album progress, out of breath, and more

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Yo! Update time. I've finally begun listening to my old Homestuck tracks and polishing the mixes to get them ready for I Warned You About Stairs. I've got some preliminary mixes done. And lemme tell ya, they sound so much better now that I actually somewhat understand what I'm doing. I released the first versions of these tunes years ago. Some I released as far back as 2020 or 2021. And back then I didn't know a damn thing about mixing. I was just recording myself playing my instruments and then smushing all the tracks together and exporting the whole mess and calling it a day. It's not like I'm a mixing genius now, either, but at least now I know how to work a highpass filter (at the very least!). And I understand the basic principles of mixing multitrack recordings. So expect the remastered versions of these tunes that will appear on the album to sound a lot better, a lot clearer, a lot smoother.

So. "Out of Breath". It's a tune about that one time John got stabbed through the chest by Bec Noir and died. He came back to life soon after, but for a brief moment, he was... Out of Breath. cue uproarious applause

This tune was a lot of fun to make. It took me forever, and so much blood and sweat and tears was shed. But I'm proud of the end result. A lot of stuff went wrong because I tried to expand my horizons. You know how it is. I'm always wanting to try something new, and grow, and learn, and all that jazz. And that usually results in me making a lot of mistakes and getting a lot of stuff wrong and learning from the experience. I've never incorporated electric guitars into a tune this extensively, for one. Mostly because I only recently learned to play electric guitar at all. Recording guitars is hard in ways I wasn't prepared for. Fret buzz, string noise, feedback, amp hum, improper muting… ugh. Guitar is hard. Mixing is hard too. Music in general is hard!

I'm also working with a new kick mic for my drum kit. You can see it in the video, actually, right at the start. Can you hear the difference? The snare and kick may jump out at you a bit more, and everything may be a little more defined and clear. 'Least that's how it sounds to me. That must be the new kick mic and new effects bus I threw together during mixing. I had to spend a while working on the effects for the drums. But I think the drums here sound better than ever.

Composing Out of Breath didn't actually take that long. I've always fucked with Heir Conditioning kinda heavy, so I knew I wanted to draw inspiration from there, and there were hella other homestuck/j-rock/osu! songs I wanted to quote melodies and progressions from because I'm a fucking nerd.

And neither did recording. I'm very familiar with the key of C minor on piano, so coming up with ideas and playing stuff and improvising other stuff was pretty straightforward. And the drumming was (relatively) simple and fun to make happen. None of that took very long.

It was the mixing that took forever. I hate mixing. I'm just sitting at my computer, hunched over, tweaking knobs on effects, wondering if my tune sounds too “muddy” or “boxy” or “harsh” or if the piano's low-mids need a slight cut (they do). Staring at the damn thing until my eyes glaze over. I already sit at a PC all day for my day job, so you can imagine that I'm not too enthusiastic to get right back in front of one. Mixing isn't very fun. Playing my instruments? Now that's fun.

Now let's talk about the future, about the other upcoming tracks, and about the album’s release. As is the case with most things in my life… I didn't really plan this out. I just kinda announced that I would be compiling all my old Homestuck music, applying a fresh coat of paint, remastering it all, and composing a couple new tunes, and then wrapping all of it up into a nice neat little package and releasing it as an album. My first ever “real” album, I guess. I think I will shoot for a release date of 10/25. Because what other date would I possibly pick? Plus I've got to give myself time to get everything ready. I still need to figure a lot of stuff out. I'd rather give myself more time and get everything right, and not rush it and mess it all up.

On 6/12 I will release the next of my newly composed tunes. This is the tune that a lot of people seemed to get excited for. It was the tune that played during the announcement/teaser video that hyped people up! What's it called? What kind of tune is it? What does the whole track sound like? You'll just have to wait until June 12th.