It was a pretty productive day yesterday in the world of School for the Dead.
The redesigning of the Rub Wrongways Studio control room will make things much easier. The room is set up now so that it can accomodate a few listeners more comfortably. The monitors are up and working and everything is more at reach from the control desk. It'll help.
That was most of the day Sunday, right there, redesigning the control room. Monday before practice saw some more of that. Practice was good. We worked on Overs, She Does She Does, The New You, The Witchita Train Whistle, and Rock and Roll Camper.
After practice, like Brian said, he and I sat in the control room and listened to the 4 songs for the Chain CD. We discussed whether or not we might want to try and ask some of our knowledgeable friends to come in and listen and help with mixing, friends like Frank Padelero, Dan Richardson, and Bruce Tull. I decided I wanted us to try it on our own and see where we got with it and not seek outside help unless we were really stuck. D.I.Y.
We listened to the different parts of Omnivore many times, trying to figure out how to tame it. In doing so, Brian suggested listening to the Pixies - Trompe Le Monde and Nirvana's - In Utero for reference. I don't have either of those but I think it is a good idea. We DID listen to a little bit of English Settlement by XTC for a reverbed drum part that Brian was trying to explain to me for Omnivore. That remastered version sounded incredible over my new monitors. Yee. Of course, going back and forth between that beautifully recorded album and our mess was a little upsetting, but I have faith.
Later that night I did some more stuff. Finished up the Taste of Northampton Gig Diary entry for alohasteamtrain.com, fixed all the lyric pages for schoolforthedead.com (or at least formatted them, I haven't checked for spelling and accuracy), added another little picture to the photos page, and did some messing around with Omnivore.
On Omnivore, I compressed the bass, equalized the floor tom and kick drum, added reverb to the floor tom and snare, and added some room reverb to the whole drum kit. I did it all on headphones, because it was 2:00 AM, which is generally not a good idea, but I kept in mind that usually reverb is much more noticeable in phones than over speakers so, I will see what it sounds like when I get home tonight. I saved it as a different file so all the old stuff is still there, don't worry. I think that the reverbing of the drums is going to make the big difference on Omnivore. Once, a nice overall base sound is built it will be a fun but tedious job picking out all the little bits of Arp and Feedback to let into the song here and there. Right now there are 5 crazy sounding distorted guitars going on that need to be sorted out somewhat. What did Brian say? "It's like dressing an ugly man in nice clothes."
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