Saturday, August 27, 2011
Saturday, July 23, 2011
War stories: Flood Fail: The ballad of mold and mildew: The murder of our songs by pro tools.
Hey everyone! Read this blog and all of your wildest dreams will come true! OK, so things have been slow for saints at sundown for a few weeks. Basically, the record is "in the can" just waiting to be mixed. Well....it was in the can.
I will tell you a story. You will understand our struggle and send us boxes of money and a vial of your sympathy tears.
Last week, my good friend and sound engineer, Dave Sonner, and myself entered summit road recording studio to start mixing. Upon entering the studio we were greeted by about 2 inches of standing water, and a mildew-ey kind of gross smell to the air. YUCK!!! With wet feet and dashed hopes and dreams, we fired up the console and proceeded to do a little mixing work. There was a wierd hum in the monitors, but we did manage to mix 1 song quickly and get out of there without getting shocked. S.A.S.: 1, mother nature: 0. EPIC WIN! My theory is that the forces that make the world go round are afraid of what this record is going to do to our beautiful little planet. We are being "rock-blocked" by mother nature herself! BRING IT ON, LADY!!!!
Exactly 1 week later, I met Dave at his place before our 2nd mixing session. We fired up pro tools to find that my vocal tracks had been ERASED during an upgrade to pro tools!!!! WEAK SAUCE!!! Where the *blank* did they go? About 1/3 of my tracks were gone so we spent the morning re-tracking vocals. The good news is that I nailed killer takes that were as good or better than the first ones. The bad news is that these takes SOUND different from the first ones. It's a pretty noticeable difference. We used a different mic pre-amp, thinking it wouldn't matter. MISTAKE. SO, chances are I'll have to re-record the vocals again, for the 3rd time. YIKES, this is becoming tedious. I wonder what could have erased the tracks??? Aliens? Obama?
This week, with the studio all dried out, we did manage to make progress on the overall mix of the record. Let me tell you, it sounds pretty amazing! I'm really happy with how it is turning out. It's taken a couple of months longer than I hoped, but in the end the wait will be worth it!
With everything against us, we are at our strongest!
Love,
S.A.S.
I will tell you a story. You will understand our struggle and send us boxes of money and a vial of your sympathy tears.
Last week, my good friend and sound engineer, Dave Sonner, and myself entered summit road recording studio to start mixing. Upon entering the studio we were greeted by about 2 inches of standing water, and a mildew-ey kind of gross smell to the air. YUCK!!! With wet feet and dashed hopes and dreams, we fired up the console and proceeded to do a little mixing work. There was a wierd hum in the monitors, but we did manage to mix 1 song quickly and get out of there without getting shocked. S.A.S.: 1, mother nature: 0. EPIC WIN! My theory is that the forces that make the world go round are afraid of what this record is going to do to our beautiful little planet. We are being "rock-blocked" by mother nature herself! BRING IT ON, LADY!!!!
Exactly 1 week later, I met Dave at his place before our 2nd mixing session. We fired up pro tools to find that my vocal tracks had been ERASED during an upgrade to pro tools!!!! WEAK SAUCE!!! Where the *blank* did they go? About 1/3 of my tracks were gone so we spent the morning re-tracking vocals. The good news is that I nailed killer takes that were as good or better than the first ones. The bad news is that these takes SOUND different from the first ones. It's a pretty noticeable difference. We used a different mic pre-amp, thinking it wouldn't matter. MISTAKE. SO, chances are I'll have to re-record the vocals again, for the 3rd time. YIKES, this is becoming tedious. I wonder what could have erased the tracks??? Aliens? Obama?
This week, with the studio all dried out, we did manage to make progress on the overall mix of the record. Let me tell you, it sounds pretty amazing! I'm really happy with how it is turning out. It's taken a couple of months longer than I hoped, but in the end the wait will be worth it!
With everything against us, we are at our strongest!
Love,
S.A.S.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Friday, June 17, 2011
We fluff the pillows with the air
Hey friends, it's been too long since I last posted so here goes! I'm bout to drop some knowledge bombs on y'alls brains! And on your minds.
News Updates: Things have progressed slower than expected. Sometimes life gets in the way of getting things done. That said, we are SO close. Most of the vocals are done, and the record is ALMOST ready for final mixing. Hopefully, the vox will be finished up next week, with mixing to begin soon after. You might be able to listen to this record while you blow up your neighbors mailbox with M80's on July 4th!
We are still working out artwork, websites...etc so expect to see something "official" on the web from us pretty soon.
To wrap it up, I'm just gonna leave you with this juicy nugget of rock to blow your minds:
Love,
Jacob and Will aka S.A.S.
News Updates: Things have progressed slower than expected. Sometimes life gets in the way of getting things done. That said, we are SO close. Most of the vocals are done, and the record is ALMOST ready for final mixing. Hopefully, the vox will be finished up next week, with mixing to begin soon after. You might be able to listen to this record while you blow up your neighbors mailbox with M80's on July 4th!
We are still working out artwork, websites...etc so expect to see something "official" on the web from us pretty soon.
To wrap it up, I'm just gonna leave you with this juicy nugget of rock to blow your minds:
Love,
Jacob and Will aka S.A.S.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
The waiting is the hardest part
It's been a couple of slow news weeks for SAS. I took a weekend off and spent the last week finishing up the last tidbits of guitar work, mainly acoustic guitar and slide guitar for one tune. The guitars, bass, drums are now 100% done and this week I am starting on vocals. I thought making the actual record would be the hard part, but I'm finding that the hardest work is yet to come.
It seems like releasing a small time record is easier than ever, but truthfully, it's next to impossible to get anyone to notice! Back in the day, you made a record, burned some copies, played shows, told people about it, and that was pretty much it. Now there are blogs(which we have obviously mastered), RSS feeds(not even real sure what these are), websites, facebook, myspace, bandmix, soundcloud, bandpage, .com addresses, internet radio, college radio, I-tunes, Cd baby, tunecore, album covers, cd layout, cd pressing, cd promotion, one sheets, press kits, EPK, photos, logos, branding....etc. The list goes on and on thanks to the internet. To help us out, I got this book, "The indie band survival guide," which is pretty great so far. It's making me realize how far behind the technology I am. I don't even own an I-pod. I still like to go to a store and buy a physical product, but I am wondering if we even need to press Cd's since everyone buys online anyway? Your thoughts and ideas would be appreciated here!
Well, that wraps up another exciting update. We are real close to having this thing "in the can," and we cannot wait to share it with all of you! This week starts vocals, and we are talking with a local artist about artwork...so yeah, it's getting there.
Waffle House,
S.A.S.
It seems like releasing a small time record is easier than ever, but truthfully, it's next to impossible to get anyone to notice! Back in the day, you made a record, burned some copies, played shows, told people about it, and that was pretty much it. Now there are blogs(which we have obviously mastered), RSS feeds(not even real sure what these are), websites, facebook, myspace, bandmix, soundcloud, bandpage, .com addresses, internet radio, college radio, I-tunes, Cd baby, tunecore, album covers, cd layout, cd pressing, cd promotion, one sheets, press kits, EPK, photos, logos, branding....etc. The list goes on and on thanks to the internet. To help us out, I got this book, "The indie band survival guide," which is pretty great so far. It's making me realize how far behind the technology I am. I don't even own an I-pod. I still like to go to a store and buy a physical product, but I am wondering if we even need to press Cd's since everyone buys online anyway? Your thoughts and ideas would be appreciated here!
Well, that wraps up another exciting update. We are real close to having this thing "in the can," and we cannot wait to share it with all of you! This week starts vocals, and we are talking with a local artist about artwork...so yeah, it's getting there.
Waffle House,
S.A.S.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
before we're done here.. y'all be wearing gold-plated diapers
AM-I-RIGHT??? Hey everyone. Good news! Good news! Things are moving along quickly the last couple of weeks. I've been hard at work putting this album together. Bass and guitars are nearly done! YAH!! Anyways, I have a few photos of my workspace to share so you can see the environment that is required to create the best record of all time! We don't need no stinkin mood lighting! On my off days from work, I'm pretty much down here all day working. It gets lonely. Come visit.
First, like Dr. Frankenstein I gather my tools of creation, only instead of a monster I create gold records:
Thanks to Matthew Vermillion for lending me that sweet jazz bass!
My workdesk. Pretty simple, but gets the job done:
I recorded guitar and bass with this Avalon U-5. Jealous?? It is on loan from summit road recording studio. Thanks to Dave Sonner for hooking me up with that:
The key to a huge guitar sound is having a huge dude on top of your amp. I feel that Shaq is a really important part of my guitar sound:
As always, I am being seduced by the power of the dark side:
Well, I played the record for this dude and he loved it. Maybe that's a good sign:
Sometimes, we all need a playbreak, right?
Next week: GUITAR SOLOS. Yep, all 3 tunes have solos. Too much??? NAAAHHH!
As always, thanks for reading. If you are coming into this late, or missed them you can check out album teasers at Soundcloud.
More fun soon.
S.A.S.
First, like Dr. Frankenstein I gather my tools of creation, only instead of a monster I create gold records:
Thanks to Matthew Vermillion for lending me that sweet jazz bass!
My workdesk. Pretty simple, but gets the job done:
I recorded guitar and bass with this Avalon U-5. Jealous?? It is on loan from summit road recording studio. Thanks to Dave Sonner for hooking me up with that:
The key to a huge guitar sound is having a huge dude on top of your amp. I feel that Shaq is a really important part of my guitar sound:
As always, I am being seduced by the power of the dark side:
Well, I played the record for this dude and he loved it. Maybe that's a good sign:
Sometimes, we all need a playbreak, right?
Next week: GUITAR SOLOS. Yep, all 3 tunes have solos. Too much??? NAAAHHH!
As always, thanks for reading. If you are coming into this late, or missed them you can check out album teasers at Soundcloud.
More fun soon.
S.A.S.
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