Hello, faithful readers. We have been silent for many weeks. I apologize for that. As always, TA-80 has been experiencing some computer problems. Jamin 80 was talking to his mother earlier today and mentioned that we always have computer problems. I realized in an instant (and about 8 years too late) that the reason we have so many computer problems is because all of our computers are pieced together with parts from older, non-functioning computers that can still be raped for parts. We doom ourselves, right from the very start. Every time. So, I'm very sorry for not learning from my mistakes being wasteful with the little income TA-80 has.
I just stopped updating this post for about 15 minutes to unsuccessfully look up (and then eventually remember) the old name for a local Tucson brewery's, Nimbus, brand of beer. The beer is now called Old Monkeyshine. It's been my favorite Nimbus beer since when it went under the old name, No Evil. I remembered! Internet fail, be damned! I am the memory master!!!! Bwahahahahahaaaaa!!!!
Back to the point...We have not been sitting on our asses, drinking beer during our long silence. Okay, that's a lie. We've been getting drunk and fat. But we've been working our asses off too. Bury You is well over half finished, and when I say finished, I mean ready for mastering. We're still on our goal deadline of a January release. Everything is running along mostly smoothly and we're making some real progress. That's not too exciting to read about though, so let me tell you about some of the hiccups.
To start on the drums, I need to first say that Russ did an amazing job as usual. With that, we've just decided that this album needs about 4 new, kick ass pop punk songs before we can feel comfortable with calling it finished and Russ is ready and eager to get to work on finally finishing the drum tracks. Poor guy, he thought he was done 3 months ago. We can always drag everyone back into the studio. It's for the good of the new album. It'll be better because of this.
Next, and the start of my big bitches, comes the bass. I went into recording the bass for this album thinking that I would either buy a new bass and re-record all the bass parts or I would borrow the Gretsch from Jessica and re-record all the bass parts. That means that when I initially recorded all of the bass parts that are currently on the songs, I was planning on redoing them all with a better, more intonated instrument, thus playing all the parts better because of playing them for at least the second time. This idea started about 5 months ago and the songs not only have the original bass parts on them, but I am now moving into intensive mixing and I don't see myself fixing the bass parts any time soon. I don't know if I'm going to do it and that makes me feel lazy. It's not that the parts currently on the recordings sound bad. It's the exact opposite, in fact. Despite a total of 3 identified flubs which will never be noticeable by the final mastered product, the current bass parts sound perfect.
I should just leave it alone. It doesn't have to be a problem. But the perfectionist in me, the part that only comes out in music or competition, says that I need to kick myself in the obsessive video game playing ass and get to work. This is my job right now and I have no excuse to call in sick or lazy. I love this work and I need to work just a little bit harder to make to record sound just a little bit better.
The guitars ended up being almost as frustrating for Bury You as they were on Born Insecure. I had nothing to do with the instrument mixes on Born Insecure. At that time, the studio belonged to Russ and was called Russville Studios and Russ did all the programming, editing, mixing, etc. for the instrument tracks on Born Insecure and a fistful of other songs, old and new, that we feverishly recorded when Russ first rejoined us.
The obstacle that guitars presented on Born Insecure was in the form of the tracks being recorded with an amp that has a blown speaker. I should say that this amp is a Marshall classic and it sounds amazing (though small in size) at live performances and is sensitive enough for our amazing guitar feedback player, Jens 80, to work magic on. It's amazing for what it can do but there's nothing more. It's not a good amp for the main guitars to be recorded with. It ends up making a guitar track that is hissy, crackly and dirty sounding. Before you can even start mixing the sound, you have to try to isolate the hidden guitar sound underneath all of the noise.
For the guitar tracks on Bury You, we decided we would either use Russ' Marshall half-stack or Klae's tube amp. We ended up going with Klae's amp because it's so versatile and always has a nice, warm sound that really lends itself to pop punk. This is a good time to remind you that we just bought the studio from Russ. I am now in charge of all engineering on this album, on a program that I've never used before. I'm learning fast but I'm jumping into this head first and hoping that I don't completely fuck up. I know that if I do a good job I'll be able to keep engineering and getting better and that's a good thing. I'm just worried about learning how to do this with the band's product at stake. I don't wanna fuck it up.
Anyway, since I'm still learning this shit, I set the levels wrong on the pre-amp and ended up over compressing the guitars at the input, thus making it sound about the same as it would have had we used Jens' classic Marshall amp to record the guitars instead of Klae's fancy-schmancy tube amp. The only fix was going back and re-recording about 12 different guitar tracks. It could've been worse but still, a set back.
Vocals are coming right along. Main vocal parts are there for, I think, 10 songs right now. We're planning on the album having about 12-14 songs so we're just about there. There are still a mess of songs that need a mess of backing vocals. This album is definitely more music heavy than Born Insecure but I don't want to lose how vocal heavy our sound is. I think we have a way with harmonies and arrangements and it's important that we don't lose that with the addition of a super talented lead guitarist.
Keyboards are just getting started. We only have the Korg in the studio right now, which severely limits how much keyboard can be done at this point. Russ just bought an awesome new car and says he plans on driving up here to Phoenix to visit us all the time now so hopefully we can get him to bring up the USB keyboard next time so we can do all 'dat midi shit!! It's looking like the final drum tracks will be recorded back in Russville with Phat Phorty's mobile studio.
Other than that, we're busy trying to get some end of the year shows set up. Updates are still going to be a little spaced out because the only computer we have right now is the studio computer and right now, that tower mostly needs to stay in the studio because we're busy working. But I will try to drag this sucker out here once a week or so and give you all an update. Take care, kitties!!
xoxoxoxxx -
Amy 80
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