There we go....

There's the Karmic Balance...

It's the spring break... so i haven't been to work since last thursday... 8 1/2 days of just Rest & Relaxation and noodling around with some backlogged stuff.....

Alas, to my good fortune... my cousin is in Sharm, and my aunt and uncle left for Ain Sohkna today, and won't be back till wednesday....

Good! because they were driving me insane.... My family are some of the most irritating people i've come across... they blah blah about the same old shite over and over and over... till you almost want to tell them to shut the hell up! Anyways... No headaches for the next 5 days...

This is actually excellent timing, since i've been wanting to work on my album full-time with the free time.. but haven't been able to (what with all the stupid needy bullshit of theirs...), add to the fact that they're noisy, and have no sense of an individuals privacy....

The main issue i have is that some of the tracks on the album have vocals... and as tempting as it is to treck around and book studio time... it's a waste of money... I don't have a particularly jaw dropping voice to require a decent sounding (or dead sounding) space to record it. I doubt i could even produce enough volume to cause the mic to pick up much room sound in the first place.....

My voice is mostly upper level, in that it mostly resonates in the nasal & throat area... which is okay for a soft spoken quiet guy... but for singing it sounds dreadful.... thin & lifeless.....

I can work in some of the chest and lower cavity... but i'm not that great at that (although i've improved from all the teaching and voice projection i've had to do). Only problem when i do use the lower part... my range drops immensely (since i have no real control over the air flow like a real trained vocalist would) and i end up sounding like a very bad George Michael Clone..... not the kind of voice i'm going for.....

Also some of the pieces are not in the most vocal friendly of keys... so i need to decide wether i want to push my falsetto abilities, or just settle for lower register. I'm going for the Jeff Buckley sweet sound voice... which is not an easy task... and blending lower register and higher falsetto stuff seamless really is a task for a REAL vocalist.... But i'm enjoying trying to sing again, after 10 years of not doing so. I'd hire a vocalist, but i really don't want to go through the hassle... finding someone who has good pitch... is easy to work with... won't drive me insane.. won't get pissy about credits... won't insist on being included in the songwriting...etc etc....

Fortunately there aren't that many vocal pieces (i'm glad i decided to do a mix of vocals and instrumentals... i'd originally planned an all vocal album.... that would have been a huge flop...), and for the most part i think with more practice and persistence, in the next 5 days i'll get the results i want. Luckily i have good equipment (using a Rodes NT-1) and was super lucky to sort out the noise issue with my Mackie Onyx (the sattelite unit creates a horrible high pitch hum when the phantom power is engaged), so i can track cleanly and get a good sound... well... from the equipment side of things.... Just need to work on the voice.....

I'll post more about the album after these next five days and fill you guys in more about it. I'm gunning to release it in June (Initial Release will be on Itunes & Mp3 distributors, and later a CD to follow). This time i'm definately releasing it on a physical format.. since i'd like to be able to physically hold my work, and hand people a copy to them, instead of giving them a link on a piece of paper or whatnot...

Call me nostalgic......