The BarnThe next now that they're here project, "like a lighthouse gone mad from loneliness" is coming along pretty well. Most of the music has been written, basic tracks have essentially been completed on most songs, and now it's time to start fine-tuning everything. This is supposed to be the first project where I play acoustic guitar on some of the songs. Oddly, that has gone very well and I'm amazed at how much fun it has been to start a song on guitar, then build the rest of the song rather than starting with keyboards.
As you can probably ascertain, the Pro Tools issues that I had a few months ago are gone, but not without some pain. The MIDI router I usually use for all of my equipment died, so rather than replace it (it WAS 30 years old) I decided to just rewire my studio as a large daisy chain. Much to my surprise, it worked. So, for most of the Summer sessions I've had, I've been pretty productive.
I had David Alvarez, bassist from the band The Boogiemen, come over and help with a track for the next CD. We had fun getting it together and, hopefully, I didn't scare David off too much by how weird the track was. (For some stupid reason, I interchanged all of the Em chords to G, and vice versa, on the scratch chart we were using for a song. Made for some really confusing rehearsals until I figured out what I did. Duh.)
I also find that I have certain sounds I love using, like choir and mellotron sounds. They are on practically every release I've done and will be on this one also. I have been experimenting with the sound of my voice in trying to not put too many effects on it, but still have it distinctive. No success yet on a winning combination.
As for school, I will have two sections each of Digital Video Production, Electronic Music, and Guitar. REALLY nice schedule, if you ask me.
