So I go to the studio to get my finished version of Respect mastered. The guy pointed me to a few fairly simple things I could do to the mix to improve it but basically said my limitation is my technology. This is fine by me. Better than the limitation being me right? Anyhow I was amazed how much more alive and punchy he could make the mix. I’m really starting to understand how so many talentless nobodies become extremely successful. They have very effective people and equipment around them and that is enough to make something sound good…

Anyway, enough whining;-). I bring my cd home really excited and stick it in my cd player. It whirs for a while then spits it out. I try it again and no luck. I manage to get it to work on my mum’s pc. Only there’s a problem – it skips for about a quarter of a second part way through the first verse. I try it on another computer and get the same problem. The cd is knackered. I phone the guy at the studio. He says he’ll have another listen to his copy but refuses to post me a copy of it or put one online. This is a problem for me since I am packing today to leave for Italy and do not have time or money to spend half a day traveling up to London to pick up a copy that works.

Listening to what he did again I’m going to conclude a couple of things:
1) It’s really not so hard to master recordings. I watched him and listened and reckon I could do just as well – probably better with my own music since I noticed he was quite heavy handed with a few things that he seemed to simply miss. Note – I would rather meet someone who “gets” what I’m doing but until that happens I’m on my own I guess.

2) There’s a few simple things I can do to my mix that he pointed out that will improve it dramatically. (There’s also a few things he said that I disagree with but that’s only natural I guess) It would have been daft to master the recording without doing these things when they are so easy.

Unfortunately I can’t do any of this until I return from Italy in three weeks. Meanwhile I’ll update the in progress page and keep writing songs! This is not the first time something weird and strange has happened to stop me from releasing something that could have been slightly better. It seems like this music *wants* to be perfect and is damned if it’s going to let me skimp no matter how much I may want to.

It’s a beautiful day. And I wrote and recorded a beautiful song this morning. That’s enough for me for now:-).