Why does it rattle so much? Is that the low end putting out all that noise? Hmmmm … well, there’s only one thing for it. Grease. Lots of grease.
Oh, hi. As is so often my affectation, I will behave as if you just came upon me in a coffee shop or squatting down on the curbside, changing a flat tire. Of course, neither of those things is true in this particular universe, but sometimes we like to act as though we’re interacting on a more personal level and not merely connecting via that series of tubes known as the internet. Okay … that’s a long way of saying, welcome, once again, to Hammer Mill Days, the Big Green blog, where we’re liable to burn half a column just saying hi. Uh … hi.
We’re at the mixing stage of our current project. What project is that, you may ask? (And well you may.) It’s the next musical episode of Ned Trek, of course, and we’ve been working on a raft of eight songs designed to keep the plot moving forward. Matt and I have been hacking away at these songs for better than six months now, and we’re finally getting to the mixing stage. High time, too. We learned long ago that slow doesn’t necessarily mean good. So if we’re moving slowly, it’s not for goodness’s sake.
Mixing a Big Green project is different from most other mixing jobs. We have a peculiar approach to the process, as you might imagine. First we find a stand mixer, like one of those Kitchen Aide thingys you see in yupster kitchens of the 1990s. Then we drop the instruments in one by one, keeping the rotors going at one-quarter speed. Once everything has been dropped in, you add a pint of black coffee and switch the mixer on high. Fair warning – your music is going to slosh out of the bowl and splatter all over your kitchen … I mean, recording studio. Pay it no mind! Think of the sacrifices made so willingly by those artists who came before you. They didn’t even HAVE electric mixers … they had to do it all by hand, with a FORK. Think about THAT for a minute or two.
Anyway. when you’re done mixing, you pour the album into cordial glasses and serve while it’s still foamy. Then you wait for the accolades to come drifting in. We’re ready, people … are you ready for some rock and roll?
Oh, my goodness. Didn’t know you were reading this. Bet your eyes are glazing over. I’m just working through the instructions for this do-it-yourself project studio. It came in a big, flat box, some assembly required. In fact, quite a bit of assembly required. That explains the bargain-basement price. That fellow in Bangalore seemed very anxious to unload this little gem. At least he was an engineer – I am, at best, technically challenged, and at worst, a danger to public safety. Have you ever manually wound a transformer before? I know I haven’t.