The emotions of mixing a song

It's amazing the emotions I go through while mixing a song.



Excited to start

Accomplished to get things roughed in

Overwhelmed to have things not come together as quickly as I'd like

Anxious to check how it sounds in other places like the car

Let down to struggle with parts of the mix

Excited to see the song polished up and coming together better

Anxious to hear feedback from the client when a ref is sent

Second guessing my skills as I wait to hear from client

Pumped up to hear from an excited client who likes the mix



I go through about every one of these for every song I mix. It's a rollercoaster which can wear me down sometimes and also build me up other times.

been busy, real busy

yep, I know, it's been forever since I put up a post here... life got busy again and it remaining busy. I haven't even had time to ride my bike but once since my last post about my fit at Harpeth.

Work has been slow this summer. Heck, it's been slow the past 2 years, but it's summer and it's always slow in the summer. This makes this summer slower... fun. I've been trying to make the best of the time I have free from commitments. I think I was doing a pretty good job. I was rdiing a lot, spending a lot of time with Beth, getting things done around the house and helping Beth with Freshie & Zero. When I had some work, I also tried to make the best of it and make sure I was giving 110%. The quirk of freelance work being that each gig can be thought of as a job interview which I think is good. It keeps you honest, and keeps you working hard and hopefully not getting too complacent.

Fast forward through July and to the first week in August and between a couple days of work and a trip to Virginia for a craft show, I had no free time that week. The trip was a lot of fun as my brother lives where the craft show was, the Roanoke/Blacksburg, VA area, so we were able to visit with him and his growing family. My parents took the opportunity to come and visit also so it was a mini Lawrence reunion for the weekend. Sales wise the show could of gone better but we debuted a lot of new displays and booth setup stuff which all worked very well and looks great. We've officially stepped up the Freshie and Zero booth to the next level of professionalizum.

(our new track lighting setup, canvas displays and mesh sidewalls... yea we're big time now!!)

I started right into a session starting on the Monday after we got back from the craft show. I was starting what turned out to be a marathon 3 day session of Gospel music. I was the head engineer on overdubs and editing though which was a lot of fun and more responsibility. It was a lot of work and long days, like 11am-4am, but equally rewards and as it was frustrating. So this session ended very early Thurs morning and I slipped in a small project I needed to take care of later in the morning on Thurs and tried to recover the rest of the day with a nap.

Beth's parents took us all out for a belated birthday dinner celebration for Beth's 30th bday Thurs night and then I started right back into more session work Friday. Three days of assisting on some mix sessions for Blake Shelton and we are now up to date. Tomorrow I start back working with the Gospel clients again for the next three or four days so I'm trying to get my body ready for the late night sessions.

Truly feast or famine. This work couldn't come at a better time though as I could use some extra money to help fund my new bike purchase, and also Beth and I are starting to house hunt so more money for that will always be much appreciated. I'm hoping to have a slightly more relaxed schedule this week and fit in a few rides. Hope to make it out to the tap room since I missed last week. I have a big order of super hero socks to pick up from Sharpie also that I'm super excited about. Finally going to be able to try the olefin material and also the hip no-show cut! I'll report back soon I'm sure so stay tuned. Hope I haven't bored everyone too much lately.... it's life, my life at least. :)

I snapped this shot while at the craft show in Va. Is this bike locked? I don't think so. I couldn't help but find some humor in it. Luckily the guy was in a small town. He didn't even lock his daughters bike up at all.





I helped record a campfire performance out on a farm in Leipers Fork a couple weeks ago. Fun stuff, but HOT with no A/C!











Gotta love a trip to Peter's Sushi in Brentwood. They having opened in their new, larger location (right next door to the old place). YUM!!

a little self boasting

I just found out that three of the albums I worked on in the past year and a half were nominated for Grammy's and two of the three won!!

Unfortunately, I don't think assistant engineers receive anything as I was low man on the totem pole on all of the projects. I know I worked on them though and it's also fun to see engineer friends of mine win as well.

I will refrain from passing judgement on some of the albums and songs that won. One man's treasure is another man's trash.




The albums I worked on are:

Vince Gill : These Days
(Won Best Country Album)

The Clark Sisters : Live One Last Time
(Won, Best Gospel Performance and Best Gospel Song)

Smokie Norful : Life Changing
(Nominated for Best Traditional Gospel Album)


Congrats to all the people involved in all the albums and songs that won! Keep working hard and hopefully we'll survive!!

The power of a phone call

A well timed phone call this Thursday landed me with a great editing project. My task was to clean up the band tracks and get them ready for mixing and then clean, edit and tune the vocals for a neat band. Unfortunately I didn't get to meet any of the band members, or anyone at all actually, while working. I can say it wasn't country music and they've played Bonaroo. It was a treat listening to the music and was a fun project to work on. I'm hoping to stay in better contact with the engineer on the project and hopefully help him with more work in the near future.

I snapped a few quick shots of my work surroundings while I took some breaks. The band has been setup in a quaint house with guitars and pianos and keyboards everywhere. It was a little strange working two 10 hour days and not seeing anyone except when I met Beth for lunch. I do like it when work changes each day and this was another example of that. It's also a great example of the changes in the music business. A signed band doing all their overdubs in a house, not a studio. At least they were using an engineer and one that knows me and books me. Times are still changing and studios are probably getting hurt the most.

Thad got the bug to get some beers after getting over his bug to run to the bathroom. We met up at the tap room for some friday night beers, instead of the usual thurs. Neither of us were able to make it out Thurs so we were itching for some Yazoo. Good conversation was had and then two of my friends showed up unannounced! It was their first time at the tap room so they ordered the sampler and then picked a growler of Hop Project #5, a great choice! New studies out show that Hop Project #5 gives you strange dreams and possibly bad hangovers. It's good, but I like #4 better. Thad mentioned greasy dinner at Rotier's and it was on.... burgers and shakes, a great way to end a friday night!

A trip to Atlanta is planned for the rest of the weekend so Beth and get her jewelry setup in the Beehive CoOp. She is still working hard for Freshie & Zero and having amazing success!

I didn't work today, but I feel especially accomplished!! I was finally able to get my Sprint account setup the way I wanted. I'm sure this doesn't sound like a big task, but it took about 10 customer service calls where I probably spoke with 15 different people. I won't go into all the details but I basically have my new phone working on my old phone number with a very nice plan. The power of persistence and patience is amazing!

So much has happened this past week it's hard to know where to start. I'll work to keep giving the short version.

Last tuesday I did a tracking session at a new (to me) studio at Sony Tree. I hadn't done a tracking date in a month so I was a little rusty but the guys on the session were a lot of fun and made the day really enjoyable. The studio just got a new (to them) console installed and there are still some bugs to work out. We were able to work around it all, but it would of been a pain if we were working there for more than 1 day. I really do enjoy tracking though. I wasn't the engineer on this session but tracking is still so rewarding to me. You get a great sense of accomplishment that you don't always get from mixing. At the end of the day you can look and see the fruits of your hard work. With mixing you're always second guessing yourself and the clients has little changes, and many times continues to have little changes until they learn to let go. Tracking is a more final process. You come in, setup, record music, and then you're done. You've helped create something that didn't exist at the beginning of the day.

On thurs afternoon Thad and I headed down to MOAB to hang and I started building my "dream bike" aka the crosscheck, or aka "the spot filler". I admit I was underprepared, but I also didn't know what to expect. Brian (at MOAB) and I worked through some different builds and then hit some internet trouble. Thankfully about 1/2 an hour later Thad was able to rescue us and fix their laptop. I'm happy with most of the build. Now that I've had a few days to ponder it more there are a few changes I'd like to make and I still haven't decided on a wheelset. I'm thinking of sticking with a pretty standard 105 group but can't pick wheels. I know so little about road components that it's hard to know what things cost. Even without wheels, I'm pretty close to the top of my budget so I'm trying to get some affordable, durable, non-tank wheels. So far the ideas are 105 hub/Delgado CX rim, XT hub/Delgado rim, or something cheap like the Mavis Aksium. I'm not sure what a 105/xt with delgado wheel will cost so I need to get back to MOAB and work some more and ask some more questions. I'd like to order this by the end of the week if I can... then my spot won't be void for much longer.

Beth and I traveled to Decatur, GA this weekend for a craft show. It went well and we were able to have dinner at a place we both love there called the Brick Store Pub. They have great fish and chips and amazing beer. They have some great microbrews from across the US. They had the Great Divide Hibernation ale again so I was in heaven! There are few beers that I enjoy as much as this one. I mean its a hoppy, dark, strong ale with a 8.2% alcohol content, what's not to love.

Grant posted a great update to DSG 2.0 on NMB and has really got me pumped. I keep forgetting about DSG and that I have a team set up. I wasn't able to go last year because of my wedding so I am super psyched for this year. Our team needs to get our butts in gear and get registered!


Here are the photos from our weekend adventure. (sorry there aren't many this time)

Returning to Nashville

Well we are back from yet another weekend selling necklaces and earrings to the starving masses. This past weekend we were in Hoover, AL at the Moss Rock Festival. Hoover is approx 10 miles south of Birmingham and roughly 3 hours from Nashvegas. The show was great in all the ways it could be. The weather was perfect, the public was very interested in buying jewelry, the load-in/load-out was smooth (for us), our hotel rocked and we only had to drive 3 hours to get there. Sales wise it was our second best show ever (under the supremely successful Renegade show in Chicago). The organizers of the show even invited us to a party after the show saturday night where there was catering and free beer and wine! Beth and I enjoyed some chicken & dumplings and I passed off the car keys and enjoyed several glasses of wine.
Pictures of the show can be found here: Freshie and Zero At The Moss Rock Festival

I had a session fall through for this monday so it looks like I have some free time during the week. I am still working on this jazz record with the woman from Florida but we are in the home stretch. As I mentioned earlier she came back to Nashville to re-sing some songs. I remixed all the songs and these new vocals have taken them to a new level. I've got a final (hopefully) set of tweaks to do tomorrow AM and then just need to print some hi-def versions for Mastering. She has booked Independent Mastering to master the album on Monday. I am excited to hear how it turns out! This is really the first full length album I've mixed all on my own so I am anxious to finish it and hear it after it's mastered.

I'm hoping to get out this week and ride some dirt. It's been a very long time and I'm not sure I remember how to do it. I will be rocking the Soma all week whether I want to or not. Last week, I noticed an unfortunate crack in the faceplace of my Thomson stem. Thad got me in touch with the right people at Thomson and they are taking care of me. This means though that one of my bikes is handlebarless and would be quite hard to ride so SS it is!

Erythema Multiforme.....say what?

Life has been speeding along lately. Things are happening, work is getting done, trips are being planned. I've been quite busy with work lately which has been fun. It has been very managable with the engineer not choosing to work much past 7pm. I like to think I operate better when I am busy. If I have too much time on my hands I just procrastinate everything. Not that I don't procrastinate a lot of things when I am busy it's just when I have nothing to do, I can even procrastinate things I WANT to do.

My skin has been under attack this month. I got a bad case of Poison Ivy about 3 weeks ago on a night ride out at Chickasaw. Once that cleared up I started getting some other strange rash on my ankles, mid leg, elbows and hands. Trying to self diagnose, I got some cream and hoped it'd go away. It just got worse on my ankles and having it on my hands made normal tasks very frustating so off to the Dermatologist I went. (after much poking from Beth) It turns out I have Erythema Multiforme. What is that you ask.... it translates to "Red Multiformed Rash"... in so many words. It's a mysterious, non-contagious rash that many people get and doctors really have no clear idea what causes it. I was given a whole slew of possible causes, few of which seemed to click with my recent experiences. No worries though, got a shot at the docs office and a prescription for 8 days of steriods. I'm wish I could go compete at the Cyclocross races this weekend since I'm pumped up with the juice....legal juice too! Anyhow, this is probably info no one needs to hear but rashed are like normal life to me. I've been very fortunate the past 10 years or so to only have to deal with the occasional poison ivy. As a kid I had every rash under the sun it seemed. I even had pictures taken once to be put in a medical book based on the rarity of the rash I had. Fun stuff!!
It's strange to me that taking Prednisone actually clears up random, itchy red bumps. Creams I understand....localized medicine; pills are a mystery.

I woke up early today for work and already had the new Radiohead album on my mind. I did some internet searching and found out the online release consists of 160 bit rate DRM free .mp3 files. I admit I was a little bummed that the sample rate wasn't higher, but it is a small step above the itunes rate of 128. I spent many minutes trying to get on the Radiohead site and put my order in. Finally I was able to get in and purchased my copy for 4 pounds ($8). Fair amount I think. I am still holding on the thought that eventually there will be an official CD release of the album in record stores. Hopefully near the first of the new year. I'll definitely be buying that CD with artwork when it comes out. Unfortunately I've been at work all day so I've only been able to preview about 4 of the tracks. I like what I hear so far. It was immediately somewhat calming to listen to some Radiohead that I'd never heard. I'd say the first 4 tracks definitely exhibit enough of the elements I love about Radiohead to get me excited about the release. They seem to have more classic band structure with less keyboard/spacey experimentation. I'm excited to put some more time in listening this weekend.

Beth and I are heading to Oklahoma City tomorrow morning. She has a craft show friday/saturday and we're gonna go a half day early to get settled and check out the night life a bit. We're getting all geared up for the 10 hour drive with some podcasts and audiobooks. We'll have the new Radiohead to listen to as well which will be fun. I'm sure I'll have to listen to the new Interpol atleast twice each way as well. That album just rocks! First album I've bought in a long time that makes me just want to put it in and hit play and just listen to the entire album. No shuffle, no skipping tracks....just great new rock music that doesn't suck.

Last night was another night of bike polo. Once again we had some great games with minimal accidents. We played four 4on4 games where my team was unfortunately shut out every game, or atleast most. We then started our last game to be played to 11 points. About a 1/3 way into the game Sharp's buddy exploded his rear derailleur so unfortunately he was out. Jut decided he needed to head-on and get some good shut eye so we continued our game 3on3. Man what a difference 1 person on each side makes. The entire game dynamic changes with more full on team offense. You don't have the luxury of leavin' a man back for defense. Our team actually seemed to step it up a notch when we went to 3on3 and managed to score some quick points and make the game more competitive. We ended up down to 10 to 7 and finally surrendered the game winning point. I decided to bring along my bike computer this game and get a feel for how many miles a night of polo ends up being. I was suprised to see it say 9.9 miles. 10 miles of riding around a indoor court, that's pretty good! It also showed a 15.5 mph max speed and an average speed of 5.5 mph. Fun tidbits to know. Yuengling has finally made it to mid-TN so a few of the guys enjoyed some beers pre-game and during. Of course cans of Pabst were also on hand as usual.

I'm looking forward to getting out of town for a few days. I hope the show goes well and that Oklahoma ends up being a fun city to visit. I have a full work week next week as well. Monday-Tuesday I am tracking some song demo's for a songwriter named Mark Collie. This should be a fun session. I like Mark's style of going for things full throttle. After that I have a client coming into town from Florida to do some more singing on a jazz/bossanova project. She wants to fix some vocals and then have me remix the songs. I started working with her at the beginning of the year. All the songs have been mixed already, but we will have new vocals to sit in and she may want a slightly different direction for the mixes. It's the new way of working and mixing "in-the-box". You gain the convenience of being able to tweak mixes easily without having to recall a console and outboard gear, but you sometimes can get caught up in the "never done" mentality of too many changes. It has been fun to work on a non-Nashville project though and the band she got to play with her are wonderful players from Rio de Jeneiro.

Unfortunately due to travel I'll be missing the first Nashville cyclocross race this weekend. I've never done one and am curious if I'd enjoy them. I'm thinking about entering the race at Land Between the Lakes next weekend. Maybe it will involve some camping/partying the night before. I need to see who all is going and see if I feel I'm ready for the 25 mile race. I'll have to put some work into my Ventana and make sure it's race worthy. I've been slacking lately and just riding the SS. I finally fixed a cut in my tubeless setup so I hope that patch holds. It will be the first time I've attempted patching a tubeless tire.

work, work, work, ride, repeat

Had a great week of studio work. Monday I recorded a kids choir for a new Christian/kids album coming out soon. Tuesday I leasurely setup for a three day tracking date for Jonathan Singleton out at the Castle studio. Wed-Fri was assisting on tracks from 9-6pm with Jonathan. It went smoothly and we got some great songs recorded. Ben Fowler was engineering and it is always a pleasure working with him! We all enjoyed the nice pace and being done each day at 6pm. It is very beautiful out by the Caste. You are in a totally difference state than working on Music Row. You can take a break and just stroll around the back yard amid all the cedar trees and rock outcroppings. I hadn't worked there since last Aug so it was nice to be back.

Saturday morning came and Thad and Troy planned a trip out to Mount Eagle to ride. We loaded up in Troy's Element and hit to road around 9:30. We were on the trail by 11am and loving life! The trail was awesome, a great mix of all the elements you want in a trail. About the only thing I noticed missing is long grinder style climbs, which I wasn't missing saturday. I brought the single speed, mainly because I'm lazy and haven't fixed my rear tire on the squishy bike, but also because I knew Thad and Troy would be on their single speeds and I wanted to take mine to a new trail, even if it meant I would have to work harder. Turns out Thad was 100% correct, this trail IS a great SS trail! All but a very few of the climbs are doable and involve a nice run up to keep/get your momentum going. I liked having the lighter bike and really didn't mind not having rear suspension even though it was pretty rocky. My upper body is sore today but it feels good. It's that nice feeling that you know you worked hard.

My neck is still bothering me just slightly. Mainly during the ride it started acting up on me. This past week it has been feeling really good. I probably should be more diligent about stretching it. I don't think riding the SS helped it yesterday but it's not too bad today.

I've got a few more hours of Google work to cram in today sometime. I've had such a full week that I managed to put it off too long. I'm wondering what next week will be like. I'm assisting on a week long mix session at Blackbird studios, so I hope I'll have time in the evenings to get in some Google work.

busy busy busy

Another week gone by and lots and lots of stuff going on. Headed to Chicago last thurs for 4 days. Beth and I headed up a couple days early to enjoy the city before The Renegade Festival started. We had a great time in the city and had a hugely successful show. We were both blown away by how busy we were saturday. We were just swamped for hours with customers, helping answer questions, teaching how lariats fit and checking people out. We actually had a steady line to buy stuff. Sunday was more sane and we still sold a good amount; definitely the best show to date.

I uploaded my pics from the trip to Flickr so you (all of you) can view them here: Chicago Pics



I worked on a fun Brooks and Dunn project last week. We recorded a live show at that they filmed for a future release. The entire road crew came and setup like it was any other show. I wasn't sure what to expect when I accepted the gig but it was a lot of fun and it all went very smooth. We also lucked into some great catering and we're done by 5:30pm. Can't beat the banker hours with free food. Well there could of been free beer I guess.

I decided I'm going to put my Google money towards a new laptop once Leopard is released. It has already given me more incentive to put in some extra hours. I've already put in my required hours for this week and am going to try to get in as much as I can. We are heading to St Louis this weekend for a one day show with Freshie and Zero. We'll be back in time for some biking on sunday I hope.

I went out for the first time in a few weeks last night. Thad emailed me an invitation for a night ride with he and Mike N and I jumped in. We got two fun night laps in at Chickasaw Trace, one forward and one reverse. It was my first reverse lap which led to some surprises in the dark. Had one close encounter with a friendly rock which led to a big goose-egg on my shin...thinking it is time for a top tube pad and a crotch guard for the stem. I've experienced way too much leg injuries from my bike frame. You can read Thad's account of the ride complete with pics here:
J5MarsupialStreet