Back when Badmotorfinger was the shit for me, I transcribed the drum music for it. Sorry that it’s hand written and sloppy, but I did this in the early ’90s. Enough, said. If someone knows of a notation software that does a drumset staff format (cymbals top, drums middle, bass drums bottom) right out of the box, plz let me know about it.

Go get it.

Adon Olam

How is this awesome feat of metal put together? First there’s a vision. Then there’s practice. And more practice. And more practice. Then there’s the draft recording. Remember, as I play all the instruments, I never actually hear them all together till I actually make the demo. Luckily at this stage of my music “career,” what I hear / envision is pretty close to if not to exactly what I hear back from the draft recording, minus the glaring imperfections in my performance. So I make mental notes of what to improve on for each of my parts. Then it’s “back to the lab again” for more practice. I finally get to a point when I know I’m not going to improve dramatically in my performance execution and if I find my capability acceptable, I then proceed to do a real recording. If any of my performances on any of the instruments do not meet my standards (which are very low, I assure you) then I scrap the idea of recording that song and move on to another till I’m ready to revisit my previous issues and are ready to knuckle down and get past them. Well, in Adon Olam’s case, I was ready to make the “real” recording. Here’s how it goes down.

I set a pre-recording count of 4 bars before the computer actually begins recording. I then let two bars pass before I begin playing. This gives me enough time to internalize the tempo of the tune and some recording “space” prior to the actual execution of the song. The first instrument of course, is the drums, as it is my strongest ability. I’ll usually rip out two or three takes. Next comes either the bass or guitar, depending on how strong I am in the execution of the parts. I always record two guitar parts and when I record the second guitar part I hard pan it with the previously recorded part so I have a clear distinction while recording. Then comes the preliminary mix which is just a simple level balance and performance review. Finally come the vocals. That’s easy. Plugin, hit record and yell. I wish I could yell like that a lot more often. Damn is that therapeutic. It’s so much fun, I double the vocals as well. Even though I always plan for “gang-esque” back-up style vox and some actual harmonic vocalization, I never get around to it, cuz I just want to get to mixing.

Mixing. I just thrown on some compression, reverb, eq and level balancing. I then play the mix through my PC speakers, a few sets of earphones and my cheap car stereo. Viola. Now because I don’t have complete “mastery” of Logic Express, I export my mix as an AIFF and import it into Audacity where I crop, fade and export as an mp3.

So there ya have it. I want to give a big shout out to JDub Records for hooking me with a plug for Maoz Tzur during Christmas week and to the sites who have picked up on The Schleps and have linked to JDub and have got in touch with me. I hope you folks enjoy the tunes and the story behind them. I have a freakin’ awesome time doing this and I am eternally grateful for all the support from my family and the internet community.

Last night I blazed through three more songs I’ve been rehearsing.  One them is all set to be recorded, another I still need to get locked in with the metronome, and the other one I have to tweak my project in Logic so that the temp goes from 125 to 205 as I’m doing one of those “split tunes.”  Ya know like from Sabbath Vol. 4 — Under The Sun / Every Day Just Comes and Goes – type of thing.   Cheers to like the two people and the spiders / web crawlers that actually visit my blog.  Hopefully during my vacation I’ll also be doing a backend overhaul to my wordpress installation.  Well that’s about it for now.  Stay metal!

http://www.jdubrecords.org

You can also find it here:  http://www.theschleps.com

Of course Obama won tonight’s debate.  While Obama described plans to change America’s foreign and domestic policies McCain just kept repeating his catch phrase and how “(he) knows how” and how “(he) has the experience.”  So how come the candidate with the “know how” and “experience” repeated these claims and did little to, discuss HOW he would implement these skill sets to confront the challenges America faces?  Instead he kept saying how wrong Obama is/was. And wtf, “that one” ? What kinda low-blow condescending comment was that? Finally, like a sore loser, McCain doesn’t even shake Obama’s hand at the end of the debate? Crash and burn, baby!

• Download and install MySQL 5.0.51a
  • Grab the package version, cuz you’re a dummy like me.
  • Don’t bother with the StartupItem or the PreferencePane installs.
  • There are hacks that get these items to work, but I’m happy starting it from the Terminal… for now.
  • Create symbolic links:
    • sudo ln -s /tmp/mysql.sock /var/mysql/mysql.sock (thank you).
• Change permissions so that MySQL can run:
  • cd /usr/local/mysql; sudo chown -R _mysql:wheel * (thank you).
• Run MySQL:
  • sudo /usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server start (thank you).
• Check if MySQL is running:
  • ps -ax | grep my (thank you).
• Set your root MySQL password:
  • mysql> UPDATE mysql.user SET Password=PASSWORD(‘newpwd’) WHERE User=’root’;
  • mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES; (thank you).
• Kill MySQL:
  • kill `cat /usr/local/mysql/data/your-server.pid` (thank you).
• Download and install Entropy’s PHP (thank you).
  • Grab the file:
    • curl -O http://www2.entropy.ch/download/php5-5.2.5-6-beta.tar.gz
  • Extract and install:
    • tar -xzf php5-*-beta.tar.gz
    • sudo mv php5 /usr/local/
  • Symbolic link and restart Apache:
    • sudo ln -sf /usr/local/php5/entropy-php.conf /etc/apache2/other/+entropy-php.conf
    • sudo apachectl restart
  • Move shit around so that MySQL and Entropy’s Php play nice together (thank you):
    • Go there:
      • cd /usr/local/php5/include
    • Move and Symbolic Link:
      • sudo mv mysql mysql_entropy
      • sudo ln -s /usr/local/mysql-5.0.51a-osx10.4-i686/include mysql
    • Rinse and Repeat:
      • cd /usr/local/php5/lib
      • sudo mv mysql mysql_entropy
      • sudo ln -s /usr/local/mysql-5.0.51a-osx10.4-i686/lib mysql
• All systems, go!:
  • Run MySQL:
    • sudo /usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server start
  • Restart Apache:
    • sudo apachectl restart

Now grab PhpMyAdmin and your apps and get to work dammit! I’m going to bed.