes to our friend Plinky at 17th Ave. Productions for this last stage. I've done lots of projects with Plink over the years and he is a true master at engineering, mixing, mastering, and production - so it's always great to get his input on my work. It's also nice to finaly get out of my place and work in someone else's, so i'll take some pics of the session so you all can see a real studio in action. I'm excited about this film development because it presents the opportunity for this music to be heard by tons of people all over the world, and more importantly, i don't have to do anything! i love that part. Anyway, I will keep you all posted on wen and where this film can be seen.

Ok, that's enough. In closing, it wouldn't be an update without one of these: Your moment of zen, Steph style:

Steph Finishes... Or Does She?

Howdy Snappers.
Last night we hit yet another mile marker: Steph has officially finished her parts on this recording. *please take this time to weep gently with your face in your hands, or on the shoulder of a loved one close by*.... *ok, now snap out of it*.
Christian was sick yesterday (as was i, but i didn't have to sing, so here i am), so he didn't make it to the session. Steph was there with her friend Alex - who i'm pretty sure is her new agent/manager/bodyguard and as usual Tom Sasso was shootin' pics and talking about fights at hardcore shows and spraypaintin' stuff. We also had a special guest appearance by the one and only Andy Bova who was sitting in to pick up recording tips as he is just setting his studio up with the same system i use here. He doesn't know what he's walking into though. Look at the fear in his face:


Also absent (again) was Tim. Where has he been? I've been needing my assistant! I need someone to get me my coffee! Untangle those mic cables! answer the door! let the dog out! let the dog back in! rub my back! rub tom's back! *ahem* He and his girlfriend Emily decided to take some serious time off and head out across the country on their way to Hawaii, then back to the west coast, then at some undetermined time coming back here (hopefully). They are traveling with some grizzled old sea captain too, so they've got that going for them. While you're wasting time reading this blog, you may as well waste some more by checking in on their whereabouts at Their TRAVEL BLOG HERE. Navagation on that site is a bit cryptic, but worth it in the end. There are some great pictures of their travels. Maybe by the time they return this CD will be done? maybe? maybe not. only time will tell. It always does.
Anyway...
We worked on "Happy Souls" last night for the most part, along with a bunch of little mix tweaks for a few other tunes. Here's steph being patient while i teach andy some fancy computer skillz:


And here we are talkin' shop and wastin' time. Look at that pic of me. What a nurd! I look somewhat taken by andy's sky blue hat:


Tom had a brand new 100 watt lightbulb installed in the side of his head earlier in the week. I think this helps him take great photos:


Here's a classic shot of one of the biggest studio no-no's there is. Tom manages to catch me with a cup of joe perched on the mixing board. I should know better as in the past i have spilled 3/4's of a bottle of beer into the exact group of faders on this console. No good. Although it may be argued that it made the board actually sound better. At least it made for a fun night of cleanup.


Now, back on the subject of Tim. In honor of him not being around, i did a re-mixed version of one of his Patrick Swift songs called "I Like Stuff" after someone brought up the idea while eating at the Red Bank diner on saturday night. So sunday, i got to work. Now, it's technically not a remix as i did not have any of his source tracks to actually re-mix, this is a brand new tune with samples from the original flown in. It's a good example of a "one-day-song". I played bass, keys, and Sammy's drumset for this recording. Listening tips: crank volume, crank bass control, insert little glow sticks in mouth (or baby pacifier), turn off lights, remove shirt (not you girls), drink 3 red bulls, spin in circles repeatedly. Enjoy!
I Like Stuff ReMix.mp3

So, there you have it -> But before you go, here it is, your moment of zen:

Want a CD? here's how you can help....

Quick post here - i just finished a session with Jeff Ulrich doing vocals for 'Boundless Love' and a guitar part for 'Happy Souls'. 'Boundless Love' is just about done now... here's a squiggly shot of jeff with his shiny new blue and gold guitar:

I used our new pre amp for all these tracks. I've only done like 5 sessions with it and i love it already. You want to see it? probably not, but here it is anyway:

So anyway, regarding the topic of the post, we are starting a pre-buy in for the CD. What's that? glad you asked. We're trying to raise dollars (lots of them) to cover the cost of pressing this thing, so we are asking for donations in the form of a pre-buy. You cough up 10 bucks now, and you get the CD when it's done (a month or 2 from now). No need to worry - this thing is getting made even if i have to sell that pretty little number in the above picture in order to pay for it. Hopefully it wont come to that. If you feel inclined to help financially, you can talk to me personally - pete(at)jerkrecords(dot)comm - or paypal us some moo-lah to sales@jerkrecords.com (make sure to indicate "The New Ancients CD pre-buy" somewhere in the paypal payment). I will keep track of who has donated so everyone gets a copy. I'll use my fancy computer.
Anyway, the more of you who donate now, the quicker it will get into your hands... so - thanks!