digitech bass squeeze

this pedal is actually great for recording through the mixer out - i use it as a di box, with a lmb-3 in front for extra limiting, and then run it through tape simulation and reverb effects when it gets in. the caveat is you have to want a smooth, sustained tone (i play a lot of bass parts with half or full notes and i want them to last) with basically zero dynamics, meaning it works better for orchestral styles or electronic music than for rock or funk, excluding punk - it also works well for fast punk picking...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzb_Lrj3-O4

ok, these parts sound considerably better. i think the compression pedal is buffering the signal a little, which is helping the limiter even when it's off. i also plugged it into a regulated power supply, which may have minimized any background. and i turned the low eq pot down a bit on the way in. it's still buzzing mildly, but the clippiness is gone.

i'm sleepy. but i have every reason to think this'll be done tomorrow.

two things to take note of.

first, boogeyman just became #2 to hit 1000 hits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gTfycvt1VU

second, evil just became #2 to hit 300 (which remains youtube's designation of "popular") without being featured on the front page.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haUlXmRA-A0

gah. no.

just a little out of tune, bloody microtone, so i need to redo the bass parts. but i have a better understanding of how to lay them out, now, and what i want them to sound like when they get in, so that's going to guide the input signal.

i'm going to want to route the pick parts one way, with heavy limiting, and the finger parts another, with heavy compression. that should minimize noise on the way in, and give me what i need to process.

gonna eat first...

ok...

neurotic bass freakout transcended. you want it to drive anyways, jess. relax.

that means i could very conceivably have this finished before i sleep next, or at least have the first section of about 6:40 finished. i'm thinking it's going to be around 20 minutes in final form, with the twenty minute version appearing only on the single and a roughly ten minute version on the disc.

but i'm also thinking doubles again, with the length of this. we'll see how that goes....two or three more tracks before that's done, and then i sit down and figure it out....

i mean, i do want the full version on the record.

but i don't want a 90 minute double. if it's going to be a double, it's going to be at least 140 minutes.

i've got that guitarland stuff, too, which sort of fits the theme.

i wasn't initially planning on doing a single for the choir, but now i'm thinking i want at least two versions. that's a possible level of thematic unity.

i'm also kind of thinking of sequencing the 2001 midi files into a separate record. the idea of splitting out the vst mixes is completely redundant because they're just the final versions minus overdubbed guitars and minor rearrangements (i didn't realize the differences would be so minimal when i started), but those old midi files have a chiptune vibe and consequently offer something a little different.

i mean, i could see a specialized market for the raw midi arrangements, specifically.

yeah. but if i do that, i'm going to want to push it forward to early 2003 to encompass some further midi tracks.

the jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj thing really closes at the end of 2001, but the midi approach carried on to further ideas.

so.

1) jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj double record, maybe, end of 2001.
2) thru single record, probably, early 2003.

again: i'll have to see how much there is and how it sequences. for now, i want to finish this song....

i should note that the flurry of mostly completed tracks ends around 2003. from 2003 to 2007, there's a lot of very big ideas that are barely demoed out and they're going to require a large amount of recording to finish. the three or four hours i have down for that period is going to balloon to ten times that, at least. after 2007, it's even more sparse, as all i really have to show between 2007-2011 (when i lost my studio) is that 18 minute proverbs track (which took two years to record) and a few barely articulated ideas. between work and school i just didn't have the time. but, the proverbs symphony will be the length of a full record when it's finally done. from 2011-2013, i was basically homeless and focusing more on rethinking my life than writing, and i may end up homeless again in mid-2015 if things don't work out. that's why i'm doing this: however long i'm able to sustain current conditions is probably going to be my last chance to finish things, so i want to make sure as much gets finished as i can get finished. wherever i leave off is likely going to be where i leave off. forever...

as much as the social conditions may be less than enviable, i admit i'm in the enviable position of having a lot of material that was written in the height of my creative years (my 20s) and that i'm finishing in a more reflective and mature age. so, it combines the immediacy of youth with the reflection of age. composers used to have that ability to look back and reinterpret, nowadays everything is pumped out and finalized when it's first thought up. i think it's going to create a lot of more substantial sound than i would have been able to create at the time, and than i may be able to create entirely now.

if i can find a way to keep the studio up until i'm done my old work, i'm going to be pushing 40 by the time i write new material. and i'm sure it will be quite different...

i mean, i'm not going to be one of these old people trying to hang on to their 20s. i'm going to mature into writing styles that are more reflective of my age.

i always want to take these aging pop stars and grab them by the neck and ask them "have you ever contemplated the idea of writing music for people in your own age and peer group?".

as much shit as i give the boomers, it's best talents - the gabriels and the bowies and the fripps - mostly figured that out. some of them died before they got old. some of them tried to deny reality. but they'll be forgotten, while the ones that matured won't be.

gen x musicians have seemed hopelessly unable to keep up with their audience. reznor has shown flashes of maturity. he's really the *only* one that has.

(actually, i think you can put sonic youth and swans in the "aged gracefully" category (minus thurston moore's recent midlife crisis), and the mt zions are a late gen x band that was already a cut above and has kept growing, but the overriding theme of gen x musicians is "arrested development". and i shudder to predict the future....)

i have every intent to learn from that.