An Urban Hero

I’m finally on the tail end of the cold I’ve had since about Tuesday. I woke up not feeling stuffed, but I can still smell the cold in my nose. Ew. Hopefully by tomorrow I’ll be rid of it, that would be a great start to the week. In the meantime I’ll take one more day off where I’m fairly lazy and resting. It’s hard to do that. Even this morning I was browsing through the net using Stumbleupon.com and came across a cool video of someone getting some laser etching done on a laptop. The person is a pretty girl who goes by the name Leah Culver. She had access to a laser etcher and was able to sell her Macbook Pro surface as ad space to help pay for her laptop. Seems she’s an inventive internet type and has a new social network thing going that looks interesting. Of course it got me to thinking about things…

Meanwhile, I think I can finally call my studio finished and ready for work from all the updates for improving the sound. Last night my ears were relatively unclogged enough for me to start popping in some CDs and listening to mixes that I’m really familiar with. Stuff like Peter Gabriel’s So, and Us, Jellyfish Spilt Milk, Nine Inch Nail’s the Fragile, etc… I know I have to spend a good deal of time listening to the room now to get a better feel for it. The plus is, right away I noticed how much more focused things were in terms of the sound. I could here definition in those mixes that I wasn’t hearing in the studio before. Major plus. Why am I doing this? Well, I have all those new songs I’m working on and I want to make sure I mix them right.

Since Hero Unexpected is my first new tune completed, I want to perfect the mix I already had. Last night I pulled up the final mix I had already sent for mastering and noticed several things right off the bat. I spent a few minutes trying some things out and of course found things that could be improved since I could now hear it more correctly. What a difference proper sound treatment makes. I can say it’s a great thing that I did not release the song in haste. I will spend more time on it once I’ve spent more time listening to the room.

What you’re listening to is one of the remixes I’ve been getting done by producers. Seems that this song is really taking on a life of it’s own which is fantastic. I may have mentioned that Chris Carter was coming over yesterday. He wanted to see the final changes to the studio. His expression was “wow”. He really liked the look and the sound. Of course he really liked the vibe of the studio the first time he walked in a month or so ago. Actually a lot of people really like the vibe of the studio. Which is good. So many studios spend time only on the gear and not the feel of the place its in. I have to want to be in the room. It’s why I lit it the way I did, and colored it the way I did. I should be getting pictures taken of it in the very near future as I’m doing a writeup of the process along with before and after pictures. I think the direction I got from Paul White at S.O.S. magazine really helped, and they wanted the feedback.

Chris is a really good producer, (of course as you meet newer friends you’re interested in bouncing things around between people and Chris also gave me good information for creating the things Paul told me about), and he wanted to hear the room. I figured I’d play his remix of my tune since he’d know that. It started playing and his wife turned to me and said, that’s you’re song?!? I smiled and nodded. She laughed and exclaimed how she loved it while Chris was working on it. I thanked her. Chris really liked the sound of the room now. Which tells me that it’s not only me hearing the improvement and that I’m not crazy. Woo Hoo!

I’m excited for this next week. I believe I’m gonna be getting more good news. Along with finishing a much improved mix of the original version of Hero Unexpected. I also hope to be getting more of the remixes back. Get to more of the songs I’m in the middle of, to get them finished, and launch a website that is now a month behind schedule. Oy, I need to remember to rest today. Can’t be much of a Hero if you’re sick.

** p.s. – no, it’s not the Chris Carter that started the X-Files.