Tag: remastering

Mechanical Holocaust – Preview and Troubles

Posted on by Bullet of Reason in Music, Progress

Will this song ever be completed?! AHH it’s driving me nuts!

I listened to it a couple of times today and made mental notes of what needed to be changed and tweaked and fixed. I get home from work and start organizing my thoughts and going to work on what I can remember needs to be done. All my plug-ins are dialed in and ready to go. The song arrangement is good and I approve… preview the track and decide if this will be a draft or the final version. Select the entire track in Pro Tools and get ready to bounce and BAM! a CPU error pops up telling me that the CPU is being used to the max and I may need to remove some plug-ins. This has happened before, so I figured I’d try again…

… after about 20 tries, I decided that it would be best to walk away before I go ape-shit on my computer and throw my guitar into my screen (as you can see, the guitar would probably do some massive damage). Also doing so could also cause massive damage to my heart and I would probably cry for months.

The initial process of mixing the song down started around……… hell, I don’t even remember. But it do know it was awhile ago since I wanted to take it out into the car and unleash it on the streets of Cornwall, Ontario. It’s now 11:15pm and I am in my PJs listening to it in my headphones and will listen to it again tomorrow as I drive to work.

Now since you’ve gone through my rant or just skipped to the preview (no worries, I don’t blame you), I will say that you MAY be hearing a clip from the final mix. I will let you know tomorrow if what I was FINALLY able to mix down tonight is in fact the final mix that I can then leave alone and never touch it again until I start putting the new album together. Oh god, how great that would be!

Enough about me, here’s the preview.

Enjoy!

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Happenings and Stuff

Posted on by Bullet of Reason in Because I Can, Music, Progress

So it’s been interesting over the past few days. I had my eye procedure which put me out of commision for a week and a bit, making it extremely difficult to really work on anything musically. I had an acoustic guitar, but nothing to really record anything… also didn’t really come up with anything worth recording in the first place.

Last time, I gave a quick update on Mechanical Holocaust and how I need to record new guitars. So what am I doing? Redoing the drums.

I know, makes total sense.

But that’s okay, it’s making it easier to track guitars as I feel there’s a bit more presence in the mix which helps progress the song along. I’m listening to it right now and it sound much more mechanical and the way I had originally intended. I’ve been listening to it without guitars in the mix, but I’ve been playing along with what I’ve got to see if it sounds too busy. The only real way I’ll find out is to actually record and mix and then do some more tweaking to get the right sound out of it.

There’s also a couple of other things in the works right now that I can’t really talk to much about, but once I can I’ll let you know. I’m excited for what’s coming and I hope the wait is worth it. On a side note, I was featured on my friends podcast talking about games and stuff because I was in Toronto at the time and it just seemed like a cool idea. Go and take a listen to us ramble and swear at each other at http://mashinstudios.com/?p=1999

I was also thinking of creating a little video of me working on the guitars and mixing M.H., but I’ll figure out how I’ll do that in time. Would anyone really be interested? It’s nothing really special to be honest…

And with that, I’m going to go back and work on playing some guitar with the current state of the song to see where I can get from there.

Until next update…

M.H. – Update 2

Posted on by Bullet of Reason in Music, Progress

After listening to the drafts of Mechanical Holocaust over and over and over and over again, I’ve decided that I need to redo the guitar parts. Everything else sounds fine. The bass has been leveled nicely as well as everything else, but the guitars still sound like crap and I know I can do better.

I won’t be able to work on it for awhile though as I’ll be going in for my eye procedure tomorrow and will require some downtime away from computers and tvs and my addicition that is called the iPhone.

Of course, once I can get back into it I will and you’ll be right there in the know.

“See” you soon!

M.H. – Update

Posted on by Bullet of Reason in Music, Progress

Sadly, I wasn’t able to get Mechanical Holocaust fully finished this weekend because I wasn’t happy with the way I was tweaking it. I listened to sections over and over and realized that perhaps I was trying to “master” it a bit to much and it started to sound like there was way to much going on.

After playing on the keys for a little bit, I realized that the way I had originally done the piano and string work in the draft mix was actually the way I wanted to go. I started creating some more melodies on top of one another and then it was basically piano overload with a hint of strings upon strings. When it started to sound WAY to muddy, I realized it was time to stop what I was doing and break it back down to the basics.

With that said, I’m going to tweak around with it a little more tonight by adding the original piano and strings to the final mix session and try to clean it up a little bit. I’m hoping to at least get a minute preview uploaded here tonight giving you a sense of what I’m trying to get. It won’t really sound different in regards to structure and overall sounds from the demo, but it will be cleaned up with some added guitar filters to bring it to the punch up just a bit.

Remastering and other stuff

Posted on by Bullet of Reason in Music, Other Stuff, Remix

I’ve decided with the upcoming downtime that I’ll have, it’ll be difficult for me to work on newer material as I won’t really be in any condition to be screaming into the microphone or chugging on the guitar…

So I’ve come to the conclusion that in order for me to really “progress” on some new material is to actually complete what I’ve already got before I start swamping myself with newer Bullet of Reason tracks. What does this mean? Considering I already have a completed demo version of “Mechanical Holocaust” I might as well remaster that and get it done before I go for my eye procedure (in case you’re wondering what I’m treating, I have keratoconus). I’m really hoping to have the final version of Mechanical Holocaust done by the end of this weekend. I’ll be re-recording the guitar parts and tweaking the bass line which was recorded by my buddy over at http://www.ekcomics.com who will also be helping me with the album art and a couple of other tracks that I’ll get him on for bass. I may also drop some backup vocals onto the existing vocal track to help make the verses and pre-chorus a little easier to understand, while still keeping the vibe of the robotic vox.

There are a couple of things still in the works that I’m in the middle of sorting out and as soon as the final details are at a “good-to-go” status, I’ll be sure to share them… but what I can tell you is that I’m pretty damn excited about it!

P.S. I’ve uploaded my remix of Celldweller‘s The Best It’s Gonna Get on FiXT Remix which you can find it right here. Check it out and let me know what you think! Become a member on FiXT Remix and you can rate, comment, and even download it for free!

That’s all for now!