Progress Report - Eyes Cut Open - 30/04 -14

As of yesterday all drums are complete. Previously I had only worked with programmed drums but now I've had the chance to record some on my electrical drumkit. Although they have been edited/quantized it still sounds a lot better than it did before with mor detail, variation, fills, and a few completely different beats which in my opinion sound a lot better than the old drums. Because of time constraint a few areas were not recorded this way but it mainly riffs where variation and improvisation was fairly limited so I wouldn't have gained that much from it anyway.

Now to the somewhat negative side. The mix is starting to feel pretty much complete and most changes made now are just nudging the controls of the EQ's and whatnot to get a better sound but there is still one thing that's bothering me: the clean sections. Yesterday I spent hours working on creating a improved preset for my noise reduction for all the clean electric guitars, and making new Guitar Rig -presets for them as well as improving the old one so it doesn't show of as much noise. Overall the result was pretty good but not quite where I want it. The lead clean is fine where it is but the other two guitars fade away a little in the mix and sound a little too weak so I'll be trying to improve on that. There's also some problem in the mix I feel with the relansionship between the guitars and the piano so I'll probably take a proper look at that as well.

Other than that recording is close to completion, what's missing is still most of the foley and all vocals. Lyrics have made some progress but I've been focusing on other things so they're still not complete either.

Yes, Bonus.

The bonustrack has been recording and added to the main mix. Lyrics have been written and vocals will be dealt with when the time comes for that overall. Drums will be recorded during the weekend, probably during Saturday and Sunday but mayhaps also on Monday, we'll see. I'm really tired.

Bonus

There's probably gonna be a bonus track.

Progress Report - Eyes Cut Open - 22/04 -14

Slow progress, the mix is getting better with every day and the lyrics are starting to take shape. Soon I'll deal with recording drums and after that hopefully at least some of the lyrics will be ready for recording. Until then it's just wait and improve the mix slowly as I deal with school and prepare for the final recordings.

Progress Report - Eyes Cut Open - 14/04 -14

I've made a first mix. It's a little rough but it's an important milestone. From here on out the work is more relaxed since I'l basically just sit around and adjust and tweak what's already there until it's perfect.
There are still a few things to record to be honest, I'm still using written drums and that won't be fixed until some time next week or maybe even later, there's still foley work and even some abient guitar stuff to do for the story-based tracks, and of course there's vocals to think of. I still haven't finished all the lyrics but that's high priority at this point and I'll have more time to actually do that now that most of the heavy work is done.

Progress Report - Eyes Cut Open - 07/04 -14

As you can see some progress has been made, most instruments have been recorded now. What remains are drums, vocals, and ambient-guitar stuff. After that it's just polishing to do before going into the mixing stage.

This is an image of the Cubase project for recording everything. Orange tracks are input for instruments like guitars and such, the other tracks are mainly MIDI but also one or two ambient tracks (although I think a few of them ended up out of frame in this image). I'm glad I upgraded my computer a bit before starting to record this album, it would've been a nightmare otherwise.