The Waiting Game....

is what we're currently playing... waiting for artwork from the great Dave Ulrich. I'm tempted to post his phone number so you all can call him to get him moving... but in the meantime, we still need funds to pay for the project; so here's a neat little paypal button to make pre-buys extra convenient:

If you haven't done so already, please click that thing and order a CD or 2 for a friend. Alright... sit tight for more updates as things happen... things are always happening.

And There It Is

Know what these are?

You guessed it! The final masters of this crazy CD we've been working on for like a year now. (Why 2? one's louder than the other - i need to listen to them both and see which one feels better and doesn't melt your CD players when actually played). So to back it up a bit here, Christian and i traveled once again out to Plinky's place in Dayton NJ in order to get the finishing touches put on the mixes. But, before you can do any sort of critical listening for sonic integrity of a project like this, it's a good idea to stuff yourself with at least 2 feet of heavilly oiled (and vinegared) italian sub:

We chowed while plink got the songs loaded in his system. I think he may have erased my hard drive i brought with me with all our songs (after they were transfered luckily). I'll just send him a bill later for that.

As you can see, he's quite the man of mystery! What does he really look like? Not many know, i can tell you that much. We also had the daunting task of picking the order of the songs on the disc. It's like a game of tetris trying to line up tempos and moods and lyrical content in order to make a nicely paced and flowing album to listen to. I think we got a winner though.

And that was it! 2 disc burns later and we were flying back east with the finished product in the stereo! Hard to believe it's all done.

Next up, Dave Ulrich has been handed the artwork by Jonesy as he has gone west to meet up and capture Tim and Emily in order to bring them back to New Jersey. Many people miss them much. Especially me. Anyway, dave will be working on the layout and as long as i badger him enough... we'll have it off to press soon!
Well, that's it for the weekly updates... next time you hear from me it will be that the art is done or that materials are off to the press plant. I will keep you all posted. Again, thanks for everyone who is helping out with the pre-buy - we're still going strong with orders- but we need lots more, so get your friends to chip in.
Now for you moment of zen: Christian playing one of plinky's many many fine and rare instruments:

The Last Monday Night Session

Last night was the official LAST night of tracking/mixing for The New Ancients. You heard me right.... we now have a full album awaiting mastering to be done this wednesday. The album also has a title... you ready?
"Light For Dark Eyes".
There it is. Don't complain or make other suggestions, as they will be promptly ignored. The batteries in the cam were dead, so tom only snapped a couple pics... here's basically what the night looked like:

Christian and i made little changes to things here and there to try and tighten up the mixes before we take everything to Plink's in 2 days. That leaves just tonite to make any REAL last minute fixes, which is good because i want this project done and off my plate. Again - this is the curse of having your own studio based on a DAW (digital audio workstation - i.e. computer): you can tweak and make changes ad nauseum till the cows come home and never be finished. I try to keep reminding myself that Ted Templeman and Van Halen recorded Van Halen I in like 8 days or something. 8 Days from first hitting record to masters! that's the way to do it. Anyway, by the end of the night we had full mixes of every song on disc that christian, michelle and i are to listen to and make notes on for possible mix changes late tonite, then christian and i will be heading to 17th ave productions (ONLY ONCE THIS TIME!!!!!) tomorrow. I'll get the cam charged up and take a pic or 2 of Plink in action. That's about it for this week... again - the camera was dead so no vids for your moment of zen... but i found a pic on a web site that should suffice: Check It Out Here.
See you Thursday!

well, it's official....

i'm still not sure i really believe it, but:


Yes. Christian is officially done with tracking his parts. That means no more hoping his voice holds out over the hours of phone calls and meetings he takes part in each day, no more trying to schedule studio time around his super-busy schedule, but most importantly, it means this thing is just about done.
But, i'm getting ahead of myself... first thing we did last night was to review the notes that Plink (the mastering engineer) sent me regarding the first 8 songs i left with him. He agreed to review the work and give me mix comments; things that could be changed to make the mixes better before we master them. I had to go back with the last 3 or 4 songs anyway, so if there were things i could change in the original songs, i could do that and bring new versions with me. Here's a shot of us going through Plink's thoughts on the mixes:

Most of the comments were small changes - some were matters of taste - but overall, i think the mixes are pretty much there. We quickly got to work and tracked christian's lead vocal for "Happy Souls" in record time. After that, it was on to a background vocal for "Jesus Master" which also went really quickly.
The real Dan P solved calculus problems while we worked.

Before i knew it, that was it! it was over! Christian was really all done, and it was only like 9:30. No champagne was broken out and sprayed around the room on each other's heads and into the crowds like you see when the Indy 500 is over. No large tubs of Gatorade dumped over my shoulders or reporters shoving mics in my face asking me "what are you going to do next!?!" like in the Super Bowl. We celebrated by firing up the 1964 Hammond M3 and trying to write an organ line for "Happy Souls".

Which is pretty funny to watch as neither Christian nor i can REALLY play the organ. We can fake stuff ok, but it's like seeing two chimps pounding away with sun-bleached thigh bones on a log deep in the jungle trying to come up with a suitable part.
Here's a clip after the bone pounding was over and we started getting composed:

By this time, most of the peanut gallery had left (Tom, Steph, Dan and Alex) leaving only Michelle, Christian, and myself. We planned the rest of the tracking to be done, which looks like one more session for Jeff and myself to knock off 2 background vocal parts. In the meantime, i will be putting finishing mixing touches on "Jesus Master", "Happy Souls", and "Life Is So Bright".
Alright, that's it for today.... so, this may be the last one of these on this blog; get ready! Christian presents us with our moment of Zen: