It's Here...sort of

www.justinromack.com

I am pretty much done with the design of the new site. I still have some things I would like to do, and some things I need to learn how to do...but other than that...that's all.

I will probably very rarely blog on this anymore. You can check my blogs out over there from now on! See ya' there.

Peace!

A Day Away...

I've been on the road a lot lately. I am loving it, but it leaves me no time to do recording - which is a shame. I re-tracked drums like I said I was going to, and I had some more issues. Can't use the FUMC Lufkin to record anymore, need a different room. So, my plan was to program drums in Reason. Two things worked to my advantage on this:

a) drums are out for like a minute and a half at the beginning
b) standard 4/4 time signatures are easy to prog. drum tracks for

Couple things worked at a disadvantage though:

a) drums are prominant on verses - tom stuff sounds bad with Reason drum tracks
b) I had already tracked everything except for bass

Got Reason tracks done on Friday and was ready to go for bass. I tracked Paul this evening and got a couple good takes. I mixed some just to send Todd something - and will do a final mixdown tomorrow night and be done.

I will post it on my blog when it's up tomorrow night. Tahnks for being curious about what's going on...I am so busy I forget to keep you all posted.

Almost there...

I wish I could do this full-time. There just isn't enough time in the day to do all that I want to do. But, this song will be done - soon!

I re-tracked drums. I got a better mix this time....still not great - but "do"able for a demo. I need a better room to record in and a few options for the snare. My kick peaked in one spot - so a cut and pasting I will go when I go to mix and finish up. I will be re-tracking electric and then tracking bass and that should finish it up. I will probably redo Todd's vocals and guitar just to see if we can't tweak it some.

Shooting to be done by Friday or Saturday.

What's next? I need two more songs for my resume stuff - so who knows!

Back to It

Have to scrap drums. I was dumb and didn't pay attention to my mix and had a lot of spots where my drum mixes peaked. I needed to invest more effort and time in getting good sounds. I am still tracking as planned:

- Bass and Electric will both be done tomorrow
- Drums will be re-recorded by Saturday evening
- May or may not record piano/synth on this song (if electric is thick enough, I may not)
- Should be wrapped-up by next Thursday. This gives me time to tweak everything and continue my other stuff.

Anyways, that's a quick update. Peace!

Part of Your Story - Day 2

Tracked drums today. Went well - long, but well. I just want to say a few things. First off, I love my girlfriend very, VERY, V-E-R-Y, much! She put up with a lot of drumming this afternoon and into the late evening. I ran through a mixer before I went tot eh firewire card only because I don't have an ADAT Lightpipe converter, thus, I have only two mic inputs. Worked good because I used a lot of condensers that needed phantom power. Here's the mic setup:

2 Shure SM94's as pverjeads
1 Shure Beta-52 on kick
1 Shure SM-57 on snare
1 Peavey PVM-480 on hats

Levels sounded okay unmixed. I will take a look tomorrow before I track bass. I think I have something usable for a demo. Drums will be tough because I am critical - period! I will also (next time I record drums), use two more 57's (one on each tom). Toms are present, but I feel I woul have ultimate control over the entire drum sound. Also, adding the mixer just added another set of levels to watch.

I plan to track bass tomorrow or Wednesday. Electric rhythm and lead by the end of the week, and then also synth/piano by next Monday. I will try to wrap up by Thursday or Friday...but, no promieses. If this was my full-time job, I should be fired....BUT, it's not, so cut me some slack. For fun, after this project is done...I am going to program a Reason drum track and see what that sounds like.

Anyways, wanted to post an update...hoepfully next go-around I will have my Behringer ADA-8000 (ADAT Lightpipe Converter - Analog to Digital)...drums will be much much easier - I hope!

Peace!

Nothing Yet

Been too busy this week to progress with "Part of Your Story" any. Due to some unforseen events, I was unable to track drums yesterday as scheduled. I will track them, instead, on Monday in Lufkin. I can't wait until I have my ADAT Lightpipe converter for my recording rig so that I can record virtually anything - anywhere.

I am not too worried at this point. If I were doing this full-time, it would've been done last week.

In other news, the new computer is setup. I am short a firewire card, but, should have that installed Monday or Tuesday. I will post some pictures of the setup...it's pretty nice. This is going to make editing significantly easier. I can capture audio with the laptop (minimizing usage on that) and then dump the audio on to the desktop and run from there.

Last thing, I will not be posting any other mp3's directly on here for this project. I want to focus on finishing this rather than modeling what I am doing. In other words, the next thing you'll here is the finished copy. I do have some possible other projects that may pick up in a month or two...but nothing definite yet.

That's all, I will keep you posted. Peace!

Part of Your Story

Began tracking "Part of Your Story" with Todd yesterday. Few setup glitches on my end prevented us from doing more, but, the stuff we did get was great! It really made me realize what I want to do this for real - you know, for like the rest of my life. It's amazing what you can learn in a matter of minutes...and I felt like experience alone will allow me to grow.

So here it is...

Part of Your Story - Acoustic Demo

So, we've got a pretty good acoustic track (mic'd and direct). Vocals were great also. We may end up recording another acoustic track once band is done only because it could be tweaked just a bit...but, overall, it sounds good. I added a really simple Reason drum track - nothing fancy - just to give it a little more. I hope to continue tracking the band next week...after I get a song or two more done with Todd.

Let me know what you think...I am always open to hearing what people honestly think. You can't hurt my feelings...seriously. I am still learning, but what's cool is, I feel determined to learn the in's and out's of recording. And the best part, it's one thing that my lack of vision isn't affecting, which is an amazing feeling for me!

Keep ya' posted...