Tracks, and a preview

[mdlbear]

Especially on some of my older tracks, I would have problems clicking my fingernails against the pick-guard when I strum. In most cases it's minor, and I've left it in, since there doesn't seem to be any good way to filter it out. But a pair of multiple clicks in the intro to "Programmer's Alphabet" have been bothering me for a couple of weeks now.

On the other hand, the prospect of recording a new intro, then trying to match levels and eq with a track that's been in the system and messed with Gods-know-how for a couple of years, was totally daunting. Not going to happen. On the gripping hand, I used to have a lot of trouble keeping the number of beats in the instrumental breaks between verses consistent, and I realized this morning that I could take advantage of that: there were a couple of breaks that were long enough to cover the clicks in the intro.

So by leaving in the first chord of the original intro, and fading in to the first verse, I was able to splice it in pretty well. I think I might be able to notice something odd if I listened to it repeatedly and didn't go violently mad first, but it's no more than a couple of milliseconds off.

I lucked out on this one -- there aren't many, if any, other tracks where I could have pulled off this particular hack. Fortunately it was the worst of them by far. I think the only other one with noticable clicks in the intro is "Cicero", and it's not as bad. Good thing, because I don't think I could fix that one.

For a limited time only -- I'm not sure how long but probably no more than a week -- you can find a complete set of rips at <steve.savitzky.net/Albums/coffee/Rips/>. Each track is there in three formats: mp3 (small, maybe FM radio quality), ogg (almost CD quality), and flac (lossless, but huge: 10 times the size of the mp3s).

Alternatively, you can use the .m3u playlists (URL lists) for your choice of either oggs or mp3s -- I believe most players can handle them.

Please give me some feedback on these, if you have any -- I'm only about a week away from stepping off the cliff pulling the trigger shipping them off to Oasis. Also, this page is a draft of the booklet copy. Let me know if you spot any typeos.

Comments

[fractalwolf.livejournal.com]

First off I love it! I also want to complement you on the lack of guitar squeaks! That's a pet peeve of mine, so I was glad not to hear them :}

Listening to the first few, however, one thing that jumped out at me is that on the songs with a flute track, the flute can be more noticable than the voice.

I was first listening on my office computer, which just has a pair of cheap speakers built into the monitor, and on both Guilty Pleasures and High Barratry I could often barely hear that there *were* voices in the background of the flute.

I then switched to my wife's computer, which has cheap but usually adequate external speakers. Guilty Pleasures and Cicero came out much more clearly, but on High Barratry I had to concentrate on ignoring the flute in order to hear and understand the vocals. My wife commented that the difference in vocal clarity might be that your voice alone is very clear, but whenever there are two or more singers it gets noticably more blurry, and so sounds weaker against the crisp flute.

On "The World Inside the Crystal", however, the flute is *not* intrusive at all. It sounds wonderfully integrated, and the whole song is beautiful. We both had trouble understanding your voice when it got really soft, but that's not uncommon for us.

It looks like the lyrics won't be included in the insert...I assume there's no way we could get a cd-sized lyric set, or a songbook? I'm glad to see that the URL for your site (which includes the lyrics) will be in the insert at least :}

[mdlbear]

Thanks for the feedback!

I may be able to fix the voice vs. whistle problem on Guilty Pleasures (WitC has a flute and a bass flute on it; what sounds like a flute on "Guilty Pleasures" and "High Barratry" is actually a pennywhistle) -- I have a couple more days for mixing. I probably can't do much for High Barratry; it's live, so I can't remix it. Might be able to do a bass boost on it, though, to pull my voice up a little.

I can put together a CD-sized lyric set to go on the website, and there will definitely be a songbook that you can print; if I were to put lyrics in the insert it would cost more and, more importantly at this point, take an extra week or so to lay out. It would also mean going to black and white inside instead of color.

[fractalwolf.livejournal.com]

Very reasonable :} If you put up a cd-sized one I'll print that, and if not I'll either print the full-sized one or snag the lyrics and mush them into a cd-sized format myself.

[mdlbear]

Give it another listen -- I've tweaked "Guilty Pleasures" and "High Barratry" a little.

[fractalwolf.livejournal.com]

Sounds fantastic!

[mdlbear]

I'm not sure what our relative timezone skew is. About noon, West Coast time, I pushed up a fair number of files including a version of "Guilty Pleasures" that's down about 2dB from where it was. Seems much better balanced. There are still a couple of things I intend to work on this evening.

Going through from the beginning.

[tibicina.livejournal.com]

Note: I am listening on my laptop. So some of this may be particular to those speakers, but still, what I'm hearing at the moment.

Okay, I'm about half-way through. And I'd say on most everything between Guilty Pleasures and Daddy's World, it could use boosting your vocals slightly.

Programmer's Alphabet seems noticably softer than Guilty Pleasures. I'm not sure if you'd intended that or not. Also, on the choruses, the harmonies are louder than the melody. I think they're at the right level, but your melody could be brought up a little.

Not noticing any major things in the next few songs.

Vampire Megabyte - the sound effects occasionally overwhelm the vocals.

Your vocals on Demon Lover are really soft. I know earlier you were having problems with lower voices overwhelming higher voices, but it sounds to me like you've gone a little too far the other direction now.

Silk and Steel - vocals being overwhelmed by guitar. Particularly melody.

Daddy's World - Back to same strength as Guilty Pleasures. Good vocal to guitar ballance.

Will continue in a second comment.

Continuing on

[tibicina.livejournal.com]

Little Computing Machine - Softer again. On choruses, second voice is noticably louder than main vocal, though it's less problematic on this since it's just doubling the melody.

Cicero - I agree that the whistle could be brought down a little or main vocal brought up or both, though on my computer, you can definitely hear the vocals.

Paper Pings - quieter again. Bring main vocals and guitar up a bit. Possibly backing vocals a tiny bit as well.

I Want to Be a Webmaster - Generally good ballance. If you can bring the percussion down a tiny bit, that would be good. If not, I'd bring the vocals up just a /tiny/ bit.

TEOTWAWKI V 2.0 - could boost everything a little, but the ballance is good.

Uncle Ernie's - Sounds really good.

The World Inside the Crystal - A little soft all around, but the ballance is nice so I hesitate to suggest changing anything.

Someplace in the Net - Are you doubling yourself on the chorus of 'Someplace in the Net'? Because... it's not quite synching and it's not quite in tune. And I /think/ the not quite synching is intentional and part of the echo-y effect. But the occasional out of tune rub just sounds off. Also, if Callie has vocals on this (as it says in the liner notes), I can't hear them. (Okay, I take it back, I can /barely/ hear them on the last chorus, but... only very barely.)



Okay, so it might be easier to bring 'Guilty Pleasures' and 'Daddy's World' down to the same volume level as most of the other things than to tweak everything else louder (except that there were a number where the guitar/backing vocals were fine, but the melody vocal needed to come up a bit.)

Again, all this is based on how it sounds on my laptop, rather than on a real stereo.

Mostly, I've just been driven crazy over time by albums where some songs are noticably louder than others which leads to me having to fuss with volume every song or two while trying to drive or working on other things.

Re: Continuing on

[mdlbear]

Many thanks! Actually the bit about Callie's vocals on "Net" is a bug in the liner notes -- she never got around to doing them. The choruses actually have both a doubled part and an attempt at harmony; I'm guessing the latter is not entirely successful.

Re: Continuing on

[mdlbear]

I've been working on the track-to-track balance; taking "Guilty Pleasures" down 2dB seems to help a lot. I'll probably do that with "Daddy's World" as well. Brought the percussion down on "Wannabe". I'll do more this evening.

Proofreading notes

[fringefan.livejournal.com]

Howdy. Harold Stein sent me your LJ page requesting listening and proofreading. I'm sitting at the proofreading desk of a New York advertising agency, listening to (and much enjoying) the tracks via my laptop and trusty headphones, and going over the text with the proverbial fine-toothed comb. It's what I do these days.

I'd support the inclusion of a lyric sheet (although a lyrics Web page is about equally good for my purposes). My hearing isn't what it used to be, if indeed it ever was. Your vocals are generally clear, but I found some of the female vocals on "Demon Lover" a bit difficult to make out--perhaps because of the reverb, or perhaps because my hearing loss is worst in the mezzo-soprano range of pitch.

On to the proofreading. I've found no substantive errors, but a few things that come under the heading of consistency of style. I leave it for you to judge if any of them are important enough to change:

--You use `` and '' for the quote marks in the notes for tracks 11 and 12, but standard quotes, ", everywhere else.
--You hyphenate "Vampire Mega-Byte" in the listing, but not in the credit to yourself for Lisp hacking.
--"Be" is capitalized in "I Wanna Be a Webmaster" in the listing, but not in the credit to Jordan Uggla for drum.
--"Twenty First" is spelled out in the listing, but given as "21st" in the credit to Callie Hills.
--Also: The CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE would tell you that "Twenty-first" in the title of track 12 ought to be hyphenated, and that "canned goods" in the note on track 15 ought not to be. I agree.

CHICAGO would also say that periods and commas go inside quotation marks even if they don't logically belong (e.g., in a list of song titles). CHICAGO would change, for example,
* Robin Baylor -- vocals on "Programmer's Alphabet", "Paper Pings".
to
* Robin Baylor -- vocals on "Programmer's Alphabet," "Paper Pings."
I'm not sure I agree, but I thought I should let you know.

Thanks for the opportunity to listen and to nitpick.

<-----7-19-2007-----MSG----->

Re: Proofreading notes

[mdlbear]

Many thanks!! Good catch on all those nits. I haven't been proofreading as carefully as I should.

I'm afraid lyrics in the booklet are out of the question, but they'll definitely be on the web page in both jewelcase and letter-size formats.

The inconsistency in the quote marks is due to the fact that some of the text starts out in LaTeX, and some in HTML. That's a problem I'll have to solve later, but it should be straightforward to fix in this case.

As a programmer, I tend to put punctuation outside of quotes unless they're part of the text being quoted; I think I'll stick with that.