Well, dear readers, it’s not like I wasn’t warned, oh, yes, it’s not like I wasn’t warned. My engineer clearly told me that the first of our three STAGE projects was the best sounding of them. But did I believe him? Nooooo. Should I have? Yesssss. I spent a rather frustrating four hours getting through only two-thirds of the first half of the Bacharach STAGE show. Well, not quite four hours, as the first forty minutes were spent in making fixes to the Sondheim show, which is going off to the mastering guy as I write these here notes. But as soon as the iconic overture to Promises, Promises began and I heard several sour notes from the SEVEN pit singers I knew we were in for a full evening of nitpicky finessing. In fact, I got the overture to sound acceptable and then decided to move on – we’ll come back to it after we finish everything else and finish finessing it. But the first act of the Bacharach show is a kind of tab version of Promises – I don’t know who the lead guy is, but Fran is Vicki Lewis. We had to not only go through each song and finesse the rough mixes, we’re having to make a few more radical fixes, as well. Then we have to delete all the narration and dialogue, which is not always easy and is very time consuming and that ate up a lot of our work time. I should have known to have him do all those deletions before this but it didn’t occur to me. So basically we’re mixing the entire score to Promises and that’s only the first half of the show! We have to unfortunately leave out Where Can You Take a Girl because one of the four actors had a mic malfunction for the entire number – malfunction as in no mic so all his solo lines and everything else cannot be heard at all, thereby leaving a one-person void. I’m not sure if they do the reprise, but if they do then we’ll at least have that. We finally left off with Whoever You Are and we’ll resume tonight, but it’s clear we cannot finish this and the Andrew Lloyd Webber one (although that will be a lot easier), so we’ll be working tomorrow night, too – hopefully we’ll get it all done by then. The biggest problem of the evening was every time we’d remove dialogue and narration certain tracks got out of the timeline and the engineer had to painstakingly get them in synch again. So, everything’s sounding as good as it’s going to sound, but it’s a little frustrating doing this one. Act two will be much simpler.
Prior to that, it took me forever to fall asleep (four in the morning) and I woke up around ten, so at least I got six hours of sleep. I then had to get ready for my morning meeting, which went well. I then came home and worked on the packaging of the Sondheim show, spoke to director David Galligan and made the decisions as to what was getting cut. With the cuts, that left a very short first disc, so my suggestion was to move three songs from disc two into disc one’s program – he was fine with that and we chose the three songs. After that, I ate a corned beef sandwich and sweet potato fries, picked up some packages, and then did more work on the packaging, and began choosing songs for the next Kritzerland show.
I also finished watching one motion picture that we’re doing the score for, and watched half of another we’re doing the score for. So, I’ll be able to write those notes very soon. The Kritzerland designer also picked up a lot of art and photos for our next four soundtrack releases.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I’m overtired and must get a good night’s beauty sleep.
Today, I have lots of errands and whatnot to do, I must hopefully pick up packages, I must eat, if the weather is nice I may jog, I must write liner notes, and then I must finish mixing the Bacharach show and maybe even get a head start on the Lloyd Webber show. Yes, another long and full day and evening ahead.
Tomorrow it’s more of the same and then yet another night of mixing. The hope is that we’ll be all through. Friday is a Melody rehearsal, the weekend is full, including a second Melody rehearsal, and I’m seeing Greer Geissman in a play at her college on Saturday night, attending with her folks.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do errands and whatnot, I must hopefully pick up packages, eat, maybe jog, write, and then mix. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall hopefully fall asleep apace.