… and that makes seven.

Apparently the rain affects more than the just the planet we live on. It also inspires new songs too. Well, that, and a new synth doesn’t hurt either.

Seems as though the new synth is fitting in just fine. It already has a prominent spot in a new tune that I started putting together last night. The song started out as a Swells jam, but I don’t think the other guys got into it nearly as much as I did so I am stealing it and making it a SCU song instead. Maybe I’ll reference The Swells in the title or something.

Well, the day has finally come. The synth that I use on The Swells recordings is coming home to live in the SCU set up. David realized that I use it about .. um … 100% of the time and he never actually touches the thing anymore so he sold it to me. Oh, I forgot, it’s a first version Nord Lead. It will go oh so very well next to the JP and all it’s friends. This makes me very happy. I have been wanting this synth since the day he bought it. And now it’s going to be mine. See, I have always been much more of a hardware guy. I have lots of software synths, but I always go to the hardware ones. I guess I need the immediate feeling of the keys and the knobs and buttons and whatnot.

I need to start thinking up a name for the upcoming CD.
And art also.
And get to the roof of the castle in Zelda: Minish Cap.

So, I am hot off the recording chair and there is a new tune to mention. That makes six for the new CD to come out later this year. Ten is the magic number, so I am over the halfway mark which always feels good.
The new mic cable really helped out and brought out some very cool ideas. Vocoding is always a fun thing.

So, I took a week off of work and spent most of the time inside, on the couch. Mostly because of the Texas summer being hotter than hot and dryer and dry. Honestly, why anyone ever settled this area in the first place boggles my mind. Maybe a better response is, why I am still here boggles my @#$%ing mind.
I bought a new mic cable (my old one went to The Swells) and I have been having some vocoding on my mnd, so expect to hear some in a few new tunes that are on the hard drive.
Things on the SCU list are:
1. Finish up the songs for the upcoming disc
2. Finish Zelda: Minish Cap for the GBA

So… my car’s electrics decided to freak out.
How is it that we all think it’s ok to own something as complicated and out of our control as a car? It’s just crazy!
When they break, it could be anything… literally anything.
ARG!

Still working on new SCU tunes. Doing what I do. I decided long ago not to try and be or sound like anything I wasn’t. Hell, I like it and that’s what matters most, right?

Got some interesting news from a videogaming friend of mine. He is going to ship me a PC (I’m a Mac guy) so that we can play some PC games online. Now, every electronic musician knows that the ratio of PC to Mac plug-ins for various music software is 100 to 1. I have always wanted to check out those 99 and it looks like I might have a chance soon. Interesting! Plus, I’ll get to kill a few dragons along the way.

So, tuesday is the new saturday.

Turns out that it wasn’t the kick on the song. It was a synth that was making this odd very low rumbling sound. Very odd. Luckily, a little eq. took it right out. I added an additonal kick anyways to add a bit more punch. All in all, the song turned out well.
Happy.

Now…

It seems that my webhost doesn’t read what they write.
“Our reps usually get back to a problem within 2 hours.”
Now, maybe 2 hours means 3 DAYS. I don’t know…
Whatever happened to them when they moved locations, I’ll never know. It sure f’ed ‘em up though.

side note: The new Swells site is coming along very nicely.

Two things…
1. I was setting up a new Swells website. Side note, I play keyboard and sing backup for The Swells. Anyways, David, Mr. Swell himself, bought the domain name with one company with the intent on purchasing the webhosting from the same company. One thing lead to another and he became fed up with the company so he ended up with a purchased domain but no home for it to live in. Enter me. I told him about the good guys over at fourbucks, he liked what he heard and we decided to purchase the webhost through them. So, now David owns the domain and I own the website. He knows the domain password and I know the website password. Do you see where things are going? Potential train wreck, dead ahead. When I purchased my domain and website, I just used fourbucks and they did everything. This time was not so easy. After four days, still no swells website. It was starting to look like I was going to have to fix the DNS info myself, but David knows the password to get into where I need to be! Well, long story later, I was finally able to get the password from him and switch out the DNS numbers. So, in a couple of days all should be up. I’ll let everyone know.
2. I recorded a new SCU song a couple of nights ago. I really like the song too which is always a good sign. The bad thing is that I am not sure about the kick drum. It’s way to bassy and tends to muddy up the song. So, I need to rerecord it. I guess it’s not really that big of a deal because I had plans on doing a vocal track or two anyways.

Looks like I have four new songs in the “near completion” category. Songs have been coming along much more slowly now that I am fully back with The Swells. I guess I have my mind on writing guitar based pop songs rather than my usual robotic monotony. Still, I really do like the new SCU tunes.
I am still trying to decide how to “distibute” the new song collection when I am all done with it.
1. Self release
2. CD-R route
3. Screw everything and just post a bunch of mp3’s

*edit* Make that five songs now.

Since I discovered the blog, I decided to do a little redesign of the SCU site. So, if things look off periodically, that’s why.