Well, dear readers, the news was very good yesterday, mixing it up-wise. The fixes we wanted and were hoping to do, which was the entire raison d’etre of our new release, came out so beautifully that I got a little emotional, I must say, and so I did say. When you’ve listened to something for so many years and every time a problem with pitch happens you just cringe and feel bad that they didn’t have time to fix it way back when or the tools to do it during the mix – and hearing those pitchy notes finally right is so gratifying and wonderful, at least to these ears. The engineer hadn’t finessed any of the mixes (six songs) I heard, but even the roughs sounded incredible – this was a beautifully recorded album that then had a very rushed mix to get it in stores quickly back in the day. I’m hearing things in the orchestrations that I’ve never heard before and I know this score intimately. Wonderful keyboard parts that are all but buried in the original, reed lines or trumpet echoes that you never really heard before – it’s all fantastic. The drums sound much better than they ever have (and this is a drum-heavy score), and it’s quite thrilling to hear it so clean and crisp. One interesting discovery – while they recorded the vocal reverb to tape and there was also reverb on the brass to tape, the reeds, strings, bass, and drums were all recorded dry. So, we’re adding a very small amount of our patented great verb to that, just so it matches everything else – and I’m hoping everyone will be as thrilled as I am with this. Plus, just a little heads up for our dear readers – there will be a hidden track – something that’s never been heard before. One other discovery we made was a little character shtick in one song – they didn’t use it on the original LP or the CD issue – but we’re using it because it’s absolutely adorable. In any case, that was a lovely way to start a day, that’s all I can tell you.
After that, I came home, finally heard from someone I was getting concerned about, and all is well, so that’s good. I then grabbed some lunch, picked up a couple of packages and some mail, did some banking, then had a long telephonic conversation with the owner of the Gardenia nightclub – it looks like we’re going to start a monthly Kritzerland at the Gardenia evening – I’m very excited about this, and will be enlisting the aid of all my favorite performers. We’ll be doing themed evenings, especially doing some of the album concepts of things I’ve produced, like Lost in Boston, Unsung Musicals and the other Unsung albums, the Peter Pan and Cinderella stuff, all those wonderful songs we’ve done over the years. I’m hoping this will catch on and become a popular event every month. If it really catches on, then we might even go to twice a month. My hope is to start in either August or September with our first show. I shall now try and figure out what that show will be, but I want to start off with something very strong and with great people. I’m never going to have a ton of singers do one show – I’ll have anywhere from four to eight at the most. More fun that way, I think. Anyway, I can’t wait to dive in and get this going.
After that, I revised some of my liner notes based on what I’d heard earlier, and then I wrote a very detailed announcement blurb – I’ll probably announce here for you dear readers to preorder on Saturday at midnight. I then did a quick jog, and that was pretty much it. I watched about half of La Cage Aux Folles II – it’s not anywhere near as funny as the first film, and it’s all pretty labored, but there are some very amusing bits and I’ll stick with it to the end.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because the entire raison d’etre of this section is to get to the next section.
And the raison d’etre of this section is to get me into bed so I can get my beauty sleep. Raison – no, no, not raisons, no, liaisons. What am I, Hermione Gingold all of a sudden?
Today, I shall be going to the engineer’s home environment to hear all the mixes. We’ll do whatever finessing I deem necessary and that will be that – he’ll then get them to the mastering engineer and hopefully the mastering engineer can get this all done by Sunday, early evening, so I can get the audio samples to the web guy and then we can announce come Monday morning.
Tomorrow, I’ll take it nice ‘n’ easy and then go see Carousel in the evening. Sunday, of course, this will be the place to be for our annual haineshisway.com Tony Partay, which will be the best partay on all the Internet. So, be there or be round, that’s all I’ve got to say.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, finish mixing a CD, eat, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player, and your DVD/video player? I’ll start – CD, some jazz compilations from VeeJay artists (really good), and a whole slew of soundtrack recordings. Blu and Ray, Where Eagles Dare and Kelly’s Heroes. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, for that is the true raison d’etre on the entire thing.