It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting beauty of monotony.
I cant recall if I shared this before or not but this is simply a fusion of two great songs that change the genre, direction and potentially the audience of the originals. This is what the freedom of music is about. The feeling you get watching this is just how it feels when you are in a zone with a band or songwriting and something great begins to happen. They really made this their own to say the least
It’s been a bit more difficult to get to the blog with so much going on. Work has been really busy for me which is a good thing! I’ve been really busy – in fact, this is busier than things have been for quite a long while. I’m just about finished with a song. I know I have said this for awhile now! I have a few that are in the bag musically but I just didn’t feel it. I think I’ve talked about my digital graveyard before? It’s a place where songs go that just don’t seem to go anywhere. Sometimes they are just chord progressions and other times, as in two cases here, they were fully produced pieces with drums, bass, strings, guitars, grand piano, etc. etc. and I just didn’t feel like they were going anywhere for me. Perhaps it was going through treatment? It doesn’t exactly put you in a hugely creative mood, however, songwriting isn’t something you can force – either a song comes or it doesn’t.
Well, I do really like the sound and feel of the one I’m chipping away at now. The music is nearly finished so the grinding part will start with lyrics and vocals. For many songwriters and me included, it’s the hardest part. A songwriter once said “my favorite part of writing a song is the beginning and the end” and it’s so true! You are inspired in the beginning and once you are done it’s a great feeling to sit back and listen to a finished piece (providing you didn’t cut corners and slam it out), but the grind can be tough. Anyway, when it’s done I will post it here.
So I’m still dragging with fatigue. Seems that each week I come off chemo it takes 3-4 days to feel sort of normal again. It’s just the cumulative effect I think. Not much that can be done that I already am not doing with regard to diet, supplements and the like. I finished cycle 4 as of the end of this week (I’m off chemo this week which is the last week in this cycle) so I’ll begin cycle 5/6 on Monday. Once I get done with 6 I’ll have decisions to make. It will be a difficult proposition for sure. Many of the other drugs are as or even more harsh than Temodar – and discussion centers around adding one in addition to Temodar possibly. Of course one option going off of chemo completely and seeing where we go. Lots of options and we will deal with that when the day comes.
My next MRI is this coming Monday so I could use your prayers. So far, all of them have come back stable – praying for the same or better results here as well. I am tracking this serially every 60 days and my last MRI was at the beginning of December.
Our small group is going through a GREAT study right now on living the life you always dreamed of living. The book that we are reading is amazing. I was reading it last night and the author was telling a story about giving his kids a bath and how his daugther is just filled with joy for no reason at all – she’s a little kid and every moment of the day, for the most part, is joyous. He said that when she is filled with so much joy that words cannot express how much joy she feels, she just dances around in circles. They call it the dee dah day dance because she is so filled with joy that she has had a dee dah day. He goes on to say that one night he gave her a bath and when she got out of the bath she was doing this dance and he’s asking her to come over to dry her off and she’s laughing, dancing and he’s saying come over here – hurry, I need to get you dry – and he starts getting frustrated because she’s twirling, running away and doing this dance and finally with a more stern voice he says “please come over here, we need to hurry and I need to dry you off”. Then he said that she asked the most profound question: “Why?” The point he made and what struck me is that our lives are lived by timetables, when is the next meeting, where do we have to be, what is next, what happened last, etc. and as a result, we miss out on the joy of now. He said that after she asked that question, he got up and did the dee dah day dance with her and they just took their time. What a concept huh? For me, I have done this exact thing with my son in the bath – we need to hurry, it’s time for bed, gotta get out, blah blah blah.
Anyway, this is a great study for us. Again, I could use your prayers for Monday and by all means please continue to email any requests you have.
Well, after writing, recording, rewriting and working for the past 6 months I have decided to cut the album and have sent my final master off for some pre-production duplication comps that I can inspect before mass producing. I started the production of this album in mid-December, 2006 which was literally one week before I enterered into this difficult season of my life which, as you know by now, has led to the diagnosis of a primary brain tumor. All is ok as it’s surrendered to God but it’s been a tough ride! Now let’s get on to the good stuff…
You know, God has a plan for every one of us and I think it’s no mistake that I was completely mentally and creatively geared-up for this project when this all started. I was being prepared for what was coming and it was the plan all along – that I would have songwriting and this very project as a way to work through my feelings and fears. Likewise, it would be another conduit or lifeline to be used for consistent spiritual connection. It’s almost as if I was thrown a life vest not knowing why I even needed it – before anything happened. That’s what the River of Faith album from a songwriting standpoint has meant to me and will always mean to me. These songs were a source of hope and strength for me and I know God was working through my music to provide me with this when I needed it the most. And, somewhere through this process, perhaps my music can also offer hope and inspire faith in others who are facing trials in their own lives. I see nothing but positives here! As a result, He has given me some amazing inspiration and the material for the album has been some of my most inspired writing ever. For that I am truly grateful.
I will put up additional posts that will talk about the cuts on the album but for now just wanted to put up the design comps that I’m using for the album – these were sent to press along with the CD master.
The recording, mixing and mastering for the River of Faith production is completed. I did most of the mixing of each song as I went along but the mastering I’ve been working on over the last month or so off and on as I finished off the last 2 songs or so. I wasn’t sure when I’d feel like I had enough songs. I actually wrote closer to 16-17 but some never made it down the road. I’ve mentioned in other posts that I have a song graveyard of sorts – a digital dumping ground for songs that just don’t take off for me creatively. A few ended up there and then a few I decided to cut in favor of stronger cuts. It’s pretty standard stuff really!
So I went through the mastering process which is a fairly tedious and complicated process when cutting an album. For me, I lined up every single track in Wavelab and then ran the entire stereo track through to check/monitor eqs, levels and so forth and made some across the board changes but also had to understand where I needed adjustments. I won’t get into all of the details but the end result was good. I’m very happy after the hours and hours – and days spent that the finished product is something I can be very proud of. The next step is get on with the CD duplication process. The artwork is done – I just need to key the track times into the design. More to come on that…
I was cleaning out a closet this weekend (one of my most favorite activites!) and I came across a CD that one of my co-writers Andres made for me in Orange County over a weekend when we holed up in my house for a weekend. He had snapped a bunch of pictures and some of them were of the gear we were using. This is from about 10 years ago! Yes, I was using Cakewalk back then – it was Cakewalk Pro Audio then and I was still using a Yamaha DX7. That keyboard took a beating but I never had a problem with it – it just kept going and going. However, as time passed I used less and less of the ROM patches and more and more of the outboard modules and just triggered them. I had rackmounted modules – a Roland U-110, an Alesis D4 drum module and a Roland Piano Module and I believe that I even had a Roland SoundBrush! We had a bunch of outboard gear in racks including guitar effects and other outdated equipment. Granted, the guitar racks are still great but my stuff for studio work is way different these days.
Geez, those were painful days – so much is simplified now! Anyway, I had to post some of this stuff. I started looking through these pictures and it just brought back memories, mostly memories about how painful it was to produce music this way.
The Setup – Here is a picture of the setup. It was fairly archaic. We would do a lot of the recording here and do rough vocal takes and then take our stuff to a studio to do our main vocal takes. Midi tracks were laid down, we’d do SMPTE lock at the studio and do 1/4″ TRS outputs to the board in the studio. Look at this stuff!
The old faithful DX7
My old rack – brings back a lot of memories. Look at the My Studio Page for a comparison between then and now!
Finally, the side by side shot of the two racks full of junk I don’t even have any more! Good riddance!
One of the key pieces of hardware I have picked up over the years (and I’ve had this for about a year now) is the Frontier Designs Tranzport. I use this in my recording studio as well as at work for video editing. It’s a great device and is an absolute joy to work with and once you have one, you will wonder how you EVER got by working without it. To provide some background, I had already “unwired” myself to some degree by way of a wireless mouse and keyboard but as we all know, that still required clicks and mousing to arm tracks in Sonar, dragging scroll bars left and right, up and down to either advance the time line or scroll through the tracks in a project, etc. etc. And, when recording vocals, guitars or any other type of track other than keys when I wasn’t sitting right in front of my producer desk, I was constantly walking over to the mouse (or to the makeshift location I had set it down) and having to click to stop the recording, or loop it and re-record. NOT very productive. Enter the Tranzport. Behold the tranzport!
I will not write down on my own its capabilities. Here they are taken straight from the Frontier site. It functions with all of the major DAW packages and is very affordable. I would encourage you to check it out. I use mine each and every time I am working.
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Frontier Design Group’s new TranzPort™ represents a revolutionary way to interact with your Windows® or Mac® digital audio workstation (DAW). Instead of being stuck in front of your computer to compose, record, and produce music/audio, TranzPort gives you the freedom to control DAW functions from anywhere in your studio.
TranzPort is easy to set up and use. Right out of the box, it’s compatible with popular DAW software such as Pro Tools®, Sonar™, Logic®, Cubase®, Digital Performer® and others. You can arm tracks, use transport controls, set markers, control pans, punch in/out, start loops, and more from TranzPort’s simple and intuitive interface. TranzPort is a bi-directional controller, so it also provides feedback to you on signal levels, timecode position, track names and more, via a backlit LCD display and LED indicators.
Unlike infrared remotes, you don’t need line-of-sight between the TranzPort and your computer. TranzPort uses high frequency radio waves (RF) to send and receive control data, and uses advanced coding and frequency-hopping techniques to operate without causing interference, even in the presence of other wireless devices.
Using TranzPort, you can…
Adjust monitor mix settings from inside an iso booth, or easily record instruments that are physically incompatible with your workspace (piano, drums, etc.)
Get creative in an environment away from the computer (living room, lounge, etc.) without having to run back and forth to the workstation
Control your recording while physically removing yourself from unwanted computer noise and monitor hum
Add a set of basic DAW controls to a second location in a studio (producer’s desk, separate room, etc.)
Remotely control your computer from onstage in live performance without messy cable runs
TranzPort is small and lightweight, runs on standard AA batteries, is mountable to a mic stand (using optional adaptor), and even has a footswitch input. As a very affordable alternative to keyboard/mouse DAW control, TranzPort offers control tools that will speed up your workflow.
Compatible with Windows 2000/XP and Mac OS X (10.2.8 and above), and requiring only one USB port for the small receiver, TranzPort is the remote DAW control solution for everyone from personal/project studios to large commercial recording facilities.
I just finished the final stages of production on a new cut called “Angels of the Night”. As with most writers, I never know where a song’s inspiration will come from – or when it will come. I had the music finished and fully produced for this piece for a good 3-4 weeks before the inspiration came and everything started flowing lyrically for this song from the primary message to the melodies. This is how I typically write – the music comes first and then I write the lyrics and create the melodies from that foundation. There are different schools of thought here but most believe that if you write lyrics and then try to set them to music it’s more difficult. I find that I can work more effectively with music first. As an example, I could have a bar in the chorus that is perfect for a verse that contains a total of seven syllables (chorus in Angels of the Night….”they’ll do all they can……to lift your wings up again“). It would be hard to pigeon-hole lyrics to this music if the chorus that was prewritten had, say, five syllables or ten. Are there people who can do it, and do it well? Absolutely!! All you need to do is look at Elton John and his lyricist Bernie Taupin. The difference here, however, is that Bernie is a talented musician in his own right so when he’s writing lyrics, he already has some general ideas in mind from a musical standpoint and he passes those on along with the finished lyric.
Anyway, due to recent health issues, I’m exposed to a lot of people who are dealing with some pretty dire circumstances and I learned about a boy being cared for by my Neurosurgeon (if you care to read the “back story”, you can find it here http://www.sacbee.com/health/story/169025.html ). She along with the team of doctors essentially saved his life. I view people like her as Godsent, thus the metaphor of angels. Someone in that office even made the statement “they are like angels – I don’t know how they do what they do”. The story about this boy inspired me to write this song. It started with him in mind but as with most songs, I tried to strike a balance between the personal and universal so everyone could identify with it and apply it to their own lives, in their own way. The metaphor of angels took on new meanings as I continued to write and let the song sink in.
Here’s the cut:
Angels of the Night
Verse 1
Have you ever wondered why
When the well was running dry
When it feels like borrowed time
How life can change on a dime
Have you ever wondered why
Through the days of cloudy skies
And the nights of no sleep
Why it’s hard to look before you leap
Intro Chorus
People come and go and some just fade
But angels they are always there
They help you face life unafraid
Chorus
The angels of the night
They’re here with you they’ll be your light
They’ll do all they can
To lift your wings up again
Please believe and just hold on
They’ll brighten the stars that fade at dawn
Raise you up so you can soar like an eagle flies
Angels of the night
Verse 2
Have you ever floated away
On a cloud above the fray
Looking down so all you see
Is how you’d like your life to be
Have you ever stopped to think
Why the world’s so out of sync
Why your friends think you’ve changed
Why your life’s been rearranged
I have consolidated this information along with additional information related to studio hardware under the My Studio page on my blog. Please be sure to visit that page for additional information regarding my studio.
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Like most of us who have home studios, I perform my own mastering. I’m definitely not an expert – I’m a songwriter and that’s what I love to do. However, this is a necessary part of the process and over the years I have come up with some techniques that seem to work pretty well. I was only able to do this purely out of reading a lot of books, articles and learning from others who can execute this part of the production process quite well. As I will never be able to equal the quality of what you would achieve by sending the native tracks out to a mastering facility, my final tracks do end up coming out with what I believe is a good balance between compression, eq, spatial qualities and that extra “sheen” that is needed to make the tracks shine. It’s also worth noting that I don’t have to pay the $300-$500 per track that a higher-end mastering facility would charge to make this happen and I’m fairly satisfied with the results.
First of all, to provide background I utilize Cakewalk Sonar Producer on the Windows platform. I use primarily a RAID (striped) disk array that is 1 terabyte in size. From a hardware standpoint, I use an EMU 1820m as the digital audio interface which receives my condensor mic, all guitars, basses and other instruments that require an XLR input, preamp or direct 1/4″ connection. The condensor mic I use for all vocals is a Studio Projects C1 – this is an amazing mic for the cost. You can read more about this mic by accessing this post in the blog. Enough said for purposes of this post.
In this post I will briefly run down what I do. I’ve tried all kinds of different plug-ins and processes but I found myself going back to a few core, staple processes that seem to be the right mix for what I am at least looking for. If you’d like to see the results, all of my tracks employ these tools and you can just go to http://www.markmillermusic.org/mp3/ and listen to a few of the songs.
First off, I work in the Sonar Producer environment on Windows. I have worked in this environment since it was DOS-based, thus my reasoning for not switching to Pro Tools or another system such as Cubase SuX. Following is a snapshot of a fully tracked out production I am currently working on in the Sonar environment
I use various plugins here, particularly the BBE Sonic Maximizer, Waves Renaissance deessers and TCWorks Native Reverb on vocal tracks as well as Antares Auto Tune. Here is a view from the mixing board in Sonar:
Once I have finished my work here, I mixdown the entire project (export it) into two (left and right) stereo tracks. Step two is to pull it into the mastering environment which for me is Wavelab. The mixdown process is simple for me. Most of my music is built upon soft-synths triggered by playing external keyboards. Guitars and so forth are plugged into preamps but other than that, it’s straight-forward. Effects are applied at the time of mix-down and any routing on the console above, such as the aux send you see, is also done at the time of mix-down.
Mastering
Here is the Wavelab environment with a song I am currently working on called “Angels of the Night” loaded up.
You’ll notice on the bottom I have metering loaded to monitor the mix. On the right I have the mastering section where you can load VST/DX plugins of your choice to apply to the digital audio file. I have a staple preset that I tend to use for all of my songs. Presets here work great. You can build a preset by loading all of the plugins you’d like to use for a preset, setting all of the dials and settings exactly as you’d like and then saving it. Later, you can call up that preset and everything is as you left it. It’s also very helpful if you decide to build presets song by song.
My primary preset consists of the following plugins:
Roger Nichols Detailer – for me this applies compression mainly and brings the amplification up without distorting. You obviously don’t want listeners having to crank up their stereo volume to 30 to hear your songs on CD. I have noticed that this plug-in makes a huge difference and it has a lot more capabilities than I am even tapping. I need to spend more time with it frankly. I have heard great things about Roger Nichols other plugins as well but I just haven’t had a chance to look into them. They are quite affordable as well so I would definitely take a look at them. You can check them out at http://www.rogernicholsdigital.com/
BBE Sonic Maximizer – this plug-in just gives the mix a certain sheen – you really have to hear it to tell the difference. If you turn it on and then hit bypass while the song is playing, you’ll know that you cannot live without it. The primary control that gives you that sheen is the “process” knob. You can also get some very nice low contour with the knob on the left and of course you have an output level knob. I typically just leave that pegged.
Izotope Ozone Mastering Tools – for me, I simply use the CD Mastering preset here. It employs a harmonic exciter, eq, loudness maximizer and multiband dynamics. Also, the loudness maximizer does not conflict with the Detailer compression as noted above. With most of my songs, I don’t normalize tracks in Sonar. I peg them up to about -1 o 0 and then export. Once out, I use the detailer and bring them up by about 3-4dB there and then use the CD Mastering preset here as is. There are many other presets available here and you can experiment with them. Izotope has an array of other plugins but if you look around on the web and in any mags, Ozone is the one that gets the press. It’s a staple.
Waves Deesser – As I mentioned, I deess my vocal tracks in Sonar, but once in the mastering environment I deess the entire mix with a “full mix” preset found in the Waves Renaissance Deesser. It will take any last artifacts out of the vocals and so forth leaving you with a clean mix – and it’s a great deesser. Some will over compensate and leave you with a mangled track. This does not.
Again, I am NOT a mastering master by any stretch of the imagination but I have been able to find some pretty good methods over the years of making my tracks sound pretty good, not by my own ears but based on the input of others so I at least know I’m doing some things right. Again, feel free to take a listen at http://www.markmillermusic.org/mp3 for the results. To hear the end result of the project you saw loaded up in Wavelab above, Angels of the Night, you can do that with the embedded player below:
Learning all of this took time – when I first started trying to do all of this I had tracks that sounded absolutely awful. Like anything, it takes practice and I still have a lot to learn. It would be great to have an engineer, producer, etc. etc. and just be able to focus on writing songs which is what I love but this is also something that I do actually enjoy – it’s just not the part that reeeeally inspires me.
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Roger Nichols Detailer – for me this applies compression mainly and brings the amplification up without distorting. You obviously don’t want listeners having to crank up their stereo volume to 30 to hear your songs on CD. 
BBE Sonic Maximizer – this plug-in just gives the mix a certain sheen – you really have to hear it to tell the difference. If you turn it on and then hit bypass while the song is playing, you’ll know that you cannot live without it. The primary control that gives you that sheen is the “process” knob. You can also get some very nice low contour with the knob on the left and of course you have an output level knob. I typically just leave that pegged.
Izotope Ozone Mastering Tools – for me, I simply use the CD Mastering preset here. It employs a harmonic exciter, eq, loudness maximizer and multiband dynamics. Also, the loudness maximizer does not conflict with the Detailer compression as noted above. With most of my songs, I don’t normalize tracks in Sonar. I peg them up to about -1 o 0 and then export. Once out, I use the detailer and bring them up by about 3-4dB there and then use the CD Mastering preset here as is. There are many other presets available here and you can experiment with them. Izotope has an array of other plugins but if you look around on the web and in any mags, Ozone is the one that gets the press. It’s a staple.
Waves Deesser – As I mentioned, I deess my vocal tracks in Sonar, but once in the mastering environment I deess the entire mix with a “full mix” preset found in the Waves Renaissance Deesser. It will take any last artifacts out of the vocals and so forth leaving you with a clean mix – and it’s a great deesser. Some will over compensate and leave you with a mangled track. This does not.
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