3.2

allright, tonight looks there's going to be another session of creation. I am warming up in the best possible way I think; I am catching up on two months of Swedish gossip from a good friend and I've just finished a conversation with my parents. All the while I've listened through some old tracks I've never payed any attention to. I can't say that I now realise how great they are or anything but it's definitely something fresh for the ears, considering that during my 2 month NZ-trip I only had 2 gigabytes of music.

Mind you I'm one of those guys that listens to 320kb/s-tracks.

I had a listen to what I rendered after finishing working on the track last time and I noticed that the beginning is incredibly weak. It sounds dry and dull and to be harsh/realistic the actual loops themselves are pretty crap. We will need a lot of fx and tweaking to get them up to level.

This habit of always rendering what you've got before turning the computer off is to me extremely helpful. Not only do you get into the feeling of what you were doing last but also you hear the song without seeing it (as in whatever application(s) you are using).

For me working strictly in cubase is quite the different thing to experience a song without seeing the endless lines of the midi kick- and syncopation patterns with the synths swirling in and the occasional dots of effects. You might get a good overview and a sense of structure and perspective hearing it unrendered, but at least I get pretty blinded to how the sounds actually sound together - how the bassline and the synth interact and what colours there are in my head since I don't have to look at the gray and dead blue of the working area.

Also rendering is sort of putting whatever you've made of clay in the oven to make it hard. It simply behaves differently when taken out, and I'm not just meaning the psychological aspects I just mentioned but also that it simply sounds different when rendered. I am not nearly well learned enough to know what it actually is that gets altered and so but I have rendered enough stuff to know that there is a distinct difference in sound.

Well, I guess it's like what the chefs always tells you: constantly taste a spoonful of what you're cooking throughout the process.

So, time to load up the old application and see what happens then eh