now playing: the innocence mission, “mercy”
well, i batted one out of two for the auditions i had this weekend…i didn’t make the sunday audition, thanks to my van deciding to splinter the alternator belt…i had both the battery and the oxygen sensor lights come on on the dash, and when i parked it, i had coolant going everywhere in the back. what’s worse, when i came back to it to move it, the rear tire on the drivers’ side was flat.
i’ve really, really had it with this thing. obviously, having an ace mechanic isn’t improving the uptime ratio of this thing.
(it should also be noted that my ace mechanic must not be in the shop today, since no one seems to be either answering the phone or returning my calls)
wendy made a good and relevant point as i was silently and inwardly expressing my disgust with this piece of shit – in that i should definitely consider getting another means of transportation if i’m considering taking on a band that’s headquartered two hours from home.
good point.
i’m pretty thoroughly disgusted at this point. tired of not being able to follow through on committments because of shit like this.
anyway, i didn’t have my cell phone with me yesterday, and didn’t have freds’ number with me either…and after dwelling on wendys’ comment for a while, it probably didn’t matter. as much as i’d like to take this on, i just can’t see clear to committing to these guys if i can’t get in my fucking car and somehow, through the miracle of modern transportation, get from point A to point B.
so i guess i’m going to have to accept the reality of being in the market for a new ride…my buddy mitch had told me about a guy he knows in the philadelphia area that would probably be able to do something for me some time back, but after i tripped over my mechanic and he got me back on the road, it seems to have slipped my mind.
guess i gotta refocus.
the nik everett encounter went much better, probably because nik came to me instead of vice versa…and while i didn’t have the songs mastered to the extent that i would’ve liked, it went alright nonetheless. we’re planning on getting together with niks’ rhythm section at the end of this week, which should prove to be a lot more productive…it’s tough to relax and play your best when it’s two people face to face and you’re busy trying to be subtle and stay out of the way of things in that particular environment. he’s already taken a date for his CD release party in october at the point in bryn mawr…which he was laughing about on saturday, saying that having the date in stone would force us to get off our collective asses.
i was glad to hear him say that we’d probably pick up one or two of the old songs as well…one of my favorite nik songs is from his second record, called “love equals blue”…in fact, i go to his site every now and then and refresh it until that song plays under his index page.
anyway, the one good thing that came from having my plans derailed yesterday was that i got enough wind at my back to finish wiring the studio…so now everything is in place and functional. i did do one stupid thing, though…and it didn’t occur to me that i was doing it until everything was already wired and in place.
i have an old 16 in, 16 out patch bay that i’ve had literally since i first began making recordings, back in 1986. my console is a 20 channel RAMSA, and i have 2 ADAT machines that make up my non-hard disk recording environment. since i only use 16 channels at a pop on the console (and generally use the last four as effects returns), i got a 16 channel custom insert snake for the first 16 channels.
so, i figure as i’m agonizing over the layout and such, why not use the old 16 in/out patchbay for the channel inserts? it’s the same number of ins and outs, no confusion, no extra patch points to waste…perfect, right?
well, it seemed thus until last night when i got everything in place and started testing the rig and realized that my old, trusty MTR patchbay that i was using for inserts wasn’t normalled – which means that unless a cable is in place on the channel, the circuit is broken and nary a sound shall ye year until you patch the send into the return.
now, i have a behringer patch panel in there that’s switchable, and that’s where the inserts went before…but being the lazy fuck that i am, i’ll probably leave it the way it is and just get extra cables to leave in the insert patchbay so i don’t have to move shit again.
although there’s an excellent chance that it’ll eventually bother me to the point that i’ll fix it.
it was quite nice, though, at a little before 4am this morning, to hear audio coming from my speakers through the console.
i sure am payin’ for it today, though.
...from the rear view mirror 