Bits and Pieces

I ordered the parts for my computer last week with the numerous opprtunities to record jumping my way. I started Todd's stuff last week and just got really excited. So, anyways, I got the monitor today and the rest comes tomorrow.

Figured I would share....

I'm Dealing...

I've been dealing with something in the last few weeks. It's been a constant struggle...toiling with guilt and wrestling with regret. Today, I decided to deal with it...and I wanted to share with you guys, my faithful readers, my method of dealing.

....I like Journey...OK I said it. I like Steve Perry and the rest of the band...I like it all....and I'm not ashamed now - only about the past. My good friend, John Rolf, was a die-hard Journey fan. I only made fun of him and teased him about it. Here's what I did - for John.

Dear John,
I just wanted you to know that I cannot "Escape" the memories of me harrasing you about your love for Journey, and Steve Perry. You've "Faithfully" followed this band through there many, many, musical endeavors, even Steve's solo career. Now, we've gone our "Seperate Ways" and I have all this guilt about how I berraded you with insults about this matter. I thought "Only the Young" could be so foolish and ignorant about such great music, but, I was sorely mistaken. You "Patiently" endured the verbal whiplash and emotional torrment of my consistant teasing when you sat at the piano and only displayed your love for your favorite band. "Who's Crying Now"? Me...

I missed a chance to share a common musical ground - but, "I'll Be Alright Without You" and your knowledge of the band's history, discography, and performances. Because even though you're gone, you can still share your love for Journey, "Anytime". As long as that "Wheel In the Sky" keeps on turning, your "Message of Love" for Steve Perry, even though he hasn't been there with the band the whole time. And as I embrace Journey's rockin' tunes with "Open Arms", you can rest assured that your influence, and Steve Smith's drum licks, that I am a fully converted follower. You "Opened the Door" man, and I thank you for that - even though I publicly humiliated you for simply loving the band that inspires you.

Again, I am sorry for all that I've done and said to offend you, but I "Believe" we can push past this and mend the bridge. It's "Never Too Late". "Don't Stop Believen'" in Journey man - though the "Lights" may fade, the music may stop, but their sound will live on!

Sincerely,
Timothi J. Romack
PS: I'm missin' your "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'"....yes, I had to put that in there...

Woot Are You Up So Late For...?

My first woot-off!!! woo hoo!

I will back up a bit....what is woot? why am I so excited? Well, woot is a retailer online that displays and sells an item every day at a considerably lower price. They change the item each day at midnight, central time, and they only offer a limited quantity. A lot of the time it is either an electronic item (iPod, camera, etc), a useless item, or something way too pricey. They are also known for the "Bag O' Crap", which is a random item.

What is a woot-off? It is where, instead of one item, they have extremely limited quantities of several items. Here's the catch, they don't display a new item until the one before it runs out. For example, right now it is an air freshner. I don't want that, so I wait until the next item is displayed. They do this until they reach the bottom of the item list (which isn't revealed to the wooters).

Why wait if it is so late? Well, the first item was a video card that I wanted for my new desktop. Then the second item was a hard drive that I also wanted for the new PC. I missed both of them - too late. Well, I was waiting because I know something else of great intrest will shuffle through. Until then...I will be putting together click tracks for recording....which I pushed back until next week.

Anyways, check it out / woot.com

Peace!

Backing Tracks

New favorite hobby - watching local churches on TV. Why? Because I have nothing better to do. So I am watching this church service that is around this area (sorry if by some off chance you attend the church that I am showcasing here - it is not a bash, just an example), and I am witness to this. Listen to the whole thing, and keep in mind...everything except for lead vocal is a backing track (goofy keyboard strings and vocals too!). I really feel sorry for him, the church is probably pretty big and he probably doens't have a great mix of the CD they stuck him with. Poor guy...

When I say the term "backing tracks", what pops in your heaad? I know that when I think about backing tracks, I think of cheesy church, special music. Now, don't get me wrong, I believe taht people should feel comfortable to do special music, and most churches do this - including my own. I am going to get phone calls from the thousands of readers that I have about how I "badmouthed special music" and how they did special music one time and like fifty people came up after church and told them how amazing it was. NO! I just think we could do better.

The churches that I have been to, the band was at a level where they could perform the music to backup the vocalist that wanted to do music. And if that is not suitbale in your church, surely, there is someone who could play a piano or guitar rendition to fufill the much needed instrumental accompaniment.

Here's my beef with special music. First off, it is a hassle to setup special monitoring situations for the vocalist(s) to hear well enough to keep up with the backing track. Most of the time, monitoring is cruddy, so the special music ends up being somewhat amusing with the vocalist(s) and the backing track being on two different tempos. Secondly, no matter how talented your vocalist(s), the backing track is mastered...meaning, your junky live sound setup is not going to compare to what you're asking your special music person to sing with. It sounds way different. Finally, why does the special music have to sound so cheesy? What I mean is, why do they (the folks who record these wonderful backing tracks) have to pick the most corny keyboard patches and ugliest drum tones? To me, live instruments would sound so much better.

I figured I would share my observations with my readers and see what you all felt. I don't think special music should be stripped from church, but, can we fix it so that special music doesn't make such a drastic jump in the service? It just feels out of place....

Thoughts?

Maybe...

This evening I got a call on my cell phone. I answered it, and on the other line was a member of the church that I had met about three weeks back. I was introduced to his family after a Sunday AM service. When we met, he had told me about how musically oriented his kids were. Sounded like a great family and really neat kids.

Well, when he called, I instantly remembered who he was. He called to ask if I might be interested in working with his kids on the drums. I always jump at the opportunity to work with kids on drums...it is a learning experience for me to. The kids are 8 and 10. These kids are really cool. They are pretty much educated in music theory. They both play piano and are pretty knowledgable at that. The 8-year-old goes into the room at their house that has a piano and mic and writes his own music. Pretty neat stuff.

I told him I would give him a shout back this week when I get a good weekly schedule down. So, it looks like I might have a little teaching work...which is exciting.

Refuel starts tomorrow. Didn't get my recording stuff in, so, can't do a recording. Also, today, I decided to sell my Roland and my Palm pilot. Scoped some prices on eBay, and it appears if I sell them together, I will have enough to buy my new computer...meaning, recording is going to getg a lot easier. Sweet!

Peace!

It's up!

Go here for my project blog. It's going to have what I am working on and what's been finished. As of now, all six Jonathan tracks that I did are finished and up. Soon, the whole production process of four of Todd's songs will be up there. Also, maybe the ReFuel stuff.

Maybe another blog later...

Peace!

Still Truckin....

Got a Jonathan tune mixed today. I am still not so great with EQ, but, this ended up being a bit more difficult of a situation than previously expected. "Because of You" is the first one I chose to mix. Musically it was one of only a hadful that didn't have too many flubs on our part. Tomorrow I should have "We Seek the One", "Heart Beat Song", "Be", and "Missing" all done.

As I promised long ago, I am going to dedicate a blog to my different projects. Soon, I will have a new project for Todd underway. I will blog the whole process. Hopefully I can look back and see how much I have developed. I will post an address for that blog when I set it up.

Today was slow. Nothing to do. Tomorrow I am going to make an excuse to time me and Larry to and from campus. Right now, it's about a 20 min. walk one-way. Hopefully we can clip that a bit.

Peace!

It Begins...

Today, I decided to start mixing the Jonathan stuff back from July. I have put that off because I didn't really have a deadline to do it...and the show didn't go as well as I had hoped for a live recording. We all had our flubs, but, I wanted something to work with, and that's what I got.

I sat down at about noon, and was rather disappointed at first. I could make anything work, and nothing seemed to be going the way I wanted it to. Let me explain, I don't like reading manuals, tutorials, or watch videos about things. I want to figure it out myself. Pro Tools was no difference. Also know this, I don't claim to do this well. I play drums, and that's all I claim to somewhat grasp.

I began to pull the recording apart. First thing I noticed, the Jennifer stuff at the beginning didn't happen. She used percussion for the majority of it, and the djembe sounded like junk. So, I quickly had to scrap that, which was a shame, because I lost stuff to practice with.

At around 3, I got really frustrated and stopped. Then I freaked out. Why? I told Todd I was going to try and track some things for him this week. I've been talking about this demo CD of my stuff, and need to put it together. So, I began to worry about how I was going to pull this off. I went and got my grub on with a Weight Watcher's Blueberry muffin (which is fannnnn-tastic!) and began to think things over.

At around 5, I went and opened Pro Tools open...this time, things happened! I got a decent mix (about as good as live mixes can get with drums all in one channel)....and it sounded good. Even threw some effects on vocals, guitar, and percussion. My next step is figuring out EQ....the thing I know very little about.

I am feeling much better about doing stuff with Pro Tools now. I am going to be working for the next couple of days to mix this down and get ready for a whole new batch of stuff. Paul (who doesn't have a blog at this time - so no link) is going to let me host some stuff that I've done online when I get it...so, when I find something that I feel could listen to, I'll throw it up there.

Alright, back to work. Peace!

Put in My Place

This evening, I hung out with Angela. Though it's been something I've done all week, I have really enjoyed helping her get moved in. Although, it will be nice to spend some time at my place, I love seeing her get excited about her apartment.

After eating a late dinner, I got a phone call. It was my friend Joey, and he was wondering if I wanted to come and play som,e music with him. I was a bit hesitant at first, but I will get to that later. I agreed and I went and met him.

We were playing jazz! One genere I just can't play!!!! ARG! It showed too. Joey and Wes are phenominal at jazz, and I am not so much. We played for a good hour and a half to two hours. It was a lot of fun, but, I am now just blown away at how far I still have to go. Then, that got me thinking a few things....

a) It is time to start learning jazz, but even more so, allowing myself to relax behind the kit to be able to let the jazz flow from me. Yes, I went there.

b) I have so far to go. But, that's the point. If I ever stop learning, then I will stop playing. If I know everything, I will never feel like I have accomplished anything. Jazz is going to be imperative for me to learn before I start doing lots of session work. However, I have some great folks to help me learn.

c) Joey is very talented....this dude blew me away. But, he showed me some folks to start listening and when school starts back up, we are all going to meet again and give it another go. Hopefully, I will sound a bit beter.

Anywho, that was my evening. Later 'gents!

Peace!

Never Again...yeah, right!!!

I never want to move again! It is frustrating, tedious, time consuming, troublesome, irritating, and so many other great words that I would love to throw at you guys. It took roughly four days to move both Angela and myself. She is living by herself, so there wa a bit more furniture to move for her. She's almost totally unpacked and ready to go. I am totally unpacked, but still need to take care of a few little things. All in all, it's done with.

School is about a month away. What am I doing until then? Nothin'! I will be working on routes with Larry so we can do a lot more walking this year, probably assembling together the computer, and working on drum stuff. This summer really ended up not being so busy - which was somewhat disapointing. I was pumped up for a little bit more action than what actually ocurred. I did have a blast with Todd and the guys though. I have actually played more with Todd than what was actually anticipated. We are actually going to get busier this fall, which is very exciting.

Nothing really left to say. Things at my parent's house have settled down. My mom and I are not arguing this move...which is very nice. She's been very accepting of it, and I was actually the one struggling with the change this time around. But, all is well now.

Okay, that's all you get...

Peace!