Touch of Synergy

As a graphic artist, I knew I was starting to get my professional legs under me when I intuitively sensed how to combine design programs and the effects, filters, and commands therein to create the image haunting my mind's eye. This is an ongoing process that continually morphs as each yearly software update is released. While I have not arrived, and though I never will, I remember the day when I started to connect the dots and use a synergy of commands to create something greater than the sum of its components. What a good feeling.

I have been reworking a recording for the past four hours or so; redoing so much in fact that the only remnant of the original is the vocals. Those get rerecorded tomorrow.

Though I still barely understand Logic and its endless array of capabilities, I am beginning to whizz around the different windows, tweaking a mixer setting, adding a plug-in, modifying a piano roll, tuning a track EQ. With each day that passes, Logic feels a little friendlier, like a new set of bicycle cleats after half a dozen rides. I still fumble, I still furrow my brow, I still go running for YouTube to figure out the conundrum of the moment. But as I plod along, it is delightful to know I have left a collection of footprints on the path behind.

Good progress on final track number eight tonight, though its nowhere near finished.

Long Overdue

From the earliest days of the Redline Project, Found Sound has been an important concept. Decibels can be heard in the 'Scratch Recordings' column that emanated from cups of water, canned vegetables, U.S. currency, a nose-hair trimmer, paper tearing, and even the flush of a porcelain bowl.

It is hard to believe I made it this far into the project without laying down some good old pots and pans for a percussion fest. When I was in fifth grade and wanting desperately to own a drum set, my room was always littered with metal implements from the kitchen. It was these bang-a-thons (along with a few other circumstances) that finally caved my parents' wills to keep drums out of the house and out of my life.

During this fertile time of musical development, these were the sounds I was hearing and creating. Tonight's exploration was a throwback to the artistic explorations of my teenaged self that put a bounce in my step.

I rummaged through the cupboards tonight and found a few items with sonic possibilities. The sounds paired with a delicious riveted cymbal like bordeaux and brie. I hope you enjoy the quick scratch recording posted below.

Something about the Redline Project makes me feel like I am 12 again. Maybe this is inspired by rapping on items that clearly are not drums, or perhaps because I have shirked laundry duty for days in favor of working out some tunes.