Working for Dark Project

Dear readers,

While I have been encountering failures after failures for my thesis, things are looking up bright for the work going on for my band, DP.

Yesterday, I sent across a non-automated mixdown of our forthcoming single that made most people happy. Let me shed some light on the thing. For the last one week I have been trying hard to mix the track. I don't use the best gear in the world but I know my gear and their fallacies fairly well - a knowledge indispensable to the mixing engineer. I have been trying hard to implement Michael H. Brauer's ABCD technique using plugins. Sadly I landed up with two versions of crap. Even a frequency analyzer *showed* me how off I was. The low end was suppressed to the point that the mix started sounding tinny. I would have pushed forward even more had I not come across a statement by MHB himself about using his ABCD trick for mixing in-the-box - "For those who think it can be done, do it. But I'm telling you, I've tried what mike is talking about and it works in only one application but not in combination. I'm not going to get into a debate on this issue. As some of the other guys are realizing,my complete multibuss concept was designed to work in the analog world. The feel that i'm looking for get's blurred and the tones get distorted when in the box. Because it is necessary to fully combine the techniques of multibuss compression, parallel compression and the use of send/return compression, the routing in the digital domain causes issues that ADC can't compensate for and causes undesirable results. Meaning it ain't f*cking musical."

I have my share of methods - things that are time tested and work wonders (provided you have well recorded tracks to begin with). This time I used Anesthetize by Porcupine Tree as a frequency and leveling benchmark even if these songs couldn't be more apart stylistically. Also for the first time, I have mixed using REAPER as my primary DAW.

On another side, I have to re-design the official website, too. Yesterday, I submitted a prototype skin to Sudipto. He liked it. The biggest hurdle will be to author the media player. I have my eye on the flowplayer. However, reconstructing the skin will be a difficult job to do. The artwork for the album cycle needs to be as organic as the music itself. In short, I will have to meticulously hand draw them.

I should take a break for a few hours and get back to my PhD problem - one that's giving me the most amount of headaches.

Regards.

P.S. Thanks to Steven Wilson and the journalists who interviewed him and put his mind out in the public.