Back in Black - AC/DC

Remastered by Ted Jensen (no date). Engineered by Brad Samuelson. Produced by Mutt Lang. Just listening to this on the studio monitors in the half-refitted studio and it sounds, honestly, truly awesome! It is among one of the best engineered CD's I've listened to and I will most certainly reference it in mixing the heavier tracks from SIB. Exemplary.

Another One by the Neck, of the Neck!

Really pleased today. A couple of nights ago I finally put the finishing touches to Hangman (formerly Hangman Song). The song has undergone some heavy development since its acoustic roots (we always preferred acoustic guitar and double-bass). That said, the track always had huge unrealised potential (Tim tends to be modest about this but I've always felt it warranted a huge investment of time; not because it needed changing but rather because it needed more quality accompaniment that simple acoustic instruments couldn't do alone).

The track is now between pre-Master and final Master and looks set to weigh in at DR11 which seats it firmly in the middle of of the dynamic range preferred for this genre of song - and a very long way from the loudness war, I'm pleased to say!

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Hi guys.


It's been far too long since our last appearance here and that is unforgivable. On the face of it, making music is easy - and it has never been easier with the advent of virtual guitarists & drummers, ROMplers, samplers VST's. To us though, there are two kinds of music: the kind that anyone with a sequencer and a handful of samples can churn out in their lunch-time and the kind that has emerged from thoughtful construction, criticism, adaptation or even subversion. The kind you bop along to, wasted and divest of personality or the kind that imbues emotion and reaction - one that evokes a response other than jumping up and down filled with E's.


I won't pretend to be a master songwriter - I believe that only popular opinion can bestow such an honour and one I/we will always strive to attain and most likely given our nature, one we would never assign to ourselves! That's not to say we don't believe in our music, we certainly do - and we hope with every fibre in our being that you will too. We want you to love what we do, as much as we do and for that reason we won't release anything until it meets our expectations. And that's where the story really begins.


I (Nige) must confess that revamping some of the old Penny material to align it to more contemporary sensibilities has proven more demanding that I had first anticipated. As a guitarist through and through, with an unfaltering phobia of black and white keys (lasting my lifetime so far) has not put me in the most appropriate position to press forward with evolving Penny into SIB. There's only so much guitars alone can achieve and this has meant a steep learning curve of music technologies I had previously intentionally steered well-clear of - and this takes time. I now realise that an autumn release we first anticipated is far from realistic. I can only apologies to our Penny fans for that delay.


I don't wish to bleat on about circumstances so just a short side-note (excuse?). Circumstances at the studio have been far from ideal with a local disturbance which has kept me away from the music for days at a time and this only adds to the delay - and the frustration. To adequately deal with that problem has further eaten away at my time, now amounting to weeks and this is quite unacceptable. Unfortunately it was necessary though. I do promise however to pursue the path of musicness to the best of my ability and press on with the tasks in hand. SIB's enforced 'vacation' is coming to an end. 


We'll keep you posted.

Moving forward

It's been a turbulent few days at a personal level and this has impacted the progress of SIB's "recovery" of the Penny material. On a brighter note, Cubase 6 has dropped through the letterbox and I'm away to play silly buggers with the computer to make the transition from an older version!

Tim and I have talked though our priorities on the Penny material and hopefully in the not-too-distant future, there will be some freebies of songs that we have elected to not publish commercially. We'll keep yer posted!

Chamber of Secrets? Nay, Horrors!

Finally having the chance to pull all of the archived Penny material out of storage, I figured that now was as good-a-time as any to dither the 44.1 tracks, layers and samples over to 96/24 - good job I've got a few spare TB of storage eh? But what a trip down memory lane, I can practically smell that No.7 Black oozing out of the discs! 

All joking aside, there's no shortage of material but boy is there some work to be done; there were one or two Sharp Intake of Breath ;o)  and there's no doubt that the trash can will fill up along the way, too. SIB is not about resurrecting old material but rather expressing some of the great ideas that Tim and I had in a new, refreshing and relevant way. Don't fret, the 44.1 originals are there only as guide tracks for the much higher resolution replacements. I've already dumped some 50GB of material from unused takes, mixes and samples.

With all of this nostalgia though it's important to not lose sight of the need to press boundaries and develop new material which clearly identifies SIB and distinguishes it from its predecessor which always remained a work in progress. That's not to say that the music wasn't good but rather that it was not always expressed in the most effective way. You can rest assured, this time round we will give it our all to make it the best it can be!

We'll keep you posted as to the progress and let you know when there are snips and clips to be had from our contemporary efforts!

Nearly there for new tunes.

Hey folks, things are nearly all in place for some new original tracks to be worked on. Got 5 compositions ready for lyrics and the feel is a little different from  the older Penny material. At least 2 tracks will definitely be of the “electric” variety, and 1 could be nothing else but an acoustic.

 

Watch this space for more news, and keep those ears on hold.

The Ups, Downs and Sideways of Music

Hi folks! It's been a day or two since my last post. They say that no news is good news and until this morning I would have agreed. Tim and I finally sorted out our misbehaving OneNote sync'ing, allowing us to merge our thoughts in a much more creative way, considering we are separated by the Atlantic! More tracks have been laid down to replace the now ageing layers and samples of the older Penny material and we're exploring the imagery needed for our identity. At this stage there's no big rush to get things done so all the options are being explored.


On the flip-side, my outboard 192kHz /32 bit Helixboard has suffered a coronary and gone to the great mixing desk in the sky. Not before nearly inheriting some flying faders (through the window to be exact).... I've been able to mash up something to play material on but alas recording has stopped dead until it's fixed or replaced; never again will be foolish enough to "master" at 44.1kHz (why did I ever think that was possible?)

The Variax JTV-89 is proving a veritable powerhouse of variety and flexibility, so much so the Fender Blacktop is gathering dust, to my great shame. I'm sure I'll find a song to use it with sooner or later before it gathers up its gig-bag and thumbs a lift outa here. It's not a bad instrument, far from it but the Tyler Variax is just so mush more, if ya know what I mean.


Ah well, it's time to reinforce those callouses on the digits of my left hand, we wouldn't want me going soft now would we? ;o)