Blog: Busy Busy Busy

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Bah! ROCK must utch up the bus to make space for WORK, as it turns out i've got to POSTPONE the proposed JOLLY WEEK i was going to have the week after next, in order to do LOADS OF WORK. It's a bit annoying, but it does at least mean i'll have time to DO everything i've got to do, rather than DASH AROUND LIKE A LOONIE to get it finished.

The main DRAG is that I'll now NOT be spending the entire week after next crouched over my shiny new four-track recording The Solo Album, but hopefully I'll be able to get some time in on it still. It really is a lovely little thing, and SURPRISINGLY similar to the old four tracks I used to use 10+ years ago. It's been nice getting back into it, actually, altho the corner of the bedroom has become covered in BRANE DUST as areas of aforesaid BRANE that haven't been visited in over a decade are suddenly full of activity. The cardboard box marked (in felt tip) "THINGS TO REMEMBER ABOUT BOUNCING DOWN" has been torn open and it's contents FULLY UTILISED - JUST like on the old cassette four tracks you can bounce down FOUR mono tracks (e.g. bass, guitar, two vocals) onto TWO, in STEREO. On the cassettes this was just because it's how tapes worked - each side of a cassette has two tracks each, for left and right, HENCE if you played a normal tape in it you got the other side playing backwards, and both in STEREO - but I guess it makes sense to do it that way digitally.

The BLOODY BRILLIANT difference about doing it digitally, however, is that you have LIMITLESS BOUNCING. For instance, on BORN YESTERDAY, the first song I've properly started, there's electrical lead guitar THROUGHOUT, and it is DOUBLE TRACKED, one on acoustic and one electric. I couldn't play it all the way through, so did each one on two seperate tracks, then bounced each of THEM onto one track, then mixed BOTH of them in stereo with the TWO acoustic guitar parts, which I'd also done in bits, onto TWO stereo tracks. It may well sound a bit complicated, because it IS RATHER, and MANY pieces have paper have been used to make sure I can keep count of where everything is, but the BEST thing is this: LIKE a normal cassette four track you can keep bouncing forever, but with THIS one you'll never lose quality and - AHA! - if you do it WRONG, or decide later on you don't like it, you can go back and CHANGE it!

The only trouble is RESISTING the temptation to STICK A CHOIR ON at every opportunity... so if the eventual solo album DOES come out it MAY feature about 7 million of ME singing, clapping, and doing quadruple tracked KAZOO. Just a warning.

In the meantime I'm getting INCREASINGLY excited about Indie Tracks while getting ready to go off and play Lee Rosy's in Nottingham tonight. Full report, TOMORROW!

posted 25/7/2007 by MJ Hibbett

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