New Recordings, Mixes and Equipment Failures

Well, I have had the a week and a half of nothing but free time. Tomorrow I will start up work and school again. I am glad to say that during this time I was able to get a little bit of recording and mixing done. One of the things that takes the longest about the whole mixing process is that I need to listen to a song for days and weeks before the imperfections become noticeable so that I can fix them. It can take a long time until I am happy enough to declare a song finished.

• "Dear Friend" - Finished recording and came up with a near final mix. It just needs to be tested (listened to on various sound systems) and then any problems fixed in the final mixing process. I think this song turned out pretty well.
• "This Moment" - This song had a final mix (or so I thought), but after weeks of listening to it in the car and on the iPod, something was just not right. So I took the final mix and using waveform editing software I fixed the problems...I hope. This will need to be tested again to see if the new changes will help. It was mostly EQ issues.
• "Stability Crisis" - This song needs a re-write of some of the lyrics and will probably get a new title, but this week I made some other changes to it. I realized that it was in the wrong key. I dropped it down about 2 full steps and I think that made a huge difference. I had to go back and re-program some of the sampled sounds to fit the key change. Then I re-recorded the acoustic guitar to match as well. The song has a different feel to it now but I really like the changes. Oh, I didn't record new vocals for it yet but I did do a pitch shift to the old vocals. Now they are in the right key but sound really funny because they have been digitally altered. I'll have to save a copy of this version just to laugh at later.

I was not able to do all of the recording I would have liked to because my effects processor for the guitar is starting to die. It's a little frustrating because it cost me $90 when I got it 3 years ago. The good news is that if I can't get this one fixed, I can by a much better one for the same price I got this one for. I'm not sure if I want it to be fixed or not.