Next Step Backwards [3rd album COMPLETED]

by **ntbullock** » January 24th, 2006, 1:37 pm

Jeromy... is... alive.

Talked to him today and we are going to try and shoot for Thursday and Sunday to track these last two songs. "You're Gonna Hate Me" is done except for the drums, so I should be done with it shortly afterwards. "The Weaker Man" only has a guide track for the drums, so there's a good bit to do.

Today I'm going to work on the fifth iteration of the masters and work on the website some more.

by **ntbullock** » January 25th, 2006, 12:15 am

I've got the website to a point where there's not too much left to plug in. A friend helped me find a decent Flash MP3 player that actually suits my needs:

http://www.ntbullock.com/nsb/player.html

I've been working on the masters. A couple tracks have taken a step backwards from the other day, and I'm trying to fix them... again. Push, pull...

by **ntbullock** » January 25th, 2006, 11:00 pm

I'm on my 7th round with some of these songs. "Love And Be Loved" has proved the most tedious of the bunch.

by **ntbullock** » January 26th, 2006, 6:20 pm

Today I tried something else with my two problem songs at the moment - "Sugarcoat" & LABL. I've even bounced out problem snippets with different EQ settings to try and fig it out. None of them worked, but some were slightly better than others. Maybe that'll be something to work with. It can be a little frustrating, but I'll get it one way or another.

We should record drums for "The Weaker Man" tonight.

by **ntbullock** » January 27th, 2006, 3:05 am

We got the drums recorded onto Jeromy's ADAT, but had a problem getting the files off. Something went wrong with the unit? Tomorrow morning we'll have to "rig" it off there the hard way. Well, I already tried taking one of the hot-swappable IDE drives out and extracting but to no avail. It's always something. At least Jeromy came through this evening, and Sunday seems pretty solid, too.

Right now I'm trying to finish the masters of these last two songs.

by **ntbullock** » January 27th, 2006, 8:17 pm

Jeromy was able to get the tracks off the ADAT early this morning. I went by and got them, mixed them down, and brought them into the song. I've re-recorded my guitar track, and Eric will re-record the bass track tomorrow.

No luck with those two masters and from playing a CD in Jeromy's studio I can see that more will have to be done to all of them possibly. Am I getting tired of the mastering phase? Yes. Will being tired get it done? No.

by **ntbullock** » January 28th, 2006, 2:02 am

I tightened up some wah and modest "solo" guitar that I recorded earlier today [yesterday by now - I always ignore the time in the wee hours]. TWM is sounding pretty good. I think it'll be a stand-out track on the album.

by **ntbullock** » January 29th, 2006, 4:16 am

Eric came over this afternoon and laid down the bass on TWM. I put down a little more guitar. We spent some time editing the drums. I edited the bass line tonight. This song is complicated because of the rhythm and syncopation. I also sang the vocals three times. Tomorrow I'll go through that and see if any is usable. My throat has been a little sore lately, and I wanted to take advantage of it not being too bad tonight. I'm getting exhausted. Not much longer...

by **ntbullock** » January 29th, 2006, 7:10 pm

I edited some of the vocals this afternoon for TWM.

We met up at Jeromy's and got the drums for "You're Gonna Hate Me". It didn't take too long, and we were able to fix a couple of minor issues we had with drums on "The Weaker Man". Corey's coming over in a bit, and he's gonna help me edit the drums. It's always easier to catch timing issues with the drummer there. Plus, I gotta get these two songs finished quickly.

Jeromy also told me that his subwoofer had been messed with when we listened to some of the mastered tracks and that that attributed to its sound the other day. That's a good thing. I might not be as far off as I thought. Here's hoping.

Back to editing YGHM. TWM is going to be put on hold for a day to get this song completed and into the mastering stage.

by **ntbullock** » January 30th, 2006, 2:36 am

Corey and I got the drums edited rather quickly tonight. We added a little shaker to the song, and I went to finishing up the mix. It's sounding good. I went ahead and bounced it out and brought it in for mastering. I know I'll have to make some minor changes, but I'm a little ahead of schedule on this one.

Now on to "The Weaker Man"...

by **ntbullock** » January 30th, 2006, 9:51 pm

Ahem, ... made a couple minor changes to YGHM and moved onto TWM. Today I re-sang TWM twice. I used mostly today's vocals for the main track. When you're playing the song acoustically, which is most of the time, you tend to sing differently to compliment. Now the song is punched up and electric, so you have to change modes a little. It sounded sterile on the other tracks by comparison. I already patched a few things that I couldn't pull out of any of the five tracks. I've even sung the backing vocals, which came VERY easy. Very fun to sing to. Now I've got to edit, chop, push, pull, and synch the vocals. Yeah, all of that.

I hope to have this track somewhere decent by Wednesday.

by **ntbullock** » February 1st, 2006, 12:50 am

I think I worked for about 8 hours on the song yesterday. For some reason I calculated it. I worked on it some more today. Eric came over this evening, and we worked on it together. We added some more guitar and percussion elements. It's shaping up for real, yo. It's gettin' pimpy. I'm gonna try and tidy up what we recorded and patch some minor vocal elements. Another night working into the wee hours of morn. This has been a nice break from the grueling mastering process.

by **ntbullock** » February 1st, 2006, 5:15 pm

Worked for about two more hours after my post last night. I got some good work done. This morning I put a call into Jeromy. This song needed some lead guitar work, and I definitely wasn't going to attempt it. Jeromy is a great musician, and he laid it down with ease. I've tooled around with it this afternoon. This song is going to be the only funky rock song on the album, but somehow it fits in. I think there's a good bit of variation/deviations on this album. I should have a good mix by tomorrow or late tonight. I'm going to rush this one into the mastering phase along with YGHM.

by **ntbullock** » February 1st, 2006, 10:12 pm

I've got a good mix so far on TWM, so I'm mastering and burning a disc to work from. I've made some super minor changes to a couple other songs, and I still have issues with "Sugarcoat" and LABL to contend with. At least I'm on the last stretch, and I can listen to all the songs completed.

by **ntbullock** » February 3rd, 2006, 12:47 am

I made changes and burned another disc. I may have fixed "Sugarcoat" this go 'round. TWM and YGHM surprisingly don't need much work for the mastering phase. It's coming along.

by **ntbullock** » February 3rd, 2006, 4:47 pm

Joy. I think I've finally fixed LABL. It only took about 13 attempts to get it right. Wow. I've learned a bit in the process, though. The mastering and final tweaking is coming along very nicely at this point. I may be done pretty soon.

by **ntbullock** » February 4th, 2006, 4:01 am

Still making small adjustments, but it is getting down to minutia. Tonight I started working out the printing aspect. You'd be surprised how much time it takes to set up all the printing. I made some headway there. If things go well, like they seem to be, then I'll start physically producing a finished product Sunday or Monday.

by **ntbullock** » February 5th, 2006, 2:59 pm

We had a horrible practice last night for next week's gig. Mmm, boy, was it laughable. I broke a string on both the electric and the acoustic and my throat wouldn't play nice. It was a scene, man. It was slightly productive, though. We just had to laugh. Hopefully, we "got it all out," and won't present that publically - 'cause damn. ;}

Anyway, I've gone back today and made quite a few minor timing adjustments on "Out On A Limb". They were small, but kept buggin' me. Today may be the day that I produce a finished disc.

I've also been designing a flyer to put up in the shops that will carry the disc.

by **ntbullock** » February 6th, 2006, 2:09 am

Printing, burning, labeling, cutting...

by **ntbullock** » February 6th, 2006, 3:12 am

The disc is available for ordering or downloading, but hasn't been officially announced on the site yet.

http://www.ntbullock.com/nsb/

by **ntbullock** » February 8th, 2006, 11:25 pm

I sent out an email to the list today and fixed a batch of discs before they went out to the public. There was a glitch. It's always something.

by **ntbullock** » February 12th, 2006, 6:35 pm

So, it's been a few days. I've been very busy trying to make sure the disc issue was taken care of. I had to make a special trip out of town to get some blank CDs to replace the "bad" ones [it was a rare track issue]. I had ordered some black-bottom blank CDs last week, but of course they come the morning after the trip. Figures.

Regardless, three vendors have the CD: Good Karma, Sound Shop, and Spiers Music in McComb.

The show went well for the most part, but my voice did give out after awhile - as usual. We gotta have our weaknesses too, don't we? Sold some CDs. Made good tips. It was a successful night overall.

I'm going to have to make another batch of discs soon.

by **ntbullock** » February 18th, 2006, 2:26 pm

Getting some really nice feedback here and there. I've also teamed up with David Houry in Cleveland who's going to try and help me with a music video for "Death By Luxury." I hope this works out. It'll take a moment to create because there's going to be animation throughout the video. We shall see...

by **ntbullock** » February 27th, 2006, 2:44 am

David and I have been corresponding about the animation. It's coming along slowly but surely. We haven't gotten to the storyboard stage yet, though.

by **ntbullock** » April 22nd, 2006, 1:12 pm

David's been working on other projects to make time for mine, so not much has been done lately.

by **ntbullock** » June 2nd, 2006, 12:41 pm

David picked back up with the project last week or so. He's out of school for the summer. He has sent me some more shots and ideas.

by **ntbullock** » July 22nd, 2006, 5:51 pm

David ahs been busy, but is still working. I've talked with him a couple times and we've tried to put the finishing touches on the actions of the animation. He sent me something today that was cool. It's taking forever, but I think it'll be a nice addition to the site. It'll be great for his portfolio. He's got some real talent.

by **ntbullock** » July 26th, 2006, 1:56 pm

David called me last night and we chatted for a little bit. He's excited about how it's shaping up. Maybe it'll be done by the end of August. Here's hoping.

Here's a preliminary snag:

by **ntbullock** » August 30th, 2006, 4:17 am

It's getting close to being finished. It'll be done in early September it looks like.

by **ntbullock** » September 24th, 2006, 10:08 am

The animation should be finished, and I'm now waiting on David to send me the uncompressed files so I can put the finishing touches on it.

Next Step Backwards [3rd album COMPLETED]

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