tomorrow, we "master"

As I write this, Morgan (see photo) and I are going over the final mixes and bouncing them to disk so that tomorrow, we can get out of bed, bright and early and drive to Virginia to have the album mastered at Air Show Mastering by Charlie.

I'm nervous. I've inflated all this work that we've been doing for the last 2 years on this project to epic proportions and meanings. I've been stressing about this thing for the past 2 weeks. Obsessively listening to it in different environments. Coming to terms with the mistakes I've made on the recording in the hopes that those mistakes are giving the recording a perfect feeling of precise imperfection. (huh?)

12 songs. some are old ones that i've played for a long time. some are brand new from the last year. all are ready to be out in the world. but am i ready for them to be out in the world? subject to both (hopefully) praise and critique? i'm so grateful to Doo Da Lang and #1BB for all their incredibly hard work and dedication to these songs. I want the recording to represent both the successes we've had in the studio, but also happy mistakes. I know that when i listen to it, as i do with all my recordings, i hear what could have been if only....if only i'd recorded 20 vocal tracks instead of 4; if only i hadn't recorded right after i bronchitis; if only i'd dedicated a smaller, more intense, amount of time to the recording--it might sound more cohesive.

there's alot of "if onlys" but really, it doesn't matter. like photography, recording is also a snapshot. it can be edited as well, but i don't want to edit the life out of it. i'm proud of this recording and i really hope it takes me to another level of exposure. that's the true goal of it. i want alot of people to hear it and of course, i want them all to like it and pass it to their (well connected) friends. but mostly, i want people to listen carefully (especially my parents) at least one time--listen with headphones or on your good stereo and hear the 2 years of time that we've poured into it.

then put it your car, crank it up and play track 1 over and over and over.