The Beta Edition  − 13 March, 2008

Thursday night: somehow, amidst all these home improvements, I managed to find time to mix down all nine songs on Points of Departure.

I call this version the "Beta Edition".  I listen to the album over and over, and find spots where the mix could be improved.  Generally I write all these down in a notebook -- very vague and cryptic descriptions, because my memory is generally strong enough for music that I know what I meant when I say "7 gtr wonk 2:20" (On track 7, the guitar hits a resonance point and the note seems to honk out over the rest of the mix, at about 2:20).

Once again, I've become an audio shapeshifter.  My last Jamendo album (La vie sous la mer) featured mostly natural, traditional percussion.  The one before (handmade) primarily used conga drums.  And now?  Since I've discovered the world of MIDI and sequencing software (such as Rosegarden and Renoise), I've been able to create original rhythm tracks that really flow.  Although they are entirely electronic, they have a very real feel to them.

Still, I have to watch out for the audio bigots.

See, in jazz, sometimes people hear with their eyes.

Les Paul found this out when he developed the solid-body electric guitar. The story goes that he took his original version (called "The Log") to a show, and was widely panned by the public.  Well, it was just a wooden fence post with a bridge, neck, and pickups attached.  For the sake of appearance, he cut off the sides of an Epiphone hollow-body guitar and stuck them on The Log.

Result: rave reviews.

Now, technically, my new album is more in the range of progressive rock or jazz fusion.  Even though everyone listens to the music through an electronic medium (CD player, .mp3 player, streaming audio), somehow the audio bigots complain when you're not using "real" percussion. 

Well, news flash for them: if you're listening to digital audio, it's all synthetic.  There's not really a tiny drummer beating away at a miniature trap set inside your computer's speaker system. The original audio waves were digitized, stored, and yes, finally recreated through a form of digital synthesis (DAC, digital-to-analog conversion).

So we'll see how it goes.  I think the new tracks are fantastic.  After all, I was at the point of recording acoustic tracks of my own to replace the digital tracks -- then realized the digital tracks sounded better than I could play on my own.  Their sound was more balanced.  You wouldn't believe how hard it is to record, say, a clean ride cymbal track (my last session kept getting interrupted by a bird singing outside my window). 

I plan on releasing the album at the beginning of April.

And then?  A big vacation, enforced by our move to Virginia.  I'll practice and try to learn some new stuff for the fifth album . . . whatever and whenever that might be.