This is more of a reminder post for me, but seeing as a good chunk of it is music related, it might be interesting for anyone that reads this (which is nobody).  Got a lot of stuff I'd like to get accomplished this weekend, and thanks to the holiday I've got three days to do it.

1. Tonight, I will be doing mixing/post-production/mastering for Hues, Vol. 2, we're close to release now.  I may even be throwing some Mopho in the mix.

2. I need to dismantle my old TV stand, keep any pieces I might have use for, and chuck the rest.  Also want to go through, well, everything in the apartment and start chucking/organizing things a bit better.

3. Been putting this off for too long due to laziness.  Need to get rid of one of my old email addresses, which means rerouting whatever important things still go to that one to one of my current addresses.

4. Going to work on some logo concepts for my next project after Hues 2.  NOT going to be under the Fixate moniker, which will remain instrumental.  I've got two names picked out, and pretty sure which I'm going with.  Going to have to remain a mystery for now.

5. Would like to get some concepts/ideas going for my Lost poster design.  Mostly doing it for myself, but will get some made up for friends/family if they want.

6. Clean and tune the guitar, and maybe even get in some practice.  Going to be using it a lot more in the near future.

Hues, Vol. 2 is finished!  That is, the writing part of it.  Now it just has to sit and wait a bit til I feel like playing the part of sound engineer/mixer/mastering tech.  Should be ready for release in a few weeks, just in time for me to keep my Spring 2010 promise.  The result is a mellower album than Vol. 1, with an almost film soundtrack feel to the songs.

In the meantime, I'm laying the groundwork for the next project.  Hues, Vol. 3 is on hold for the moment.  Hell, this might not even be Fixate material.  I am restricting myself technologically speaking.  I don't have the money for a heck of a lot of hardware, so I'm going to treat my software as though it is hardware.  In other words, I'm going to treat this next project as though I only own a few different synths.  For drums, I'll be sticking only with Goldbaby's excellent 909 Tape sample collection.  As far as synths go, I'll be relying on the Blofeld, the soon to arrive Mopho, and a couple other softsynths to round things out a bit, as well as Kontakt for piano or strings as the need arises.  I'll also be using guitar heavily throughout this project.  And finally, my voice.   I'm still not much of a writer, lyrics-wise, but I should be able to make this work.  I'm going to be meticulous with this project, this is going to be my baby, my masterpiece.

Sonically speaking, been listening to a lot of classic rock as of late (Floyd, Zep, The Who, etc.).  Should give you some idea as to where a lot of influence is coming from.

Hit a bit of a snag with the fifth song for Hues 2.  May have to scrap it and start from scratch, shouldn't take too long though, I have some ideas.

Also, cover:

Well, in my last post I mentioned being stuck on a couple songs for the EP.  I've since decided that one of them is a lost cause, and needed to bring in a ringer.  Enter "Enemy"(temp title).  Before the conception of Hues 1, I had a lot of unfinished ideas on my Myspace player, mostly done in Reason.  The most finished of these was "Enemy", which also happened to be a favorite of anyone willing to give a listen.

Last studio session I ripped almost all of the MIDI into Live, to replace the synths and piano with my more powerful arsenal of VSTs.  I did however keep one Reason synth intact, if only because of the massive modulation, and it already sounded too badass to change.  Long ago my friend Hunter helped me out by writing and recording a guitar part for the outro portion, and I still have that original audio.  Used to sound kind of iffy, but fits right in with the new synth sounds I've chosen.

1 song to go.

It's been about 2 months since I ordered the parts for the second half of my arduinome 128.  Finally getting around to getting it together.  Over the weekend I've soldered the bright orange LCDs (in contrast to the blue of the first half already built), and put the 64 diodes in their proper place, ready for soldering.  Hopefully I'll get that soldering done by the weekend and get the thing wired up before Easter.  After that, I just need to look into the enclosure, which means a trip to home depot for supplies.  Going to be awesome when it's done, and will make a great production and live interface with the help of the LiveControl app.

I'll be posting up album artwork for the new EP.  We're in the home stretch.

That's where I'd say I'm at on Vol. 2.  3 of the songs are at or very near completion.  One's about half way done and I'm a bit stuck on the other.  Got some new toys to play with tonight (namely Sylenth), so maybe that will give me some ideas.

From Vol. 2, almost done with this one.

If Hues, Vol. 2 gets released before the end of Spring (which it should), that puts it at around 6 months from inception to release.  Not bad, I'm getting better at getting shit done.  So the goal would certainly be to keep this up, and have Vol. 3 finished by the end of fall.  Where to then?

Beyond a physical release encompassing all 3 volumes into one, I'd like to get some more rock influence into my work, and ultimately, vocals.  I think Vol. 3 might be able to help me bridge the gap there, and even Vol. 2 (there's some guitar sneaking in there).  Now, I'm not a great guitar player, so what's there will either be pretty minimal, or will be played by guests.  "Enemy" will likely resurface during this time, though by then it will probably need a little work.

I'm a proud owner of a Palm Pre, and it looks like today they'll be adding video recording capability in their latest OS update.  Great news for me, as I don't have any way to record videos currently.  Possibly some studio videos on the horizon.

I never really know what direction I'm heading musically until I'm already halfway down the road, so to speak.  But if, after Hues 2, that road leads immediately to Hues 3; I'll be thinking about combining them all into one 15 track album, and getting them made into physical copies for sale at shows(hopefully soon)/online/freebies to friends & family/etc.  Probably cheap too, around $5-$6.

Wasn't really the original plan, but the creative center of my brain apparently disagrees with that.  Hues, Vol. 2 is well underway.  I have a majority of the music planned out already, should only be another month or two until it is ready for release.  Definitely the quickest I've ever got something done from start to finish musically.  More info coming soon, but just as the first Hues, we're looking at 5 tracks, all centered around a central theme of color.

So my plan of having an album or EP done by the end of February is falling apart somewhat.  The past few weeks haven't been all that productive in the studio(being sick is a bitch), though I have come up with some ideas that I feel are pretty interesting.

Before I progress with any of them though, I'm taking myself back to synthesizer school.  I've always felt I've been pretty knowledgeable about how my synth and VSTi's work, and how they make the sounds that they do, but I could probably use a refresher.  So my goal for this weekend's studio session is to sit down with my Blofeld(and possibly its manual), as well as a few select VSTs, and just work on writing my own new synth patches from scratch; to really understand everything a little bit better.  As a bonus, I'll get a nice handful of my own custom patches to work with in the end as well.

Anyway, it's releasing today as a free download in just a couple short hours.  For now though, it is available for streaming at Soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/publicspaceslab/sets/ps015-va-number-stations

When it's available, you'll be able to download it here: http://lab.pubspaces.com/2010/01/ps015-va-number-stations

My track was placed as number two, fitting as the title of my track was inspired by The Prisoner.

From now til the end of February, I'm going to attempt to write a completely new EP (not including the mixing and mastering parts).  Similar to the RPM Challenge, but different rules.  Doubt I'll make it to 10 tracks like the Challenge, though that would be really nice.  I have a really cool track started using the new Tattoo drum VSTi from Audio Damage with a really cool Absynth pad.  Really cool and chill so far.  So I've got things started.

If all goes well, I'll switch gears for the month of March/April and try to jam out a chiptune album under a new moniker.

By then, Pennsylvania will be thawing out, and I'll begin to think about live shows again.  Hopefully there will be someplace cool to accommodate us this time around.

In gear news, I will be receiving the final parts to put together my Arduinome 128 by the end of this week.  Lots of soldering to do, and I still have to work out my enclosure for it.  Got a faceplate though at least.