the beat detective

i got out of bed at 10
i could've said "woke up"
but i never really got to sleep
it was more like passing out for brief periods of time
and then coming to over and over again
my legs were wobbly when my feet touched the carpet
i felt like utter and total shit once again
but i forced myself to lace up the sneakers
strap on the i-pod
and go for a run
that's the best idea i had all day long
i promise you
L and L's neighbourhood is perfect for running
with jogging trails and parks galore
it felt great to do it
and it was easy
i think i went further than ever before without stopping
at 11:30 we went back to _______
well
how about you guess it?



mothers



my 3rd day in a row
i was ready for the staff to greet me at the door
ushering in their newest devotee
and just in case you're dying to know
their breakfast tacos were good
but i'm still holding bolden creek at number 1 in austin

billy and i started the day with "be here now"
we're in the weird part of record making
that is super slow going
billy put it like this..."we've already made the magic
now adding to it is just a process of not fucking things up"
i wholeheartedly agree
the bulk of this record is finished
the vibe is there
most things are really working well together
so now we have to be pretty careful about not adding
the wrong elements and throwing the whole thing outta whack
we both agreed "be here now" was basically finished
even the rough mix sounded pretty close
we just needed to replace some of the canned drum loop bits
with real drums
billy put his 60s ludwig kits in the amp room
because i thought we'd get a less roomy sound in there
due to the heavy velvet curtains and thick carpet
i was really happy with the drum sounds
but still liked our "fake" kickdrum sound more
we ended using a combo of the real sidestick
with a mixture of fake and real kickdrum sounds
(sorry for losing the none musicians here!)
next song up was "in the blink of an eye"
which already had one of the best rough mixes going
we needed some drums at the end though
and i knew they were going to be tricky
this time we moved them into billy's converted garage
a room we hadn't really used yet
it's located adjacent to his living room
and has thick shag carpet in it plus a high ceiling
and rectangular bass traps on the walls
it's also really hot in there because there is no
air vent
i knew billy was gonna sweat his ass off
and i felt kinda guilty about it
i'd been hearing a loud thumping floor tom part
on this song for 2 months
and after letting billy try some ideas
i suggested it to him
we worked on the drums to just 45 seconds of this song
for over 2 hours
trying to get the right part down
it was tricky stuff
billy ended up tracking the kick
snare
and toms on separate tracks to give us more mix options
also because we weren't really sure of which parts we
really liked
if they had all been done at once it would've been
impossible to pick and choose
then he used the beat detective to sync 'em all up right
watching the detective was pretty boring stuff
man i hope i get some sleep tonight el catzu!!