Category: Random

Man have you listened to today’s hip hop and top 40? Every damn artist has that “robotic Cher Autotune” sound. Good news, there’s a new version of Autotune.

With even more features like graphic representation of the notes (like Melodyne), vocalists who suck can now suck less.

Soon somebody will come out with a plugin which not only tunes the vocals, it writes the lyrics and performs them. Then the need for a vocalist will be eliminated. Since everyone lipsyncs these days anyway, they could just find the best looking “dancer” they can and stick them on stage to fake their parts.

Last week I played an awesome show at a bar which was formerly very smoky. The bar changed their policies and are banning smoking, about 8 months before a new law here goes into effect. That made playing much better as I wasn’t breathing smoke and I didn’t smell like smoke when I got home.

The other great part about this show was that my former bass player of 20+ years was in town and played the gig. The new girl bass player watched from the audience as we rocked very hard and fast. I was so pumped I never fatigued at all, despite not playing for close to 5-6 months. Even though I had blisters on my thumbs I didn’t care.

Not gigging

That being said, I’ve concluded that I do not wish to gig again unless the following happens:

1. My old bass player is there, not the girl.
2. There is no smoke.

So as it sits, I’m taking a sabbatical. I was in one anyway. My bass player may come back into town some day and at that point I’ll consider playing again. But until then, I can’t stand gigging with this girl. She’s nice, but she’s only learned about 1/6th of the song list and only half-assed at that. Plus, she just doesn’t “rock.” I know that sounds funny but it is the only way I can put it into words. If I can’t rock at a rock & roll show, I might as well stay home.

Man I’m tired. 8-12 hours per day for about a week on drum tracks. We had 18 microphones on the drums, including Neumann U87’s on the overheads… Hell of a set up.

After drums it was bass tracks for 2.5 days. The stress level was high because the client was considerably over budget by this point. The takes were tough because the music is so difficult added to the fact that they wanted to finish fast.

Yesterday saw the completion of the bass tracks and now we assemble the double album’s “chunks” into actual pieces. Just doing this is going to take 2-3 days.

I can’t type anymore. Must…sleep.