Arthurthefourth.com

The unthinkable has happened. On Wednesday night, I finished all the mixes for the album. 6 tracks, 24 minutes. If We Were. I sent it out for mastering the following morning. (I can’t believe how much it costs to overnight a package to California!!)

I’m not sure how to feel about it. About no longer being driven by this singular creative purpose, this “gotta finish, gotta finish” that has thump thumped in my head every day for so long. I don’t know what to do next. Next week, I’ll be on vacation, and for the first time, I’m not sure what to do. I’ve got a whole ton of Someday/Maybe projects that have been aching for their chance, but I’m not sure how to decide.

There’s still work to be done though. There are still plenty of decisions to be made before the album art goes out next week - what photo to use, what paper stock, which lyrics to cut to fit into the packaging. But I have a great designer working on that stuff; this is no longer my baby.

And ultimately, that’s the hardest and most wonderful part about being done. The loss of control. Now it’s up to the mastering engineer, the designer, the distributors, and ultimately, you listeners. I’ve opened up my grip on this thing. It’s out of my hands. It’s done.

Getting closer. I’ve been working on the mix to If We Were. It’s tough because there are so many different lines going on at once. It’s hard to decide what should be in focus, and what should be background. I’m also having trouble striking the balance between sound that’s intense and enveloping and sound that’s not painfully loud. I guess that’s why people use compressors, but I hate them. Dynamic range is the key to everything I do, little expressive subtleties, quiet breaths and crescendos. Without those, it’s too close to the same old shit.

I’m also starting to plan the big release show. I’ve got most of the band in place, and they’re pretty awesome. There are a lot of possibilities floating around in my head. I think it’s going to be leaps and bounds beyond the last one. I’m really looking forward to new arrangements, new ideas, and new songs. Now I need to get the venue a picture, a bio, a blurb, etc. for their own promotion and press. Uggh. I don’t know why I find self-promotion so difficult. I think it’s the idea of having to manufacture an image. I’m happy to give people what I am; I’m happy to share that truth. It’s when I have to stylize that, and shape it into something, that I start to bristle. I need to figure that one out.

All in all, things are good. I plan to finish mixing (finish If We Were and revisit glitches in the other songs) by the end of this month, which puts me right on schedule for the release date. The art looks amazing; I can’t wait for everyone to see it. I’ve been meeting a lot of wonderful people recently, including one who’s beautiful and consistently grin-inducing. I’ve been rehearsing for a gig at a friend’s party, playing soul covers with a great band. Just on keys, and occasional djembe. It feels good to be able to concentrate on one thing at a time. I hope to do more of that when the Geniuses get back on stage.

The juices are flowing. Things are afoot. Life is good.

Or not. The dissenters have finally found their voice.

The other day, I linked to an old blog entry. It’s too bad that, at the time, I didn’t actually bother to read it. It was about looseness, the importance of flaws, and, at the root of it, the difference between greatness and perfection. (Hint: strive for the first, the second only leads to crap.)

I think that the heart of my desire to get this EP mixed by someone else is a desire to make it sound “professional.” To be able to put my album up next to other albums, and declare that it fits among them. To put out something that, ooh maybe, please please, fingers crossed, might get played on the radio, or, do I dare to dream, on the television.

And goddammit, that’s a bunch of bullshit. This is not some sonically pure, big studio effort. I didn’t go to some fancy engineer who knows about the best mic placement to avoid phase problems. I didn’t record in a well-treated room with bass traps in every corner. You can hear me take breaths because I left them in. You can hear the hi-hat bleed from the headphones on some of the vocal tracks, because I left it in.

Back before I was part of FLS, I remember going to a bar with some of the boys and their college friends. We were all just hanging out, and of course, someone suggested that they start freestyling. So we all crowded around, I banged out a beat on the table, and they went at it. The rest of the bar was still talking; I think there was even music playing from the speakers. But it was awesome. Because it was real. No tricks, no smoke, no mirrors, just crazy talented kids doing what they do in the middle of a bar for shits and giggles.

Why should I blow my savings on some hotshot to make this record sound like chocolate pudding with fresh organic strawberries in a golden bowl? I want it to sound like your stupid friends banging on the table and singing on a Saturday night, with the fan blowing, and people talking, and cars passing in the street. But they’re really, really good.

Because that’s what I do. I make real music. It’s not shiny. It’s not professional. It’s not perfect. But it’s fucking great. And I need to respect that.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t lead me to a decision. But it’s a start. More as it develops.

I have been mixing this record for quite some time. A couple months actually, because it’s so hard to put enough time in every day. I’ve been neglecting my friends and family, working alone in my lair to revise and recolor something that I put together myself in the first place. Going a little stir-crazy. Nonetheless, I thought it had been going pretty well.

Until I got home last night from a great meeting with Mec, who runs Rock Slinger Incorporated, and Rick, who is designing the art for If We Were, and found a CD waiting for me in the mail. I’d sent my final mix of Far Side out for a “ballpark master” from the mastering engineer I’d been planning to use, to make sure I wanted to go with him.

I popped in the CD. I put it up next to my final mix. I listened; I compared. I was not happy.

Right at that moment, as if I’d summoned him with my mind, my friend the record producer popped onto Facebook chat to tell me he liked our Radiohead cover, and I sent him the two versions. He reminded me of something I’d forgotten:

No amount of mastering can save a bad mix.

There’s a relevant idiom I can’t quite remember, something like: You can put makeup on a horse, but it won’t make him pretty. (Isn’t there something like that? If not, well, you’re welcome.)

So record producer friend tells me he is going to change my life, and he makes a suggestion:

Take one song, put all the individual vocal/instrumental tracks in a zip file together, and post it on renowned sound engineer forum gearslutz.com as a contest. Throw it up on Craigslist NY and LA as well, and anywhere else I can think of. Whoever gives me the best mix of that song within a limited time frame gets to mix the whole EP with the money I was going to pay for mastering, plus some extra. But they have to turn it around in a week, so I can still make my deadline.

He thinks the promise of a nice wad of cash with a quick turnaround, given the current state of the big studio system, will entice much better engineers than I would expect. They will certainly be better than I. And a well-mixed song with passable mastering will sound MUCH better than a passable mix that’s well-mastered.

I like the idea, but I’m not sure. The idea of relinquishing any measure of creative control, even to a pro who I’ll choose because I like his/her work, and who I’ll constantly be giving commentary to, is scary. But it seems to make so much sense!

This is where you folks come in. What do you think? Should I do this?!?!?!