Deponens in progressu
Saying the silent parts of the last six months out loud.
Introduction
You’ll know from an earlier post that ÆTERNUM is working on a new song. If you haven’t read that yet, please check it out before having a look at the update below.
But before getting to that, just a reminder that I need your help to make this song happen, so if you’re able to pony-up the dough, your donations of any amount will be tripled by two donors willing to make matching grants, so…
Radio silence
It’s been since March that I’ve given progress report on the new song. That’s not for lack of project activity — well, a little of that also — but rather because I’ve been so busy since then. First, I needed to finish up my studies at CUA in DC, which involved writing a thesis, passing two language exams (Greek and German), and two sets of comprehensives (written and oral). I had to settle for collapsing across the finish line in early May.
Second, late May and early June involved picking up the pieces of my psyche after finishing studies: traveling to see some friends, ministering to our Nuns in Connecticut, and attending a final academic conference before… Third, moving to my next assignment as a Dominican Friar. As of July, I have been officially assigned to Bloomington, IN as an Associate Pastor for St. Paul Catholic Center, which serves the student and staff populations of Indiana University.
You’d think I didn’t get a lot done in the midst of this… but you’d be wrong! What follows is a detailed progress report, but feel free to jump to the teaser videos below first.
Recording the vocals
The previous post was an update from our second vocals practice in February. That practice was at 90 BPM just to make sure we were nailing down the details but the plan was always to speed it up. Shortly after this we scheduled a time to record with the most excellent Steve Steckler at his Asparagus Media Studios in Takoma Park, MD. We did so in a 2-3 hour session, at 96 BPM — much more appropriate of a pace.
We recorded multiple takes of each “Movement” of the song while I took video of each take from three different camera placements. This was my first foray into doing video — in order to save money and because it was a fairly low-threshold project for attempting such. Unfortunately, the two cameras I borrowed did not take the best quality video, in part because of the lighting and the straight-on angle. Providentially, however, I also recorded two angles using a third camera: my cellphone. This took superior quality video and worked much better with the lighting. I lament not having more camera footage using the cellphone, but what I got was sufficient.
One issue I was concerned about while recording the audio was separating the individual vocals enough so that we could process them individually as needed. If I were to do this again I would avoid having all the singers in the same room, but once you mix them into the backing track the bleed-over tends not to matter. We have not done pitch-correction yet, so I’m waiting to see how that’s effected by the bleed.
Joke video
At the last minute, I sprung the idea of a joke video on the singers…
And here’s the first attempt: blooper!
We (I) finally got it right…
So, take a hint. ;-)
Recording my guitar parts
My move to Bloomington required traveling back to the Twin Cities to grab the rest of my stuff from the Dominican community there. A friar in studies normally retains assignment to his former community as part of the Order’s governing structure, but practically it also provides a stable home-away-from-home in the midst of a temporary assignment. Returning to the Twin Cities gave me the perfect opportunity, of course, to record A/V with the bodacious Adam Tucker at Signaturetone Recording, with whom I worked previously and who would be the primary recording engineer for the song.
There was a problem, however: I had very little time to actually work out the guitar parts! Until May, most of my energy had gone into developing and recording the vocals, and most of May was taken up with other stuff, so during June I had mere weeks to develop other essential music before going into the studio to record. This included the heavier electric guitar part — which would be developed by another guitarist later, but in the meantime I still needed to have it in the background — as well as my own acoustic rhythm and electric lead parts.
I had in my head many ideas of what I wanted these guitars to sound like, but it is quite the process to translate that into actual guitar parts. Hence, this is what my life looked life for those few remaining weeks…
The greatest risk I had to take in developing my lead electric part was to finally utilize the BOSS RC-500 looper pedal at various points in the song. A looper pedal records whatever you want and then… well… “loops” it until you tell it otherwise. The RC-500 can run two separate loops simultaneously, and I wanted it to play two patterns of string-bends during the finale — recorded in sequence, then looping together. I also wanted to record during “Movement 2” one riff, then switch to playing another riff over it manually.
Trouble is, I underestimated how much trouble MIDI sequencing would give me. I had experimented with the pedal previously but had to leave aside my experiments out of frustration, hoping to figure out the technical details better later. But now I had a few weeks to work out the kinks with what equipment I had.
On the one hand, I needed to synchronize the MIDI “clock” between the pedal and my Ableton recording software. But clocks generated by personal computers are notoriously “jittery,” creating weird artifacts in the looped audio to make up the difference. On the other hand, I wanted to use Ableton as a “sequencer,” sending commands to start, stop, switch, etc. rather than attempting to get the timing perfect by manually pressing buttons with my feet. These were problems well-suited for my former-electrical-engineer heart, but it was crunch time.
In the end, since the loops I needed to create were distorted, the artifacts had a negligible impact — and I also managed to figure out how to not only automate my use of the RC-500 but all the other pedals on my board as well. This is why see a laptop computer to the side of me while recording guitar: it is synchronizing and commanding all the pedals on my board. The whole thing is a bit clap-trap, but it worked and that’s all that matters. I’m nothing if not a hacker — which requires relatively little theoretical knowledge in comparison with practical knowledge… that’s how I’ve been writing (or rather, engineering) all of this music!
(Doing further research after the fact, I’ve discovered what may be the solution: the Morningstar MC6. Not only will this little beauty generate an accurate MIDI clock and feed it to Ableton along with the “transport commands” necessary to start, stop, etc., but it can replace all the BOSS switches on my board by simply transmitting programmable commands over MIDI. I look forward to experimenting with this later.)
Recording with Adam went very smoothly, with only a few minor technical hiccups along the way. I intended to take my own video of the whole session, but unfortunately I only got cellphone video of the acoustic session. That’s doubly unfortunate, because during the electric lead session Adam cracked me up by referring to my guitar playing as a mash-up of Dick Dale and Kevin Shields, or something like that. I would have liked to get this on camera! But Adam got video nevertheless, so that’ll be in the final music video to come.
Some teaser videos
After re-recording the electric lead parts when back in Bloomington, I was able to mix together the vocal stems with everything else I had, mixing down some demo tracks that could be used as a reference for other musicians. I’ll decline to share these for now until the final product is out.
However, I thought it would be fun to take some of the video I recorded of the vocalists and me, and combine this with the demo track to create a demo video. Note that none of the vocals have been “corrected” yet: they are totally raw and are only roughly compensated for in their different volumes. Further, the acoustic guitar you hear was taken from my trusty RODE mic… or rather, it is a mix of three takes to get a more robust sound. Not too shabby, but the final version will sound much better than this.
Here are some excerpts for your enjoyment!
Introduction into “Movement 1”
First chorus, into first bridge
Beginning of Movement 3
Conclusion
I doubt at this point that I will be able to do a final release at the two-year anniversary of the previous track: November 1, 2025. Bummer! But the project has had to move too slowly because of my other duties right now.
Nevertheless, Andrew J. returned as our drummer and has already recorded his part after patiently going back-and-forth with me on the drums. Andrew M. will also be returning as the heavy rhythm guitarist and is currently developing his part. Hopefully, we can have him recorded in the next few weeks. Adam himself has volunteered to do bass this time around, so I look forward to having him on the crew. The biggest obstacle right now is the violin part… which I haven’t even written! But we do have a very capable violinist in the queue, so once I’ve had a solid week or so to work out that part I’m confident we can get ‘er done and release everything by end of year.
Once again, if you think this is sounding cool already, we’d appreciate your financial support. I’m looking to raise at least $1000 (matched up to $3000) for getting this song done, so if you know of someone who can help (if not you!), then please enjoy yet another fundraising video…
May the Lord richly bless you during the remainder of the year,
Fr. Brian John Zuelke, O.P.