December 2006

December 2006
One of the most difficult things about making Logic was allowing ourselves to finish the album. Tracking had been completely at the end of May but we had since reached an impasse where as soon as one thing was satisfactory, something else was wrong. Vocals were done and redone. Mixes were made furiously late at night, only to be scrapped the next day. I processed every track through various plugins, ultimately deciding that everything sounded better without most of the effects. The album became our baby, our obsession, and while I didn't make it obvious to Spencer that I was thinking about it alot, I was, and I know he was too. Since we were so involved in the making of this album, it was almost impossible to send it to Northeastern Digital to get mastered.

It was also a huge step. I'd never recorded a full length album before and I'd never had anything mastered. When you send something to the mastering house, you're putting the final product in someone else's hands and you're saying "I've done the best I can do with the tracking and mixing of these songs, you make it sound like a unified whole."

Toby Moutnain, who mastered Logic, is a real mastering engineer. He's done a whole bunch of digital remasters for Bowie, Frank Zappa, and I believe he generally makes a living now doing classical mastering. I felt stupid sending him off our crappy little mixes, made for damn-near free in my TV room at home. It felt like cheating the system to be able to take something out of my house and have it play through Toby Mountain's expensive monitor set-up but that's exaclty what happened. I half expected to get a call from Northeastern Digital with the news that they simply couldn't work with our material but of course they wanted the 600 dollars...

I'm not sure the mastering was worth it. People like to champion the importance of mastering and I've seen it with my own eyes, but I think that money could have been better spent. We could've made better recordings if I had a little bit more freedom with my mic choices. Maybe if we'd bought some soundproofing materials or something, we could've cleaned things up a little.

As it stands, I'm more happy that we managed to finish than I am with the finished product itself. The music itself is almost inconsequential at this point. What's important is that Logic is a slice of a certain time of my life. I recorded that album to get over a girl...I was sad and I did what I was best at all day. I threw myself into something for the first time. I tried to make a statement. I'm hardly trying to minimize Spencer in all this but I can't tell you why he made the album. I guess he had to get the music out of him.