Not Done Yet...

I know, I know. I said September 20th. It's now September 20th. I have not been slacking yo...HONEST! Here's where I stand so far: The songs for "Smooth House" are complete and mastered. "Man on Fire" is almost ready for mastering. All of my songs are written / typed and ready to be sent out via copy rights (which 90% are already copywritten) 61 keys - the beats are done, but the arrangements are not. So I'm almost done...The way I see it , I have a 5 day grace period...my conference is on the 28th of this month.

Did I slack?? Heck No! I been so stressed out with this yo. Most people pay for what I am doing. Not only did I record/sing the tracks. I mixed them, and I mastered them. I have a home studio, not a mastering house. So this process is alot harder, especially if you want the quality to be prestine. But guess what, the songs sound great! How did I do it...I can't tell you my secrets...but since this is my own personal blog i'll tell you:

Okay well you already know that all my beats are done on the Yamaha Motif...Sometimes we use the Numark Turntables when sampling records...but that's the only outside piece. I do all the mixing and sequencing to the track all on the board so that I only have to tweak it when I export. 2ndly, I dump the track via quarter inches ...I tried midi, but i always seem to get a buzz...I think it's a grounding issue with my keyboard...anyways, once the track is dumped...I lay the vocals. By the way I'm using Cubase as my software program (studio 4). 3rdly, when thats done, i mix in cubase until im happy with how it sounds...4thly, I export into Wavelab Essential (my mastering program)...touch the track up a little, and then 5thly, <----is that a word? I use my secret weapon...Ozone 3 (This is a mastering plugin) Ozone 3 does what wavelab can't. I open Ozone in wavelab as a plugin. The problem with home mixes is this: They always sound too Darn Low when u burn to CD and they sound weak compared to commercial CD's. Honestly Ozone fixes this, and I was very happy with my purchase of this plugin...THATS IT!! THat's my secret...well not everything (obviously there's some tricks on how i use my other equipment in conjunction with the motif, cubase, wavelab, and ozone...but i can't tell u that sorry. Until i get signed and im in million dollar studio's...this is going to be my setup.