as good as jennifer has been sounding with the rough mixes, this week it all came together with the real deal mixdown. two full day sessions, two half day sessions. had the full week off from the day gig, which allowed me to focus focus focus.

started it up on sunday with the final stuff that had to be recorded: the german on the opening song, 'anymore,' as performed by the one and only megan gurley. took some string pulling and late nite phone calls to make sure we could get her in before she booked outta town back to boston, and worth the effort. good comedy in the studio with her, cindy and john (pix comin' soon)

i was particularly psyched to have come up with something to keep the listener's interest during the instrumental mid-section that wasn't just another guitar solo. stole the german from mr. t.s. eliot's 'the waste land,' bastardizing the line about the 'irish child' into 'african child.' did about two takes and it was good to go. then john changed the reel and cindy stepped up to the mic to record the ladies laughing at the very very end of the very very last song (cindy's idea). super psyched.

after they left, john and i grabbed a bite and came back to start mixin' it up with 'anymore.' he worked the board and i sat behind him, just listening. maybe ninety minutes to two hours of tweaking, or 'giving everything its own space,' as he said. i could have watched for several hours more. i was terrified at first, not sure everything was going well. but maybe after the first hour or so into it, it started to really come together. tweak tweak tweak rewind rewind tweak tweak tweak. then there was the creative input: reverb or dry? delay? other effects? panning? relative levels?

we stopped for the nite at around 8ish, as he had to book out to do sound for a sunday nite show at qe2. i decided i'd probably check it out myself later on, since the staziaks were on the bill, and i'd been playing phone tag with my bud mr. powhida for a coupla months - hadn't talked to him since before he opened up for todd rundgren at northern lights in clifton park. dragged my ass over there 'round eleven and was so glad i did: rich baldes (formerly of the explosives) sat in on on guitar and they rocked the house. sounded better than i've ever seen 'em. a sick cover of '1999' as rehearsal for their new year's eve show at valentine's that i won't soon forget. was good to catch up with the guys after the show, too, and happily, they asked me to meet 'em down at the lionheart the following sunday for an acoustic set. mad cool.

started back up in the studio the next day at around 2:30. tweaked 'anymore' a l'il bit more and it was a print. scary watching that dat roll, lemme tell ya. then it was on to 'closer,' which was probably the most difficult mix of the whole project. the levels and eq were great, but getting just the right reverb - getting it to sound natural - was a bear. finally came up with something we could live with. at a certain point, the ears fatigue, you're not hearing what you should be hearing. took a break for vittles to rest the ears a bit, came back and finished it up. happily moved on to 'six,' which went more quickly, though some cleanup of stray lip-smacking on the vocal tracks was in order. by midnight, 'tiresias' was also a done deal. four down, eight to go.

next day: 'interview.' 'cycle.' 'one-four.' a full day, and a good day. 'smiling' was the brick wall. some worries about the boom of the bass, clarity of the bass. ear fatigue suggested we leave it for the morrow. which we did.

went up to saratoga at around nine the next morning to meet up with larry devivo of silvertone to talk shop about mastering. nice space, nice facility. popped in the dat copy of the seven songs we'd already mixed. found the mixes very clean, vocals up front. good good good. talked about the compression controversy, how the industry keeps mastering hotter and hotter and hotter, pushing all of the sound up front, leaving little room for space, nuances, subtleties. goal is to try to find a balance, so the cd leaves room for the music to breathe without being quiet compared to the next disc in the changer. a good discussion altogether; psyched to set up a date for the full mastering session in a coupla weeks.

arrived at scarlet east in the afternoon, and immediately we were hearing things we weren't hearing the nite before, especially with the bass. the track is a really low boom from the groove box, but it's so low that there are no mid- or hi-range frequencies for the listener to latch on to. i noticed that with rough mixes on some systems, you couldn't even hear the bass, which is the root of the song, a D. the main guitar chord is G, which hints at resolving to the D root - but if you can't hear the bass, the vocal melody sounds confused, slightly off. john suggested we try running the bass channel thru his marshall guitar amp to get some overdrive going, artificially create some mid-range and hi-end frequencies to give the listener a point of reference. took some getting used to, but with some tweaking, we found a balance that served the song. gives it more of an edge, too. good call.

after 'smiling,' it was time for the acoustic tracks. fewer variables than the other eight, obviously, so it went fairly quickly. dealt with 'watchtower' first. tweak tweak. balance with vocals. armageddon reverb. and we're all set. 'liquefy' went even more quickly: cranked up the reverb wash even more, increasing the desperation factor of the lead vocal. mmmmm good. did the remaining two tracks, which shall here remain unnamed, real dry, real rough, cuz they are real rough. but i likes 'em like that.

and that was that. by wenzday at eight, i was outta there, holding a dat with finished mixes, ready for mastering. excited, jumping for joy. i'm super happy with the way everything has come out. john and his studio were invaluable: if i'd done it anywhere else, it would have been a much different project, and, quite frankly, i'm not sure i would have been as happy as i am with how it sounds now. really really really.

i'm thinking of packaging it with a complimentary pair of diapers.

cuz y'all are gonna shit when ya hear it.

really.