Musician Diaries

Not much time available for rock and roll today. I'll try to take it where I left it yesterday; I'll listen to the session, polish a bit the things that stick out the most and try to get something printable that is convincing enough for effect in the Bandcamp placeholder. I'll move in that direction as much as I can (A snail just passed me from my left side at dizzying speed... but whatchagonnado...) The deadline I set is gone. As these logs help my process so much I'll keep going for five days more, as a homage to Megadeth's "Five magics"...

My plan for today was to finish real quick the redux-to-normal montage of voice tracks, print the session, upload it to Bandcamp and listen to the album I have so far, kinda like the painter who takes a step backwards to watch the whole canvas. But I didn't get to Bandcamp because housekeeping has caught up with me; there was some serious tidying up needed after fighting the "guitar tone wars" of 2 weeks ago. I didn't name consistently or usefully the guitar tracks then, so I've had to go through most of them to tell which one was which; for example, there was one called "g_vamp", as in "virtual amp". The reference was a good enough locator at that moment, with my brain more engaged in listening and experimenting, but, come to think of it, all my amps are virtual so, it hasn't been too eloquent later. Plus I still had laying around the guitar mockups of the demo stage, plus some of the tracks that were intended for experimentat

Done with the vocals. And I don't want to be overenthusiastic, but I'm certainly enthusiastic. To me artistic creation is about at some point being able to say "yeah, that's me". It's like your face is buried and sometimes, after a lot of effort, you get to unbury it and recognize your features. I feel like I AM in this song, and that's such a rare occurrence, it's a moment of growth for this little life living here. This can sound so pompous, of course... So I do my best to stay grounded too. I remember a quote by Rilke -I quote by heart-, that went something like "we know how fragile we are by looking at how small our victories are". At the end of all the struggle, all the change you get in the world is a new song out there, yet another computer file out there, with 3-5 minutes of sound who someone hopefully will enjoy, without noticing it too much... It's easy for anyone to say "big deal", even for the same perso

New voice tracking session. All undesired vibes of Paul, Gene and company have been removed. I have recorded 5 takes, plus a few more of a stubborn section where I think I could do something more. And I'm not hardly as beaten up as I was in the previous session. It was expected, after all; the other session was a bit of a stubbornness case; after all the effort of setting the process, the sensible voice advised to just dismantle the whole thing, but it was just impossible to resist giving it a try. This time, with the extra mental resources liberated, the process has matured a bit more; it has grown a separate section about getting the right headphone mix, something that up until now I've been doing winging it time after time, as with so many other things. Regarding the singing, I entered the session with a stance of "I've done the due diligence, so now I'm going to forget all about it and just sing". My previous singing was perhaps too "acad

Yesterday's works went to adding a couple of needed guitar blings (saturated amp screaming in the intro; swarm-like background sound a la Morbid Angel during one of the slow parts). Measuring the results in terms of my own previous production, I think this thing kills; but regarding the vocals I found a surprise. My raspy efforts of the day before yesterday seem to have been in vain; with the vocal tracks aligned and with reverb, the raspiness does not come through. What sticks out the most is my high pitched voice, in a very melodic way that, surprise surprise, made me think immediately of Kiss; to be preciser, of the song "Love Gun". At that moment, the following inner dialogue took place in my brain: --Ehm... Kiss is a great band... --Don't give me crappy excuses you lazy bastard! You know you have to redo the vocals... So well, I'll have to experiment and record more. Should be easier now that I have a well defined process... Today I cannot record any

Haven't done the music part yet, but I figured I'd take this entry out of the way first in case I'm too tired later. Perspective for today: first, check vocals' validity. I think they will do. Fingers crossed. Second, a lot of tiny confusing things. I'll try to be diligent and maybe finish the song today (I think I'm being fooled by Hofstater already...). Meaning, finishing the tracking part, after which it will be so good and healthy for my psyche to work in some different song and come back later for the production part with fresh ears... The main hurdle I see is how to make QTractor's midi output be received by Ardour as several tracks (one per Drumgizmo instrument). I've researched this thing several times and never found the way to do it, or even (yikes) if it can be done. Maybe QTractor is more in beta than I thought? I hope it's just a case of the confusing documentation. Worse case scenario, the battery goes untouched, as a on

Recorded vocals today. Tomorrow I'll listen to them and if they sound authentic that's it. I've sung really comfortably, in terms of sound. Just a little bit of delay effect in the headphones, and everything has melted together nicely. Info I've gathered from the internets on singing raspy: 1) It's better to start with a clean voice (aaaaa) and then add raspiness gradually (ajjjjjjj). Otherwise you might strain your voice --I forgot to do this, and, being new to this style, after the third take I was gasping for my life. 2) A good starting point is thinking you're holding your breath. 3) A definition that I loved: "you use less air and more power". The "redux" system has also contributed to make the session a short, tremendous blast. After the recording session I was in a state of "eustress", a word I once read online, ugly but very useful: it is the kind of stress you get for a good reason, when you're euphoric. Also,

Feeling kinda chewed so I'm going to give it a rest today. I could get down to it and get some stuff done, but I think it's better to just rest and get to it tomorrow more renewed.

Finished the "lightning mode" software setup. Funny how the process is similar to what you do in audio production; you fire it up, see where it derails, fix it, go back to the beginning, fire it up again, see where it derails now... Everything is a process. I've corralled it to 3 clicks+3 keypresses between boot and being singing. Everything documented so that the improvement stays. Another innovation today that is a keeper is what I'm going to call "redux version"; as the song has long instrumental interludes, I've created a version that skips them gracefully; that way my verses will be more consistent among them, my voice won't cool down with the waiting, and also I'll finish every take quicker. Editing was a bit boring (the song has 2 tempo changes; that's what I call hitting the road running with Drumgizmo...), but the result is well worth it. Additionally, pops are being filtered, room reflections are being killed, and today

Prep work for the vocal tracks. Last summer I instituted a concept called "lightning mode", which seems to stick. It is simply setting the software so that the singer (me but with a different hat) can get to the session, to be recording voice, in as few clicks as possible. That way you take the software factor and its horrible stops out of the equation. After that is set, I also have a list for the hardware setup, and everything is orchestrated so that I can go in and out as quickly as possible (here I have to explain that I don't have a recording space of my own where I could leave my stuff in a stable manner...) Preparing this lightning mode has taken more than I expected because it has forced me to advance in the computer configuration, something that I've been procrastinating as much as possible, giving preference to creating stuff and also to this nasty stuff I've recently had with the guitar tone. Funny how you find this same dichotom

Feel so lost right now. Recording guitar within Ardour also gets this "harsher than while recording" effect. And, after so many takes IT CANNOT BE ONLY PSYCHOACUSTICS. For worse my mouse just died in the middle of a session (he couldn't stand the power). I hate this situation (when stable? when?), but  I think I'll be able to patch up something decent with the different guitar layers I have recorded. Today in fact I've made the first arrangements for the vocals session (as yesterday,, too early, but I guess it's normal that I want to speed up the process). My "goals" (another word for "wet dreams") of releasing one album in October and another in November have gone down the drain with this delay. But I still can aim to launch album #1 somewhere in November and #2 somewhere in December.

New tests with guitar tones. I estimate I have like 2-3 more days of tests until I have everything tamed. But I'm happy because I can jam along the way, so it's not all boring theory and parameters. Looking back in perspective, today I've been a bit too confident, a bit too quick. I've tried to go back to the "one pass of drums then tracking", but it was too soon, too much work. I should have focused only in consolidating the new guitar stuff, that I just discovered yesterday. There is an energy cost to the change of activity; although there is also a cost of boredom and therefore morale effects on doing only one task for too long... A dynamic balance. I promise myself that once I have a decent guitar tone in place, I won't shake things for at least two albums. Unless, of course, a certain song demands something special that requires innovation. But other than that, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Today I've tried a lot of stuff, under the bracket of "fail fast", and I think I've finally found something I can work with. I've been doing experiments regarding the guitar tone. It's difficult for me to summarize here the chaos of tests in a linear manner; the result, or at least the most plausible hypothesis as of now, is: my audio interface, a Samson G-Track, works better with buffer size=3, but according something I read somewhere, Guitarix acts funny under buffer sizes that are not a multiple of 2 (perhaps this is true for Rakarrack too?). So that's why historically all my tests with buffer size=3 did weird stuff. Today I have tried recording the guitar within Ardour, no Guitarix, just adding a distortion plugin to the track and monitoring via software, and the sound has finally become something I feel confident, not that sensation that someone or something is taking a dump on you whenever you try to play and the latency is "slimey&q

Today I was going to work on the drums, but in a funny, organic way, I've finally done some prep work for the vocals too. It was so because I started my musical day by trying to find some songs in a similar style to mine, and listen consciously how they deal with the crash cymbal. This is a part of my song that has been bugging me for a long time; the song is fast and repetitive, noisy as hell, with a crash on every beat. In the session, however, this continuous crash ended up sounding very unrealistic, and sometimes generating subpatterns that become very distracting because each beat should be evenly accentuated. I thought this issue had to be dealt with during production; compression to tame the excess of noise. But I wasn't totally clear about that, so today I listened to how other bands do it in these "noisy" scenarios. Firstly, I had difficulties finding a song that did this stuff. Probably because I never listen to a song in terms of audio productio

I just come from listening "Now you're talking". I think I have decent guitars. It bothers me not having reached the bottom of this matter, but I've made great learnings that will help me getting rid of problems in the future, for sure (for example, I now understand the connections screen in qjackctl and can change stuff there directly, which is very handy). What happened today was that, out of the blue, Guitarix didn't work with the settings that I've been using all these days. After revising the whole chain, it turned out that for some reason, "capture 2" was now "capture 1", and viceversa. Strange. Never had this kind of inconsistency before. Through the intensive rehearsals of these days I took out of the equation the poor playing element, which blurred the other possible causes for the problem. I also learned more about Guitarix settings, which helped me discard the possibility of a poorly set tone. The 5.8ms latency is to

The gods favored my endeavors yesterday with an early success. Half the problem at least seems to be gone, and I'm confident about the other half. Sound is being made, although deep down you always have this rage that "things should not be this way, grrr..." I recorded Guitarix via Audacity and the recorded track sounds as it should. So the obscure problem is an Ardour related thing, apparently. When I say that 50% of the problem is solved, I mean that I still haven't passed yesterday's guitar tracks back to Ardour; will they keep the quality, or is it Ardour what makes them somehow sound like crap? I would like to get to the end of this affair and squash that motherfucking root cause, but I have to move on, so maybe I'll settle with a provisional solution. Yesterday's takes were not as good as the previous; to record in Audacity I printed the Ardour session in one track and exported it, which reduces the flexibility when you want to adjust pl

No music possible yesterday. The plan stands for today. As today I'm going on 23, I'll extend the deadline until #30, as homage to Sananda Maitreya's "Seven more days". (Ive noticed all my musical references are always 20 or 30 years old... What you gonna do, I'm just grateful I had such wonderful formation years...)

Intestines! It turns out I do my best to get a great guitar tone in Guitarix, only to find that the recorded version in Ardour does its own thing, and it's not a good thing. I tried all kind of things yesterday to corral this problem. The only options I can think of are: 1) some kind of mismatch between Guitarix sample rate and Ardour's, resulting in a loss of sound quality. 2) Some "channeling" stuff of the kind mono gets recorded into stereo, phase cancellation issues... 3) Some badly adjusted ratio of input-output volumes that makes the signal get "fried" at some point before getting recorded. I tried all the experiments I could think of yesterday and got nothing concluding. It's not a preset thing, it happens just the same no matter which one you use. It's a torture getting such a good sound with the guitar while playing, and then being submitted to the turd that gets recorded (harsh, mid-rangey and fake, and yes, I've tried conn

The song is taking shape big time. I rehearsed and recorded the guitar track yesterday and went to bed in a state of euphoria, absolutely pumped up by adrenaline; it took me long to fall asleep. I finished tracking and closed everything without even relistening. One of the parts, despite my efforts, is in the reds at some moments, that's all I know. But while playing I had this great sensation you get sometimes as if, instead of playing, you were taming some kind of beast. This is what makes great the rehearsals with a band, and in this case I have the plus factor of finally taking out my chest a song that's been living within me since 2013. Needless to say, everything else pales like cheap cardboard compared to these moments. I live for this shit. Today is one of those days where the arrival to music land seems far far away, at the other side of the Chores mountains, full of thorny canyons and dangerous trails that lead to nowhere. Something I can do is repeat ye

My drumming powers got greatly enhanced after installing VMPK (short for Virtual Midi Piano Keyboard - It works flawlessly in live recording with Qtractor, and configuring it is as simple as activating one option from a drop down menu), plus the watching of a few generic "Midi drumming" videos --without falling in the "getting prepared" trap--. To that I can add Qtractor's "randomize value" option, which is great because allows a percentage (1st time I tried a 7% in a cymbal and it was too much, 3% made it a matter of minor touches here and there). So the drum track is very advanced, the feared arrangement is almost there (to be more precise in the state "every time I listen to you I change you I'm gonna get you you sneaky bastard"), and soon I will leave it and move on, with the "safety valve" of going back to it later if something sticks too much later as a no-no when I listen to it with fresh ears. The same goes

Impossible working yesterday. The plan stands for today.

Yesterday I made an inventory of the obstacles remaining with the drum track, one in each index card, and tackled one. I then moved on to record the first bass tracks. I have often had several songs on the works at the same time, but not so much this; I think there's something here. I knew the boring task with the drum was going to drain my brain, so I needed something fun to counterbalance. I would generally not like to have two tracks in the works at the same time (two cakes in two ovens; more programs open simultaneously, double of reference information needed...) But this time, given that the drum track was mature enough, I think it has been a good idea because when you lay the bass on top you start to get synergies (yesterday the "fairies" made a visit, that unexpected 5% that only pops up through the process of turning mental impulses into muscular energy that then turns into sound waves...) A good thing with these synergies, again, is that it reduces

Ah, that's better. Feeling much rejuvenated now. Funny how yesterday at some point, during my "rest day", one of the things I did, spontaneously, just because, was grabbing the guitar and playing some tunes. I think that's the spirit. Keep it fun. I still have to make it through my Bruce Wayne life so I don't know how much of me will be left when I get to the music. But I have to make some serious dent on the drum tracks thing today. The task has suddenly become daunting, and I know where that leads; there's a familiar stink in the air... I think I'll try getting analytical, listing all the problems and deciding how to tackle them before diving in. Regarding the arrangement, I'll give it a deadline and if I cannot make it I'll cut my loses and go back to the simpler version I was using. I hate it but I hate more taking so long to release stuff (consolation thought: I can always re-record later.) The sad thing is, if I had a human drumm

Recovery today. Nothing to report. As today is the deadline I set for myself, I'll set a new one; I'll extend these posts until #20, the number of years of boredom that Leonard got sentenced to.

Sudden death yesterday in the middle of the drum editing. "Bed. Now." I was doing a new pass to the drums and I got stuck in a splendid rabbit hole; "congratulations, you've just met an arrangement that is not easy to translate to a machine, it is going to suck your soul forever, and only, once you succeed, for the final result of one second of music". But of course that one second of music is what counts. Many one seconds like that. If it wasn't the case, we could just the same ask our computers to create the music for us and be done with it. I'll try to get to the drums today, but I have a lot of have-tos and I'm feeling semi-ill, so maybe it is better to be prudent and let it sleep for today. The thing with this is what Neil Young says in his latest record, "It's bad for the body/but good for the soul". The perspective of a day without making music is so bleak, so what for... Such a shame that it always has to be in the

Yesterday I tested options for the guitar feedback; surprisingly, feeding back the guitar to itself gives an interesting effect when you move the EQ from one side to other, so I think when the moment comes I'll use that mixed with a Rakarrack setting that screeches like hell when you turn it on (I used to hate it, so yesterday when I was looking for it among the others it was like "come back... I didn't mean it...") Finishing the guitar experimentation was my baseline for the day; I also did one pass to the drum track, following this method: "I'll stop when something comes to mind". A note missing. An arrangement I could add. An existing arrangement that is too distracting. And of course the transitions (I'm very happy with them). Relistening the track later, I found many moments where, while on the spot I thought "this is embarrassing, I'm not putting enough stuff", listening later the whole flow of the song, it works

Yesterday all I did was doing the rearranging of the drum structure. The song is now like a "Frankenstein" (my favorite simile this season) that has still not been stitched; on the table I have a head, followed by a neck, then a torso and the arms... Everything side by side, already in the correct place but still not a unit. I don't know where will I start today, I can do those transitions, or maybe changing the velocities; Drumgizmo with the additional human feel must be a blast... And now that I think of it, I'd rather do some experimentation with the guitar, I need a somewhat convincing guitar feedback in the box; I asked in the LinuxMusicians forum and got 2 ideas, I better try them soon so I can report the results... My hypothesis is neither of them will work but I will learn a lot in the process; no problemo, there is always sampling, or building upon that trick I used in "Zombie barf"... To be honest, yesterday I was this close to not doi

Yesterday I worked in the drum track in a great state of flow. Ath the end it was like "hey, you have to go to bed now, buddy, this thing is calling you, you know, physical exhaustion". I got to the end of the song's drums, although technically I didn't get my "plank" because, after printing the demo, I discovered one of the sections (replicable, not a problem) got garbled. In general terms, with a couple of non-damaging crashes as the exception, Qtractor seems rock solid. Too soon to say for sure, anyway, as I'm still learning its ways and  sometimes it's not easy to tell when I screwed up or when it was a bug. And regarding Drumgizmo... Oh my god. At some points makes you wonder "when the hell did a professional drummer sneaked into my demo?". Those 2.4Gb of the kit are worth every bit. As I'm still getting familiar (and with a couple of concerning things that I still have to learn), I'm going to make "Now you&#

Ouch. While I was waiting for this page to load, I got informed of Tom Petty's passing away. So many memories of my friends in my tape days, and more recently, of how about a couple of years ago "Hypnotic eye" helped me so much, in what was easily one of the worst periods of my life; in those days I listened to that album time after time, it was the thing of beauty in my shitty days... "I have a dream/I'm gonna fight till I get it...". So solar, so easy going... And the so timely and intuitive final song, since then in my habitual personal repertory: "Shadow people/what's in their minds?" I'm too sad to say something more coherently, so I'll just move on to the log. Yesterday it took me around 28 seconds to discard Ardour's Midi editor as a viable tool: I multiduplicated a drum part, then I tried to edit one of the copies, and I couldn't; neither add nor substract notes. Further investigation showed that for some reas

Yesterday I reached my objective of making some new noise. The passage is still shaky, but, well, the journey from point A to point B has already been blazed. After a first part of the night doing all I could to save my relationship with Hydrogen, to no avail, I finally decided to move to Drumgizmo. That thing rocks. The moment I got the first sound, and I saw several levels on the screen going up at the same time (because of the mic bleed simulation), I felt a thrill similar to the first time I used software EQ in real time (Ardour 2, 2010, if I remember correctly). The only thing that doesn't convince me much as of now is that humanization is only an on-off control, not a knob as in Hydrogen. But the sound is gorgeous, and I can further humanize things to my liking manually if I have to. The objections to my enthusiasm are two pronged; on one side the aforementioned fear of a final lack of consistency in the album; I'm hoping that there's enough unifying fac