the vision and the void

trying to bring a sound in your head into the world is a maddening task at times. i know i drive myself and others a bit nuts trying to get it. but when a goal seems so perfect and yet attainable, it makes sense to go after it.

our sometime live sound engineer and studio keyboardist scott gave me a bemused look when i told him i wanted a single instrument halfway between a guitar and a piano. even worse, during a live-in-studio jam, he made an incredible synth sound that i thought would be perfect for the same song. he had no idea which program it was or how he'd manually changed it at the time. since then i've spent hours tweaking two different synths trying to recreate it or at least come close. in fact, the overall mix of sounds and styles is so delicate that at this point, i'm not even sure the song will end up on the album.

in the first example, the sound is essentially created in my head. in the second, the sound is something i've heard a recording of and therefore know is possible.

strangely, the latter scenario isn't much easier than the first, even with sampling technology. you have to find the sound isolated, if you can even track it down in the first place. the final nagging piece in the puzzle of the impossibly labyrinthine song mentioned in an earlier post is, in my mind, a fairly standard drum machine kick or tom i've heard on a hundred hip-hop or techno records. of course we'll give it our own touch, but we can't even find the original, and we've gone through dozens of sample libraries. any number of other kicks could be used, but none of them are the right one. so the search goes on.

other times, when the elusive "sound" is more of an overall effect, i end up sounding even more unhinged. for "secondhand daylight" i told the others it should sound as though the whole song was being heard through a layer of gauze while on valium. unfortunately, the literal interpretation of that was for me to muffle or delay every instrument. it may have been a faithful to the sonic concept, but it sounded awful. maybe we should release that version as a deterrent against valium and gauze abuse.

that song is now complete, after achieving the same effect through a different version of the same idea. in the end, the joy of finally finding the right sound erases all the agony of searching and of working on incomplete and incorrect versions. when you get something right, it just works.

lining up

one of the greatest joys for me when working on music is when things start to come together. unlike those who play only one instrument or handle one aspect of a musical production, i get to have the over-arcing vision.

the painful part of this is when it lies there in a seemingly irredeemable mess, and those around me question my sanity and motivation. i can only babble the poor english translation of the images, sounds, and concepts that made sense in my head when i didn't have to articulate them. this is a sort of trial by fire (the fire being the burning attention given by musical peers or friends). either my explanation falls apart so badly that i realize my idea should be abandoned, i decide i have to find a solution that expresses it better, or their argument only strengthens my resolve.

at this point, or if i'm lucky, before it, i hopefully have an "epiphany session" in which my intent flows easily out of my fingers, charging the machinery with the correct outcome. those moments are like finding the auto-lock on a target. the song plays from the speakers simultaneously with the version in my head and they are a match, forming perfect quadrophonic sound.

it's fun building up an instrument at a time, being a player with my hands and a whip-cracking producer with my brain. then later, giving each sound its own definition and space, and hearing how they relate to one another. if i can't wait to sing along, or start moving without thinking, i know it's right.

things are coming together in a broader sense too. ideas about the album's running order and flow are making more sense. booklet art is being fiddled with, and logistics of special packaging are being investigated. the more these elements come into focus, the less they seem like an impossible patchwork of insanity and more like a complex but cohesive work.

the story so far

contrary to what may seem to be, i don't strive to dwell in the negative. expression of negative feelings is healthier than suppressing them. this is one of the things dream into dust is about. the name itself might seem to be resigned, but its existence begs the question: what do you do when your dreams turn into dust? answer: you carry on with reality.

the current reality has been pretty bleak, but at times we can focus on the bright spots. the fact is, we have accomplished a lot. the oldest unreleased song, "flowers of destruction" is up on myspace. a lot of other songs are close to being finished. "end of memory" which was previewed in live shows, has weathered its changes for the better and only lacks one tiny guitar bit from bryin. another song we've played live, "secondhand daylight", is essentially done, after a bout with temporary insanity that had me rewriting half the music; a few tweaks and that will probably be online soon. a really heavy song, one of the best we've ever done, just needs two overdubs, while a pair of melancholy but danceable(!) tunes are all worked out and just need to be laid down. even the labyrinthine first song we started sounds better than it ever has, with only a few brow-furrowing beats and missing accents to nail.

better yet, a new attitude of working has led to renewed creativity. bryin and i no longer wait for anyone else to show up. the quandry discussed in a previous post is being circumvented. the work we've done with other musicians has been very rewarding and enriched the music, but at a cost. this is not to blame the other contributors, but acknowledge that sometimes people work in different ways and have their own creative paths. this doesn't mean ruling out working with others in the future, if the right people present themselves.

this means we're keeping most of what we've done, getting it out electronically when we can, and pushing forward with new songs and ideas. and damn it feels good.

tweaked

i hate engineering.

i'll qualify that. i hate non-creative engineering. how loud does something have to be. what frequencies to compress or enhance in relation to a similar-sounding instrument to make sure you hear everything. trying to cut down on hiss without destroying a sound's character. how to give something ambience without turning it into total mush. eliminating that horrific screech buried in a sample that is ripping your ears out. fighting tooth and nail with an incredible loop that has a shitty sound, or else giving up on it, thus changing the character of what you were working on.

but i love tweaking.

when you have an idea and can add an effect (or five) and transform one sound into another. when you can just reach out and change a bunch of settings til what was in your head is now coming out of the speakers. when you find that doing something wrong creates something that feels right.

unfortunately, the two need to go hand-in-hand. tweaking without applying engineering knowledge can back you into a corner. we're currently having one of those moments when we realize we have to go back to an original version of a sound, or even redo it entirely because it's not going to get any better, much less be what it should be.

ironically, admitting defeat on one level is freeing on another level. alternate methods present themselves, and the goal once again fills my mind's eye instead of the wretched sonic abortion that's been filling our ears over and over. a new start means a new chance.

waiting for godot

when you work alone, you answer to no one but yourself. you theoretically maximize your time and effectiveness by creating whenever possible as the mood and desire hits, instead of being at the mercy of multiple schedules and working patterns. but you lose the objectivity and external influence that can save you from your own worst impulses.

working with others has been a rewarding experience, but also a costly one. maintaining a rehearsal/recording space and then waiting for people to arrive in it being the two biggest drains on money and time. two resources no one seems to have quite enough of.

the solution so far seems to be a complicated mix of the two approaches. everyone works on their own as well as together. whether it's writing lyrics, programming, creating loops and textures, or practicing parts, there are always aspects of working on music that don't require others to be there. there's also a spark of ideas and interaction that can only happen with more than one person playing simultaneously.

this has been the challenge of our existence in recent years: trying to find balance during times of imbalance. the constant variables can leave the brain flailing for something to grab onto.

suddenly something solid will materialize, or maybe what was once liquid has congealed and hardened into the form it was always meant to be. those are the moments we live for.

double-edged razor

the computer has put an incredible power directly in our hands. but it's a power that comes with a price. as an engineering and experimental tool, it's wonderful.

it is also the gateway to a microscopic hell.

time spent staring at waveforms, zooming in and out, copying and pasting, feels like watching my own brain eroding. zig-zags have been burned into the retina of my mind's eye like a monitor left on with no screen saver. whatever music we work on is reduced to and associated with violent polygraph-like patterns. we think about the peaks and valleys we see as much as those we hear or feel.

instead of dreaming a sound and executing it with the best means possible, we now have a hundred different possible paths to the imaginary nirvana of perfection. there is nearly always another tweak or process that can be done that promises the sound coming out of the speakers will equal or exceed the one in our heads.

we don't fear or reject these tools, or doubt their abilities. we've even become good at using them. the trick is to find balance, remember their place.

out in the wilderness with a huge swiss army knife, we should be grateful for the attachments we have, but also be prepared to use our bare hands.

inauspicious beginnings

our first new song began, as several of them do, with a concept.  

i asked my bandmate/collaborator bryin dall, and ryan smith of stars like fleas, for sounds relating to the concept. i recorded my own and scoured the web for more. i've lost count of how many sounds were collected for this one song.

bryin and i worked on it exclusively once or twice a week for about three months. i don't know how he kept from shooting me in the head during that time, except he has as much of a love of sound manipulation as i do. it was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, except we had our own hacksaws and ink to be able to change any piece to fit.

jason of the unquiet void came to the studio and heard an early version. he was pretty shocked, as it didn't sound like anything we'd done before. after i added vocals, a potential manager heard it and got it stuck in his head for the rest of the night. it seemed like things were moving along.  

then at some point, the other three people in the band told me to cut out what i'd thought was the best part of the song. i went back and worked on that section for hours, until i realized they were right. since then, other parts have been painfully excised.

nothing makes life seem futile more than work that feels wasted. not just the time and effort spent on it, but the realization that the good aspects of what was done will probably never be used or appreciated. we still have the pieces. some are saved as sketches for potential new songs. but they feel like unwanted children, or dismembered ghosts of possibility.

what remains is better than it ever was, but at the moment it reminds me of a patient who's had multiple surgeries in a short timespan. still healing, but in need of more work.

the nameless place

i am in a place i don't want to be. both literally and figuratively.

i am ostensibly a musician. however i seem to spend much of my time not actually making music. it's hard to judge, as in this literal and figurative place, time is pretty strange.

time.  five years.  that's the last time my band's music was fixed in a physical form available to the public.

music is ephemeral, magickal, spiritual. giving it physical form helps tether it to our existence, give it substance, and a nod towards certain associations.

my own high standards are both blessing and curse.  at times, our new music feels like a mathematical equation that tries to divide itself by a fraction; the answer keeps getting closer but never seems to reach zero.

but it will.