We got a nice shout-out on a PodCast just recently; Second Story's "Return to Youth" opened the "Adventures of a Walker Dependent Music Fan" Podcast. Check out the show notes here, and visit the PodSafe Network to listen to the show!
Thanks to the show host, Gerry (sp?), for featuring us!
11.24.2008
Second Story - You heard it here first
To be included on the Second Story release - our tribute version of Queensrÿche's "One and Only" that we recorded back in 2000 or so; the album it was to be on was never released, and we were quite proud of how it came out. If we do a full CD release, it will probably be on "Thin Twisting Line" as a "hidden" track, but we'll get the licensing from Harry Fox so it's legit.
Cool, the album isn't even mixed yet and there's already a BONUS TRACK! ;-)
Cool, the album isn't even mixed yet and there's already a BONUS TRACK! ;-)
11.22.2008
Second Story - 'The Silent Giants'
"The Silent Giants" is possibly Second Story's most ambitiously "proggy" song. It's one of the longest tunes we had in our set, and it features full instrumental solos from John, Tom and Scott. It has distorted chordal figures on the bass, about 12 different guitar tracks, contrapuntal vocals (think "Gentle Giant"), lyrics steeped in metaphor, Mellotron keyboards, and much much more. We loved playing it live, as it also rocked pretty hard.
As you can imagine, it was with trepidation that I began work on it. When we originally tracked in Indre Studios, we had a total of about 34 tracks available per song - I'm pretty sure that this tune used ALL of them.
What I found most curious, despite my worries - the song actually mixed quite easily! I was able to get a really good drum sound for the vibe of the tune, Danielle's vocals sound really good, and with a little bit of judicious volume envelope swells, the vocal parts should also be great. I did a bit more fun stuff with the effects, particularly on some of the vocals. But again, you'll just have to wait and see (hear, actually.) ;-)
As you can imagine, it was with trepidation that I began work on it. When we originally tracked in Indre Studios, we had a total of about 34 tracks available per song - I'm pretty sure that this tune used ALL of them.
What I found most curious, despite my worries - the song actually mixed quite easily! I was able to get a really good drum sound for the vibe of the tune, Danielle's vocals sound really good, and with a little bit of judicious volume envelope swells, the vocal parts should also be great. I did a bit more fun stuff with the effects, particularly on some of the vocals. But again, you'll just have to wait and see (hear, actually.) ;-)
11.20.2008
Second Story - ''Dancing on the Hill"
This was a tune I was very worried about, based on how the other mixes of it had come out. It's a complicated tune, even though it may not sound like it. The drum beat is somewhat disjunct, the bass line (distorted and played with Funk Fingers) is a bit "blurry" and some of the other parts of the song (keys, guitar) have some unusual rhythmic things going on. When it worked, the song had an undeniable groove and a very original sound. Unfortunately, the previous mixes we've had of this song sounded sloppy, uninspired and just plain bad.
I've long had the feeling that the success or failure of mixing this song might be the "make or break" moment of whether or not I took this project to completion. Meaning, if I couldn't make this track sound good, there was probably no point in bothering with the rest of the album - it'd be too demoralizing.
Luckily, I think (and Scott agrees) that the song is sounding AMAZING. I was able to tweak the drum sound and really phatten it up. The bass tone, which the other engineers could NEVER seem to get right, is punchy and "gooey" - all at the same time. Some judicious audio track "nudging" helped fix some timing errors that I blame on the varied equipment used to dump the songs to digital, which may have caused some of that disjunctedness that we couldn't seem to shake in the other studios. Danielle's vocals just jump out at you and beg for attention. I've done some cool things with panning and effects - there's a really cool bounceback delay that I used in several places that really adds to the tune. And I even added a sound effect sample (Extra points if you can guess what and where it is.)
So the project will go on. "Dancing" sounds really good, so I think there's a good chance that everything can be mixed to our satisfaction. More to come!
I've long had the feeling that the success or failure of mixing this song might be the "make or break" moment of whether or not I took this project to completion. Meaning, if I couldn't make this track sound good, there was probably no point in bothering with the rest of the album - it'd be too demoralizing.
Luckily, I think (and Scott agrees) that the song is sounding AMAZING. I was able to tweak the drum sound and really phatten it up. The bass tone, which the other engineers could NEVER seem to get right, is punchy and "gooey" - all at the same time. Some judicious audio track "nudging" helped fix some timing errors that I blame on the varied equipment used to dump the songs to digital, which may have caused some of that disjunctedness that we couldn't seem to shake in the other studios. Danielle's vocals just jump out at you and beg for attention. I've done some cool things with panning and effects - there's a really cool bounceback delay that I used in several places that really adds to the tune. And I even added a sound effect sample (Extra points if you can guess what and where it is.)
So the project will go on. "Dancing" sounds really good, so I think there's a good chance that everything can be mixed to our satisfaction. More to come!
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