Week 2 - Preoccupations

There are few things I enjoy more than a well kept Pro Tools session. When the clips match the track colours, all of the drums are a nice shade of red (my go to drum colour), everything is subgrouped and sent to a bus, all the effects live after the Master Fader. I actually just really enjoy looking at it. If my sessions don't look like this I actually feel uncomfortable. It's this approach to Pro Tools that I try to take to other aspects of my work at SAE and why I think I'll be ok in managing my workload this Tri. I understand there is a lot but it's the little things like this, the details, the minutia, that make the bigger picture a lot easier to deal with and overall more appealing.

I am actually really excited about everything we have coming up this Tri. I think the group that I am in for the intensive projects work really well together. We are hammering our Neve project at the moment. Live sound should be really interesting. For many many years the sound guy has been my enemy, when they really should have been my friend. Some of them are friends but for the most part musicians and front of house folks have a strained relationship. I think this will give me a new appreciation for what it is they actually do out there. The post element should be just as fun. We were talking today about what we might do and it's looking like we'll recreate a classic scene from The Simpsons.

The podcast is really exciting as well. Having done a whole season last year I am really looking forward to working on it with everyone and getting to do it on a subject I am really passionate about. Once again the group we have put together for this project is really great. Everyone seems to be happy with the roles and understands what it is they have to do. I am sure we'll come across our stressful moments down the track but I can see everyone handling it all quite well.

Here's a rough idea of where we are at so far with our Neve project. I am tracking bass tomorrow night and vocals are happening next week.

Also I revisited an old record I haven't listened to for a while and gave it more of a critical listen. The production on this thing is fucking wild. There are so many moving parts. Each instrument constantly evolves from section to section in each song, often the guitars will change completely from verse to chorus and then go somewhere completely different tone wise when the song goes back to a verse. Some songs have the guitars just turn into synths instead for some parts, it's nuts. For such a layered record it's not messy either. It's just a constant moving, flowing handful of songs. It's lofi and noisey as fuck but because there has obviously been so much thought and consideration put into it, there isn't just a messy wash of sound. I scoured the internet to try and find out who produced because in none of there interviews did they mention who or where it was tracked, just that it was done at some barn in middle of nowhere Canada. Turns out a guy called Graham Walsh produced and mixed it. I found his credits list on Discogs so I think I am going to spend the next couple of weeks thrashing his other records and pinching his tricks.

Anyway, the record is Viet Cong by Viet Cong. Who recently changed their name to Preoccupations because turns out Canada has a huge Vietnamese population that got very, very upset about the name. It's kind of like calling your band "The Nazis".