I had a couple of vacation days making this a double-long weekend; there was a family camping trip planned, but that got cancelled. Given the 90 degree weather in almost-October I don’t suppose that would have been a lot of fun anyway.
I figure the arrival of the Lyra-8 tomorrow might be disruptive to my flow — I might take a break to learn the techniques of a weird new instrument, it might make me rethink the modular again, or have an effect on my musical style. So I made a big push to finish the album first, without seriously worrying about whether I’d get there.
I recorded that first track while finishing the mastering and artwork phases for Grounded. Then I learned Bitwig, migrated to a new computer, and went to Knobcon. And then I was on fire. 9 tracks in about 2 weeks, and four of those in four days.
I didn’t learn massive amounts from Knobcon, nor feel super inspired by it — but it must have triggered some kind of mental and spiritual refresh. I did acquire a bit of new gear and a new vision for how everything fits together, and it all falls in nicely with the focus that came together during the recording of Grounded.
Bitwig integration is working really nicely for me. The Mimeophon is all over this album, and contributed to a sort of retro / hauntology vibe which I think works really well with the album concept. I also employed a couple of tape/vinyl simulation plugins, but a big part of it really is Mimeophon with the Color knob cranked down, Repeats cranked up and enough Halo to overdrive it a bit. Then post-processing to try to take the edge off the distortion while also adding more flavor.
The album still has to survive the review process — I haven’t even listened to half of it at work yet, which is a key step for getting perspective — and mastering and art and… I haven’t chosen a name yet. That might take as long as the whole recording phase did. 🙂