11/25/10 Happy Holidays from the Womack household!
11/10/10
11/03/10 Just waiting for the hard copy CDs to arrive.
10/28/10HERE is the page for Cool Worship on iTunes. Look HERE for the album on Amazon. Only a couple of days more for the CDs to begin to appear.
10/26/10 And the album is now up on CDBaby, HERE , as well as iTunes. Today, we created "stems" (drums, background vocals, keys, guitars, etc.) for each of the songs so that the stems can be combined as needed for various live performance situations.
10/24/10 The digital delivery has been made and the files are working through the distribution system. They should show in about two weeks. The physical master and art have been delivered to the manufacturer. The CD shoud be in the warehouses as of 10/28.
10/20/10 The physical CD master images and physical reference copies have arrived from England. I'll be reviewing them tomorrow.
Jeff Pesche's Mastering Room, Abbey Road Studios
10/18/10I think the mastering phase is complete (crossed fingers). I've updated the page containing the clips to add a new one and you can now compare the final mixes to the Abbey Road Masters. Look HERE for those.
Geoff Pesche, Abbey Road Mastering Engineer
10/15/10 While working through the mastering process yesterday, we discovered a bit of one of the songs we wanted to change. It was a small bit, but we edited it, remixed it, and sent it off to the mastering house to be remastered. Today we continued the process. I have to say that engineer Geoff Pesche has been brilliant to work with, and very patient.
10/14/10 While we work through the mastering, I've been authorized to share excerpts containing some of my work from the upcoming album with you. Look HERE for those.
10/13/10 We digested the initial mastering from Abbey Road and asked for a second round, please, with some notes. They are working well with us and we appreciate it!
10/12/10 Believe it or not, Abbey Road completed the mastering yesterday. Voile'! I slipped over to the studio at 6:50am this morning (while on vacation) and started the download. When I checked at noon, the downloads were completed. Time to listen.
10/11/10 I spent the last two days recovering from the long weeks capped off by the final seventy-five hour week. Fatigue ended up feeling like the flue.
10/09/10 10:30pm The uploads to Abbey Road Studios are complete! Technology. I was treated to eight hours of watching the upload clock tick over. There was one stop-down while Abbey Road did site maintenance. Thank goodness I was there to restart the upload. Now to format the job and get the ball rolling.
10/09/10 2:30pm The mixes are completed and the pre-masters are exported in three forms: Final mix, final mix with vocals pushed up by 3db for mastering purposes, and MP3 reference for the production staff. Now begins the long process of uploading all the material to Abbey Road Studios for mastering.
10/08/10 (Posted next AM) First thing this morning the guest vocalist's track arrived and we began integrating it into the song. By the end of the day and a couple of proofs, we had a mix for the song. We spent the majority of the day dealing with tweak requests from the label and focus groups. There's only one song left to mix.
10/07/10 (Posted next AM) Big day of mixing at the studio. We finished up the mixes for five more songs, bringing us to eight of eleven, with one more nearly finished and awaiting a vocal from a guest vocalist in another city via FTP. I also dragged my my lap steel kit back from home (where it was never unpacked from last week) for overdubs, proving it is never too late for a little sweetening. Then there was liaising with Abbey Road Studios for the mastering and getting reviews from the label. Busy, busy.
10/06/10 (Posted next AM) Today we finalized editing for most of the songs and began mixing. By the sixteenth hour of the work day we had mixed three songs and two of those mixes had been reviewed and approved by the label. The album has eleven songs, so we are on our way. Interestingly, the three songs were the executive producer's favorite, the producer's favorite, and my favorite, in that order. I don't want to give the impression that we spent only a short time on each of the mixes. The process has been an organic one: as we've overdubbed and edited, we've also been roughing-in the mixes. I won't say the actual mix process has been a formality on these songs, but a lot of the leg work has been done along the way. More Starbucks, please!
10/05/10 Today was the big day to organize and prioritize. The checklist came in handy enough. We spent some time liaising with our South American guitarist and then began the long haul of timing, tuning, and editing, to prep as many songs as possible for mixing. We need to start spitting out mixes for label approval tommorrow.
10/04/10 Three big tasks today: Time and tune two more songs, drum replacement on one more, and editing guitar parts on a third. A couple of songs are nearing completion. This evening I built an Exel spreadsheet checklist with spaces for work to be done and stages completed. It should help us organize the task.
10/03/10 A down day. We are all pretty blitzed so we are taking a day off. Back to work tomorrow!
10/02/10 Reward time! Today, in order to keep my sanity (and for a pleasant break from timing and tuning), I took the guitar synth to the studio for lead overdubs and synth pads on one of the songs. I started with guitar synth to play the leads but ended up running the guitar directly into the console for a pristine clean lead sound instead. It just fit. When all else fails, simplicity. When the overdubs were done, producer Stuart quipped, "A bit o' Steely Dan there." And he was right. A touch of compression and some reverb and we're off.
10/02/10 Yesterday began with downloading and importing the forty-two tracks of BGV choir for one of the songs. From there it was building and exporting two (instead of three) rough mixes for our guitarista in Brazil to work with. All done and squirted out to him as MP3s and delivered via email.
10/01/10 Yesterday I began timing and tuning on all the new vocals we recorded while Deborah was here and exported a second mix for the team in Germany to use in recording the BGVs. Dario, the executive producer/label owner, left for home in the ugly weather yesterday but both Deb's local plane and her international flight out of JFK were cancelled due to the tropical storm that ran up the coast. Producer Stuart spent a good portion of the day yesterday dealing with her logistics. It's crunch time for the production team (Stuart and myself) now as we hustle to edit and mix the album for delivery to Abbey Road for mastering.
Stuart, Deb, Dario
09/30/10 Vocal recording here at the mothership has been completed! We've got one background vocal recording in progress in Germany and another in Nashville. We'll be shipping mixes for three songs to Brazil for a hot guitarist to overdub on. I'll probably bring in the guitar synth for one song soon. Meanwhile, timing and tuning on the vocal parts continues apace.
09/29/10 Yesterday we overdubbed lead vocals and today will be the last day for that. We also downloaded a choir of background vocals from an FTP site in Germany. There were twenty-four tracks of vocals that combined to make up an antiphonal choir behind our lead vocalist and it is beautiful. We also entertained the head of the record label and played him our roughs. And a good time was had by all.
09/28/10 The last two days have been a combination of finishing up lead vocal overdubs with our artist who flew in from Europe and prepping scratch mixes to go out to Germany, Nashville, and South America, for guest artists to contribute to the album. Two more days of vocal overdubs to go. Interestingly enough, yesterday our talent found the temperature of the rooms (69-70'F) cold enough to make her voice freeze up. The day before we plied her with lattes and her voice stayed warm. We'll have to think about it again.
09/25/10 Big day performing and recording guitar overdubs, yesterday. I ended up exhausted and falling into bed when I was finished.
09/22/10 Spent the morning building effects for an art rock piece, including layering several layers of background and improvisational voices. That was fun! Spent the afternoon going blind replacing and re-timing drum parts. Aaagggg!!! It's very precise and demanding work. It turned out nicely, however.
09/21/10 After a day of pitch correction at the studio, I spent the evening working up lap steel parts for the album in the rehearsal room.
09/15/10 Here's where I'm living right now...
09/13/10 Back in the game: Doing cleanup on vocals for an album.
09/11/10 Remembering 9/11/01. After a few days of recovery from minor surgery, I'm looking forward to getting my head back in the game.
08/29/10 I've done a little visual rennovation on the site. Something good always seems to come from a little time off, eh? Hope you enjoy!
08/28/10 I'm on vacation, sunning myself at the beach. In that spirit, I offer this:
08/18/10 Spent the day recording a rap tune, of all things. It was lighthearted, and fun!!!
08/12/10 And here's the studio door project at the midpoint: The two existing doors have been relocated to the edges of the casings and the thresholds have been widened to include the entire casings. Gaskets have been refreshed as needed. Control room door is left, studio door right.
08/11/10 Here's another studio survivor: A stereo bus meter turret from a ca. 1984 Neotek Series I console. Note the then state-of-the-art LED ladder middle pair of meters flanked by V.U.s, and the oak case. I mixed a few products staring into these meters. After the sale of the console, this turret floated around the facility looking for a home. I saved it from a date with Mr. Crusher, just for old time sake.
08/10/10 The work continues today, updating the acoustic doors in the studio. Because we are working around sessions, it's a bite at a time. The pic above shows the first double door having been set. The entrance "tunnel" is half-cased at this point.
08/09/10 It is a work day in the studio today. We've got a carpenter working on the sound-proof doors.
08/02/10"illegitimi non carborundum est"
07/29/10 From 7/09/10: Here's a pic someone snapped over my shoulder through the studio glass while we were shooting the music videos.
07/21/10 Overdubbed lap steel to the soundtrack of a video presentation today. It was a last minute call but was lots o' fun!
07/17/10 I ran across a 1940s-vintage Supro lap steel in a vintage guitar store last week and decided to create a little photo essay on it, HERE.
07/09/10 We just wrapped up overdubbing vocals on some songs and shooting music videos with a lovely gal from Germany. The sessions were lots of fun. We'll be editing and comping the results next week.
07/01/10 On a whim I tried a new method to improve my rotary-speaker sound in my multi-amp electric guitar rig. As a result of success there, I've altered the rig a little. You can see my new signal flow as an update at the bottom of the Multi-Amping page HERE.
06/29/10 Mike Rowe of Discovery's Dirty Jobs has another interesting principle: "Beware of experts." I'm an expert. Makes you think.
06/28/10 I recently set out to find a Fender Strat. You can see the results of my search HERE.
06/21/10 "Don't follow you passion, but always bring it with you." - Mike Rowe of Discovery's Dirty Jobs
06/11/10 Mmmm... I don't mean for the site to become an obituary, but more news: Tony Peluso has died. Who was Tony Peluso? Click HERE to find out. If you are a guitarist, it's worth your while.
05/24/10 File it under "May I suggest?": Jeff Beck's Emotion and Commotion album is out, featuring really nice melodic electric guitar work with strings. 'Tis a lovely recording as well, done at Trevor Horn's Sarm Studios. For more info read Jeff's interview in June's Guitar Player Magazine.
05/01/10 I am distressed to hear that Will Owsley, side man guitarist for several artists, producer, and engineer, and one of the folks who inspired me to look into the Gibson ES-335, passed away yesterday. R.I.P.
04/30/10 Yesterday I was booked to a scoring session with an interesting and beautiful instrument called the "Qanun" (Kha-NOON). Here's a pic:
04/26/10 Yesterday we had a Release/cast party for the latest song recorded. Lot's o' fun!
04/26/10 Here's the Calrec Artemis console we demo'd for one of our control rooms.
04/21/10 Is it possible that the mix is done? Fingers crossed.
04/12/10 After a week of vacation, I'm back to work and my head is back into the last touch ups, overdubs, and mix of the latest song.
04/01/10 A little lesson in improvisation under pressure: On 03/24/10's session I found myself without a slide and needing to create some special effects (an ascending figure) on guitar. I looked around for something like a bottleneck and couldn't find anything so I resorted to ceramic! Namely, a coffee cup. I placed the guitar on a stand on a counter and faced it with the cup, then worked on the figures. The picture below was from that situation. I found that the smooth glazed sides and the rough, raw bottom ring of the cup each yielded interesting and useful sounds for the application.
03/24/10 It was Red Guitar Day at the studio today! Actually, it was guitar overdub day. I took my EBow and did some stellar overdubs on the current song.
03/13/10 As promised earlier, I've put together a page describing my experiences with the classic Maestro Echoplex EP-3 tape echo unit, then and now, and explaining its operation and some maintenance and tweaks. You can visit it HERE.
03/13/10 I got bold and mounted my "Contact Me' link out to the main menus. Elminate the "Xs" provided to (hopefully) spoof the 'bots, in order to direct email to my box.
03/09/10 Guitar overdub day. I took the old Les Paul in to work.
03/02/10 Up to my eyeballs in music sessions. Exhausted, and loving it!
02/27/10 Inspired by the article on echoes and delays I posted on 01/03/10 and missing my old Echoplex EP-3 from the '70s, I tracked down another '70s Echoplex and have begun restoring and enjoying it. Expect an article soon.
02/17/10 Recording musicians often wonder whether mastering is an important part of releasing an album. I've encountered a dramatic example of the difference a mastering job can make and put together a page with a lesson and discussion, HERE
02/08/10 Snow killed my mailbox post. To be fair, termites had put it on its last legs. The wet snow filled the runnels from the termites and then froze, breaking the post in half at the bottom. No post, no snail-mail. Uh-huh. In the meantime, I've cobbled together a fix that will make me eligible for mail until I can borrow my wifes's minivan to pick up a new post. The fix revolves around a leftover chunk of 2x10, three deck screws, and a 3" clamp. Pix:
Don't laugh. I'm rather proud of my yankee ingenuity. Only I'm from the South.
01/03/10 Mystified by the various and sundry types of guitar echoes and delays available? Go HERE for help decoding this subject!
01/01/10 Happy New Year! May the Lord bless you all as you greet another year, and may all your endeavors go well!
In order to expedite loading of the news page, it has been broken up into multiple pages. Previous news posts can be accessed HERE.
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