Tag Archives: recording

News

Warning: This content generated by AI (An Idiot)

I don’t suppose anyone has said this to you yet, but happy new year! My guess is that you are as ecstatic as we are to unlock the wonders of 2025. So much to look forward to, it says here.

We’ve been busy with the process of acclimating ourselves to an actual winter. Brother Matt has been slogging through the snow up at the farm, feeding creatures furry and feathered while steeling himself against sub-zero temperatures like we haven’t seen in probably five years. Me? I’m flying in my taxi, taking tips and getting stoned. (Did I say that?)

Content questions abound

We don’t get a lot of inquiries here at Big Green, but if we did, I’m sure they would center on our promised new album. What kinds of songs will it feature, and how many? What will the cover look like? Will it be available in stores? Will it include discount coupons for romaine lettuce? That kind of stuff, I imagine.

The most challenging questions, however, are those that cut to the core of the creative process. For instance, why do we, in this day and age, bother to write, arrange, record, mix, and master an album when we can just drop the right prompts into an AI engine and have it spit out the finished product in minutes if not seconds?

Good question. Our answer might be something like … how do you know we DIDN’T do that? How, indeed.

A picture is worth a thousand prompts

Take the header image on this very post (please!). I can tell you right now, that photo was generated by AI. Given the input criteria we provided, only an idiot could come up with something that random and asinine. Hey … that’s the same process we follow when we produce an album. We generate ideas in our tiny minds, and after about two years, out pops an album, for better or worse.

Is that as fast as the other, more well-known A.I. (artificial intelligence)? God, no. But (and this is important) it takes a lot less energy to produce, and it doesn’t sound anything like what this looks like:

Craziness

Good thing? Bad thing? You decide.

Anticipated dimensions of said object

To return to the more pedestrian questions I imagine an interested party might pose to us, here’s what we got. Yes, the new album is nearing completion (currently in the mastering phase). We have a title. There will be 24 tracks, so it’s more like a double-album, if you will (not that the term means anything anymore). I think we have a running order, but not totally sure.

We don’t have a release date, but I’m sticking to my prediction of a Spring drop for this one. Don’t expect a splash – we may buy a couple of ads, but that’s about it. Word of mouth. (What other kinds of words are there?)

Sadly, there will be no discount coupons for lettuce, romaine or otherwise. Budget is tight, people – such are the times we live in.

News, Recording

It’s the time of the season for mixing

Damn, it’s hot out there. Hot enough to boil a monkey’s bum, as Monty Python used to say in a mock-Aussie accent. Mind if I call you Bruce, just to avoid confusion?

Well, it is, after all, summer in the northern hemisphere, which means balmy weather for the lot of us. But for your friends in Big Green, this year the solstice means that the season for mixing has arrived. Yes, brother Matt (a.k.a. “Mr. Ears”) has left the premises to keep a keen eye on his Peregrine Falcon charges … but not before recording his final tracks on our upcoming album, titled [INSERT WORKING TITLE HERE]. After two years of tracking, it’s time to start pushing those faders. (And, of course, pulling them occasionally.)

The job ahead: hard as f#ck

Make no mistake, we have a big project ahead of us: making sense of between 20 – 25 new recordings and arranging them in the general shape of what is still somehow called an “album”. But hey, Big Green has faced challenges before. Remember when we were almost captured by Captured by Robots? No? Well, perhaps I imagined that. Nevertheless, it hasn’t always been an easy road for us. Sometimes it’s uphill, sometimes down, but there are always plenty of potholes and no freaking shoulder. (Not mention the fact that it’s a toll road.)

Getting back to mixing, we try to keep things in perspective. Like all modern DAWs, ours has a virtually endless number of tracks and tools to work with. And yet, our favorite albums are mostly from the analog four, eight, and sixteen-track era. Multitrack recording was mucho expensive in those days, and most non-famous bands had zero access to it. In the 1980s, we got into a proper studio maybe three or four times total; the rest of the time we were bouncing takes between stereo cassette machines while playing kazoos into live mics. (Ah, those were the days.)

Placing the lime inside the coconut

Anyway, despite the distinct technological advances we now enjoy that weren’t available in the 1960s, we rely heavily on our musical forebears for inspiration. In other words, if they twiddled a dial a certain way to get a certain effect, that’s good enough for us. If they put a speaker and a mic in a big closet to get reverb, well …. maybe we won’t do that, but perhaps we should. The one thing they did that we won’t do under any circumstances is work super hard. Those are our principles. And if you don’t like them, we have other principles. (Shout out to Groucho.)

Now, that doesn’t mean that we want to imitate the previous generations. I mean, there’s no point in putting the lime in the coconut again, right? That’s been done. We have to break new ground, like any other band. Maybe put the plumb in the artichoke, then mix them all up. (See illustration.)

Unpredictable prognostications

Okay, I’m not going to be irresponsible enough to predict when this album is going to be finished, released, etc. All I can tell you is that [INSERT WORKING TITLE HERE] is fully recorded and on its way to completion. Looking into my magic crystal mixing bowl, I see a Fall release on the horizon. Fall of what year? No man can say, but Fall is a good bet. TO THE MIXER!

News

Big Green albums are hard to finish. Here’s why.

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Did you survive the total eclipse of the sun? Well, if you’re reading this right now, chances are the answer is yes. Now that we’ve fully recovered from that harrowing experience, the time is right to talk about music. (As the killer probe Nomad said on classic Star Trek, “Think about music…”)

Let’s face it – albums are never easy. They require time, patience, and great care, not to mention a crap load of luck. Of course, that dynamic is not exclusive to Big Green. What sets us apart is our process for completing an album. What process, you may ask? Allow me to offer you a brief look under the hood of this smooth-running machine.

Joe on keys

I’ve written at length in previous posts about how mother-effing slow we are. And while sloth may be our secret sauce, here are three key elements that go into building a Big Green album:

1. Specific Gravity

While it’s kind of hard to measure, we like to ensure that our songs maintain a high level of density relative to that of water. Often that process prompts us to add strings, horn sections, chunky guitars, or over-driven organ parts. We come up with arrangements, track them, then burn a rough mix to CD-R. If we drop the disc in a bucket of water and it bobs to the surface, we know our work is not done.

2. Valence

As we record a song, we ask ourselves, “How well will this song bind with other songs on the same album?” After noodling this for a few minutes, we try to put some concrete numbers together. We usually start with the total number of tracks on our last album (in this case, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick had 21). From that number, we subtract the number of valence electrons associated with a specific track. (Note: if you try this at home, you may need to borrow an electron microscope.)

3. Lyric Intelligibility

Hey, we’ve all been there, right? You listen to a song for a year, a decade, three decades, then one day you discover you’ve misinterpreted the lyrics. Instead of “There’s a bathroom on the right”, he’s singing “There’s a bad moon on the rise”. Well, here at Big Green, we try to keep that to a minimum. And when I say minimum, I mean a minimum of thirty instances per album. Sure, it takes work, but the more you confuse people, the more memorable you’ll be.

Matt and his Gibson.

Stream Our Asses

Hey, don’t forget – you can find Big Green’s full catalog on many (if not all) of the major music streaming platforms, including:

Add us to your playlists!

(Image by Julien BLOT from Pixabay)