robgalpin.com

mark and i have been passing this song back and forth adding finishing touches to it one single brush stroke at a time – so much patience – very uncharacteristic for me – but i guess this patience stuff is for real because the result is pretty good – i mean, you know… ok. cuz as the song states, “if there’s anything GOOD in me… it’s YOU.”

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HOT GLASS!!

mark and i had a great time lighting up the tubes on an array of amps – the usual suspects – my cascaded marshall super lead – my bassman (a newcomer @ mark’s) – the budda – and my early 70’s super lead spec slaved into mark’s plexi reissue with a metroamp ptp board in it and last but not least (or anywhere near it) mark’s hiwatt.

this tune is a big production number – with thunder and sound effects – grand piano – acoustic guitars – crunching marshalls – a hip hop drum loop – and an orchestral climax.

here’s a clip of the mix so far – we’re not done tweaking but it’s pretty darn close.

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enjoy!!

thunder… lightning… DRAMA! added a stormy dramatic intro to IT’S YOU and finally got some words on there that i’m happy with.

also starting to prep those tracks for a mix – which is weird the way i do it – i make little sub mixes of each element to keep ProTools humming – i’m still trying to figure out if that’s going to cut it or not for a final product but here’s what i’m doing:

i write and arrange the basic tracks in a MASTER ProTools session. then i output a copy of the song without vocals on it. create a new session that has only the vocal tracks and one stereo track where i drop the music only mix i just output – with that i have freed up tons of computer overhead and i can go crazy slapping plugins on the vocal tracks without worrying about running out of computer steam. when i get a good mix in that session – i call it the vocal stem – i mute the music track and output the vocal track as a stereo track. i do that with the guitars, drums, and bass, and whatever else requires. so my final session is basically a set of stereo tracks each one a completed track with effects compression etc printed and ready to go – this session is called the COMP session – and i can do final tweaks but the idea is that everything is perfect in the COMP session and needs nothing further.

the cool by-product of this approach is that each stem session has all the pre-built stuff that i just pull into the stem of the next song – it’s very organized in that way – which is good because otherwise i’d be all over the map from song to song.

i brushed up some vocals on WHEELS and it is close but i’m going to add some guitar to the end before calling it a day on that song.

in addition to this… i killed what must have been 1,000 stink bugs today. it’s a one two punch – i have a black cover for the bbq that i laid across the porch rail – turns out these little bugs like to crawl up in that cover because it’s warm – pulled the cover out into the yard and there must have been 1,000 stink bugs in there – i let them have it with some insecticide that KEEEELLED them dead. after spending a month this spring collecting them one at a time for a flush down the toilet, being able to slaughter them in huge numbers was incredibly satisfying. i’m sure there’s more where they came from – but i’ll tell you – i killed a freakin’ boat load of them things – it was a time to kill.

i got no clips to share tonight – so instead i shared a bug murder story – i know how popular those murder shows are these days so i figured that was a good way of keeping the interest high here on the site! Ha!

-ober pinot

fake pond… real frogs.

mark is sending me the FINAL for Kansas tonight. he has put the final touches on the mix and it is perfect.

friday we will mix “missing the heart.”

“it’s you” – is basically done – so we can easily mix it next week – probably FRIDAY again. debating on whether or not to post any audio snips of this one – it just works as a whole song but in parts it might be bizarre – i want to deliver this full on or none. so, it’s wait and then full on – no peep show on this one. see, each little creation is different. so there’s no formula for any of this – if i ever get a formula i’ll quit and just go watch tv.

i’m going to open up “Wheels” tonight and get it going – that’s the next tune – straight ahead rocker – there’s a lot of it on my dictophone that may be the whole song – you should be hearing a clip from this before the week’s out.

til sooner rather than later,
-rob

talking with my buddy kenny king on saturday –

we talked about Mark chapter 10.

“No one is good, but One…”

it stuck with me – so i wanted to try and capture it in a song – and so far this one gives me the chills – the idea came up on my way to work this morning – i had to record it tonight – so it’s just a start and it’s fresh out of the oven…

i’m a complete dork about this stuff – i’m sitting here listening to it on a loop with my arm hairs standing at attention!! HEE HEE!!

see what you think…
i like this.
a lot.
maybe you will too.

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re: Missing the Heart
i spanked HEART and put it to bed. the next time you hear it, it will be all shined up and pretty.

-robertino exquizino