Due to various circumstances of the five different people I contacted to mix my album, ranging from work and breakups to prison time, I started trying to mix one of the 10 songs on the album to a level where I’d be satisfied sharing it with the world.
Truth be told I’d be satisfied sharing it now but I know the impact will be 20 fold if I put in just 20% more effort than I’ve put in this far.
I didn’t think I had it in me to learn all there was to get the songs to that level, but some of the songs are easier than other ones.
I was worried that doing it myself would end up with the album coming out later but now I realize it may be even slower to work with someone else since I’m not able to pay top dollar for someone who does this full time.
I was also worried I wouldn’t be able to figure it out because there is such subtle nuance involved, but listening now I can hear so much more detail in each instrument than I could just two or three months ago and I assume that if I keep it up another month I’ll hear even more so I imagine I could do at least 2/3 as well as a professional considering my standards which are more indie or experimental.
That last 1/3 would take years but I’m not sure I need it right now.
Today I spent 5 hours on bass and the main vocals trying to get them both strong and not fighting with each other.
I learned enough stuff where I realized that if I could do this every day for a year I’d be knocking on the door of pro level. The learning curve of recording though, is so round that getting to that level is akin to wizardry. Not hard to make it ok. Almost impossible to make it sound as good as you want it to sound.
Things I learned today in ableton:
This is an even bigger deal than it sounds because I couldn’t even figure out what compression was for weeks and I couldn’t actually hear it for months because sometimes it’s very subtle.
But with many subtle things in music, the casual listener may not understand or know why but they may be turned off by something that they hardly even recognize, ever so slightly harsh highs or rumbly lows, different instruments fighting for the same frequencies, or too much or too little reverb or delay.
I like music that is natural and that challenges people and I’m very casual about breaking rules, but I have pretty high standards when it comes to getting the technical stuff as good as I am capable of getting it.
I was surprised to learn how few local artists care about EQ at their shows. Like maybe that’s the main reason they aren’t able to attract new listeners.
I have to constantly remind myself that I am much more self motivated than most people, artists included. Traditionally, bands were responsible for playing the songs, perhaps writing them although with lots of pop they didn’t even do that. The sound check, recording, mixing and managing was all handled by someone else. Even now, many people who get that far have the resources to hire other people.
Luckily my friends pushed me to do it myself, both by actively encouraging me to make my own demos and learn as much as I could, by their example doing it themselves, and by not being available when I thought I needed their help.
So right now my plans have changed. Instead of going all in on finishing the last songs arrangements and lyrics, I am going to prepare the 3 singles for release first and release those every 10-14 days as I finish up the rest of the album.
When those are finished, I’ll write that last song and then get straight to mixing another 3 songs. Hopefully a friend pulls through on at least one song which is our longest by a long shot at 11 minutes 30 seconds. That some would seriously ease the load and make an October release far more likely.
Mixing one song to my liking can take between 5-10 hours once everything is recorded, at least with my limited ability. So I hope I can finish these two other songs in the next 5 days.
Our show is next weekend and we are gonna have to practice for that later in the week. We are likely going to have a show in early October as well so I fully intend to have two singles out by then and then the last single and the album by the end of the month.
After that we will be in full on performance mode, with plans to play as many shows as we can for a year while slowly recording new songs this time, no more of this 3 months of hell to do it as quickly as possible with other commitments to balance.
By the way, I realized my songs are all up on scrobble.live. If you
For every “quick take” someone leaves on one of my songs or videos on scrobble, I will buy $5 of Hive within 2 weeks. And real comments (“great song” or any 2 words doesn’t count) gets upvoted.
You can find me on scrobble here:
https://scrobble.life/artist/I+everything
