It’s February, already. Dammit.

I’ve been stuck on the drums in Future Imperfect for ages, succeeding only in making tiny incremental advances. Not working. 

I’m not a drummer, but when I flail wildly with the sticks on the old rubber pads, sometimes great stuff happens that couldn’t have been done on the step programming/pressing the keys on the synth technique. And I’m greedy. I want the coolness, all the way.

But this incremental thing isn’t working. There’s some drum fills and hi-hat stuff that I can’t do at 135bpm.

Therefore, I’m trying something slightly different. I’ve copied the entire project’s timeline and dropped the time signature to 120 bpm, and I’ve got a simple guide click track that follows all the 4/4 : 7/8 changes with beat hints, and I’ve replaced the new bass track (which rocks, by the way, no problem playing that in time) with a cloned MIDI version and dropped that into the new project – instant 120bpm guide bass to play along with (I know, I could stretch the original audio track using tools like Audition or even the built-in tech in SONAR, whatever it’s called, to get it to 120bpm, but this quantized MIDI bass track is working better for me, so there.)

If it breaks the block, it’ll be worth it.Now I’m trying to record the drums again, but at 120 bpm instead of 135. When I’m done, I’ll just copy the MIDI notes back into the original project, and hopefully we’ll have an excellent drum track, at the right tempo, that meshes with the existing bass audio and other instruments.

I’ve refreshed the Head in the Game mp3 on this site. The Chapman Stick has been retired in favor of the Carvin 5 string bass, processed using Amplitude 3 the Line6 POD 2.0.

I think it is much improved. While I was mixing the bass I improved the balance of some of the other instruments (most notably turning down the jangly rhythm guitar in some places).

Updated 14.April 2013:

Also re-did some of the drums. And re-recorded the bass. And all the guitars. And the lead monosynth. Then I remixed it.

For the last twelve months or so, I’ve been riding this big rig of musical energy that just kept moving forward, but it seems to have run out of steam. Future Imperfect sits on the hard drive, begging for me to finish up the drums which are only half-done, and I’m not able to push myself to do it.

My experience has been that if the muse isn’t there, don’t bother. I’m never happy with the results. So, as the new year looms on the horizon, I’m coming to terms with the fact that the revised schedule for completing album #1 is going to have to be, um, revised.

Still, that’s what plans are for. Revising.

All is not lost, however. I’ve recently picked up the Bass again, partly because I discovered my nephew was getting into the instrument and I wanted to review some reference material I was planning on sending him.

Then I started playing with Guitar Rig 4, trying to emulate the famous Chris Squire bass sound from the Fragile era. Some success, too. After running through some classic riffs, I loaded up the Head in the Game project in SONAR and started playing along…

Hmm.

As you know, I hate re-doing material that is supposedly finished and complete (/sarcasm) but I think the muse might be telling me that I need to put a little bit of work in on this.

Oh, and the Tone is in the Fingers, people.

November was eaten up by being sick and taking a couple of weeks in New Zealand for a family visit. Then I got sick again.

Now it’s back to working on Future Imperfect, re-recording the drums.

I’m so close, I can taste it. After finishing up Into The Shade, I moved on to Interlude #1, re-recording all the guitars and replacing the string pad with a string quartet (thanks to Dimension Pro).

I’ve left Slaying The Dragon as-is for now – but it is only 70% complete so I will have to come back to it eventually – and have jumped into Future Imperfect, re-recording the bass; revising the “trumpet” synth with CS80V goodness; and re-doing the drums with my current SPD-20 + Addictive Drums combo.

Oh, and Cakewalk released a new version of their flagship digital audio workstation software, SONAR X2. I didn’t expect to adopt it (because I hated the X1 release) but I’ve been impressed with the changes – look out for my review/criticism write up in the near future.

One other thing: I’ve decided to give Strange But True another look. I think I rushed the process of review earlier this year, and when I hear it in context of other work I’ve finished recently, it’s not holding its own. That’s depressing for me (see the first sentence in this post) but I think it is worth the extra effort.