There are probably several people out there who click on the domain www.christopher.mu and get greeted with a cold `SITE UNAVAILABLE’ and are probably assuming that Christopher has disappeared off the internet. Only detritus of myspace profiles and reviews going to dead ends remain of this misadventurous artist.

The domain went offline on September 30, 2008.

The same exact day the album `Torched Laughter’ was released.

This wasn’t my choice but the domain provider’s decision. The timing could not have been worse. It took over 2 weeks to even attempt to renew the domain. By that point it was pointless. The damage was done.

Several CD’s went to the distributor, press, etc with that domain. Had to explain to them that the domain is now dead. Any content on the internet associated with me that I have control over had to be changed.

While I initially tried to renew the domain, they wanted more money and wanted me to pay for the past 2-3 years. I disagreed with having to pay for these `already paid for’ years. They disagreed with my disagreement. And here we are now. They want more money, I want a domain that works. Neither of us will get what we want, and I care not to have my career sabotaged by a stupid domain; or lack thereof.

So, with equal parts anger and stubbornness only ascribed to mythical dwarves in Forgotten Realms novels, I said goodbye to the domain which I invested a considerable amount of time into for the past 6-7 years. C’est la vie.

From a website perspective, it certainly has been ugly since the loss of the domain, but one has to soldier on. Good old www.comecloser.com is still in service thankfully.

The .mu extension was a weird one. When they first went online, Billboard magazine was touting them as the official `Music Domain.’ Artists like Janet Jackson and Sting were able to circumvent cyber squatters who owned Janet.com and Sting.com thanks to the .mu extension.

When I heard about this, I immediately grabbed up the Christopher.mu domain through a 3^rd party company called Samsdirect. I got rather tired of the emails from the owners of Christopher.com or christopherx.com etc offering to sell their domain to me for an affordable rate of $50,000.

Later on I found out .mu was not a music domain. It was reserved for the island of Mauritius. A small island off of Madagascar who housed the last dodo birds prior to their extinction.

At this time I’m not planning on finding some new variant of `Christopher’ in a domain name.

Christopher

www.comecloser.com

www.myspace.com/officialchristopher

Buy CD – MP3 Version- FLAC Version

CD Version:$6.99 Standard DVD Case, album art, etc.

MP3 Version: $4.00 All songs 320 kbps encoded. DRM Free. Comes with a 13 Page PDF Booklet and Web Extras such as wall paper, avatars, etc.

FLAC Version: $4.00 Lossless Compression. Comes with a 13 Page PDF Booklet and Web Extras such as wall paper, avatars, etc.

Or

Torched Laughter & Smoke and Origination Bundle:

MP3 Version: $10.00 All 18 songs 320 kbps encoded. DRM Free. Comes with 2 PDF Booklets and Web Extras such as wall paper, avatars, etc.

FLAC Version: $10.00 All 18 songs Lossless Compression. Comes with 2 PDF Booklets and Web Extras such as wall paper, avatars, etc.

If you want to listen to all the songs on `Torched Laughter,’ you can hear them on the front page at www.comecloser.com

Some Notes:

I intended to do some updates prior to the release, but there was way too much to do. In order to release this album the way I wanted to, I had to sacrifice any updates/blogging to get everything ready. Hell, I’m still getting everything ready.

About the FLAC and MP3 Versions of `Torched Laughter:’

While you can get the album on i-tunes, (eventually. They take forever.) I set up the option where you can buy the album in better quality and get a whole bunch of extras that would not be available on i-Tunes or any of those sites and it’s considerably cheaper.

For the time being, the MP3 and FLAC versions are available through Paypal.

It was a lot of work and pretty risky to release the albums in multi-formats before the digital distributors get their hands on them because this is the first time I’m managing it on my own. If you experience any issues trying to purchase and download the music, let me know: info@comecloser.com

Thanks to all of you for your support and being involved peripherally in the recording of this album. You had to endure over 8 months of my constant yammering, and now you can hear what I’ve worked extremely hard at. Hope it was worth the wait.

Domain/Website Issues -

Talk about perfect timing, I’m having a dispute with a domain company regarding christopher.mu. As of now, it will NOT work. Please use www.comecloser.com
to access the site. I have no idea when this will be resolved.

-Christopher

Hi All,

The artwork is being done right now. It looks fantastic. Why? Because I’m not doing it. Doing everything yourself is severely overrated.

The front cover is done but the inner sleeve and liner notes need to be finished. The visuals are somewhat related to `Smoke and Origination’ and the `artwork for each song’ concept is present on this album. When I have a tangible release date in my mind, I’ll post the artwork. I would hate to post it now, and through some profound bad luck the album is held back until 2009. 

Some other notes:

I don’t have a whole lot to report on regarding the release date of `Torched Laughter.’ I’m shooting for September but I am going to take my time and release it properly with hopefully minimal stress.

Press folks, you’re getting the album after it’s released. It has nothing to do with illegal downloading. It has everything to do with the 1-5 month lead times websites and magazines have. Trying to synchronize my record to your schedule just does not work. It certainly didn’t work last time. And I have no cocaine to bribe you with.

I was going to post a `final last word’ on the `Torched Laughter Studio Diary’ experience. I’m looking over it now; it’s very long winded and quite negative. I think I’m going to give myself some more time before I write my final thoughts on this recording experience. It was pretty exhausting all the way to the mastering process.

Thanks to all of you checking out my Hockey Night In Canada Theme Song Entry. Please view it and share it. Here it is again: http://anthemchallenge.cbc.ca/mediadetail/298424

`Torched Laughter’ was officially finished on August 2^nd 2008 at 3:12pm.

More details to follow.

Mastering audio is a horrid, horrid process. It takes a very special set of ears and perception to do this type of job. I do not have those ears. But since I am not budgeted for a proper mastering specialist, it’ll be DIY.

Mixing, with all its warts, algorithms, and soul sucking cubicle-esque methodology, is tolerable. There is a lot of room to play around and get creative.

Mastering? Hah. No. It’s about adding the polish to make the final recording sound vibrant and stellar. You know that glossy sheen you hear on your favourite songs that make it sound all professional? That’s mastering. Thankfully, the product I am working on is my own. If I was mastering someone else’s album, I probably would eat a bullet.

Mastering is also a deceptive and seductive mistress. With all the mastering software and outboard gear at your disposal, you can easily wreck a recording simply through making it incrementally louder and adding more eq. Each increment sounds glossier and louder than the previous step. Before you know it, you have this over-processed over-loud recording that is louder and harsher than any Brit Pop record.

The other deception is when you THINK you are done. As I thought I was on Saturday. I heard the playbacks on desktop, laptop, car, and home theatre speakers. They sounded great. Fantastic to my fatigued ears, actually. I almost wrote a great press release proclaiming that the recording was finally completed. I would exhale yet another effervescent breath and move on to other things.

Then I listened again Sunday. And since Sunday I’ve been eq’ing and compressing (tastefully) until the damn thing sounds right. The problem with the initial finished product is that it was too hot, too harsh and sounded `narrow.’

In other words, it sounds like every other professionally recorded album out there right now.

You know that glossy sheen you hear on your favourite songs that make your ears tired and you can’t listen to an entire album straight through? That’s mastering.

That other devil within Mastering is its capability to make something unnaturally loud without distorting that much. This realisation started the great LOUDNESS WARS of the 90’s which continues today. Record labels, and now bands, think that in order to compete on the radio and your mp3 player, they have to be louder than the next recording. The problem this causes is that when a well mastered recording with a respectable volume is played against a hard mastered song, that well mastered recording does indeed sound weak. Our stupid ears respond to intervallic relationships, not on actual sound.

After a good 10 years of listening to recordings that are very hot, I am conditioned to make it very loud and hot as well. It’s an ugly practice contributing to the decline of this art. Fortunately, you can get the best of both worlds (volume, sheen, and tasteful) but it takes a bit of work to do. I have 3 songs I am very happy with so far. Only 3 to go. They should be finished tonight.

The mixing of `Torched Laughter’ has been completed. I breathe an effervescent breath.

After several weeks of re-reading basic EQ tutorials, re-learning compression, finding out what really worked and what didn’t, the final work is something I am genuinely excited about. I like how `exposed’ it sounds. It was important to me to re-learn everything such as the fundamentals of sound. I always feel I forget something crucial.

What have I learned from all this?

I need to take my time. The endless self-flagellation over not being able to increase my output to match colleagues and contemporaries has only made me miserable and those on the periphery.

Being an inconsolable prick because I’m not getting a record out as fast as I would like to is stupid. Somehow, the world has managed to revolve without my prolific contributions.

Shocking, I know.

And while that last crisp breath gets exhaled, I dread the following inhalation. That air will be muggy and painfully hot like the iron works of Hephaestus.

Mastering is next.

If my `Mixing: An Introduction’ blog gave any indication for my contempt for the art of mixing, it will be greatly diminished by my thoughts on Mastering.

Took up the chance to play some songs at a party this past weekend. It was a blast. Although it was sloppy and amateur (my playing, not the other groups there,) it felt so good to sing and just mess around without structure. More after the jump.

I miss playing live. I have to remedy this.

This party had 3 death metal bands playing. My have the times changed. Burgers, booze, light garments, and the soundtrack of our lives: The Asphyxiation of Corroded Death.

I was a bit apprehensive to play after 3 metal bands. They: wallet chains and Cannibal Corpse shirts. Me: breezy shorts and a Citizen’s Auxiliary Police Shirt.

With a friend’s guitar in hand I somehow managed through a few songs though never remembering the words to any of them fully.

`Tornadoes’ by Drive By Truckers

`Only For The Weak’ by In Flames

`Where We Rest’ which you can find off of the `Orchid’ demo,

`Derivative Hearts’ off of `Smoke and Origination.’

`You’re Time Is Gonna Come’ by Zeppelin. I was chided for not playing a 2 minute Organ intro on the guitar for that one.

I think there were 3 drummers who switched themselves in and out of songs. Got a bit confusing when I would turn around and there was another face. Still pretty cool.

Then the rain came and the fun was over. But it was a mercy killing since I couldn’t think of any other songs to play.

Naturally I have a whole list of songs now I can remember to play. On a Monday night. About to go to sleep.

It’s silly to keep using `day 1′ or `day # whatever’.’ I really have to stop doing that. Most of the days are so uneventful I am hard pressed to write any sort of update.

Some brief notes:

-`Jaw Filled Wreckage’ took a very long time to mix. Mainly because it’s the first song I’m mixing. Thankfully, this was finished a couple of days ago. Finishing up `The Tilted Figure’ today.

-How it sounds: Unprocessed, uncluttered, and unfiltered. How everything was recorded through the microphone is what you hear except with more bass, high end, clarity and a smattering of room acoustics. So strange that it’s infinitely harder to do this than create a synthetic environment that is overly processed and manipulated.

-A baby skunk was trapped in a window well for a day. I picked it up and let it go on its merry way.

Mixing didn’t go so well because I’m not thrilled with the current reverbs I have. The ones I do have are good for providing space for a lot of tracks, but not very good for solo instruments or sparser environments. They’re too fake sounding. While reverb in itself is fake creating fake ambience, I would like to find a find one that at least simulates a medium-sized room well.

Plus, I really wasn’t in the mood to mix. It’s one of those things (like recording) where if you are not focused, you’re kind of doomed. The onus is on me to solve the technical problems. If I was a solely an old school producer and had an engineer in my employ, my mood wouldn’t really matter. I could yell and yell at the guy until it sounded correct. All I would have to do is listen and mercilessly criticize until I felt it was acceptable. Oh how I long to be in that state where I can bask in self-importance and make others feel awful. (Though those close to me may argue that this is a reality now)

Example now: Since the reverbs I have aren’t what I need for this project, I need to go hunting for a Convolution-based reverb and dip into my budget. If I was an old school producer, the scenario would go like this:

(Me is played by a cute little me with red demonic eyes)

 (Engineer is played by late 80’s hockey player Tim Kerr)

We need a convolution-based reverb for this track

 Ok. But I don’t have one here.

 You’re an engineer and don’t have one in your sonic repertoire? GET ONE NOW INGRATE!

SIR! YES SIR!

THAT’S RIGHT. MY HAND IS STRONG BOY.

See? Nice and easy. I can sit back in a leather couch, and just THINK. Think important things until the engineer (or his intern) comes back with the reverb. And look brooding. A girl who doesn’t talk and devoid of interpersonal skills will massage my shoulders.

I can wear vibrant feathery plumes, use a cane wherever I go and tell brilliant overqualified audio specialists how everything should sound. Then they can curse my name behind my back and blog about my incompetence and arrogance at their secret audio messageboards. They’ll make nasty audio technical jokes like `If he reduced the volume of his voice by -72db he’d sound fantastic!’ They’ll LOL, but it will be typed angrily.

But alas, this is not my reality. But I can dream. I will be testing out the reverb this weekend while traveling

Ice on the foot, let’s get to work.

There is some debate in the mixing world whether you apply EQ or Compression first. The usual method would be to apply compression. In the past I would apply EQ first. Reason being is that most of the material recorded didn’t sound good initially and needed attenuating immediately. Nasty bumps, bonks, honks, squawks needed to be removed. I applied this same method last night. But there was one factor that I totally forgot about this time:

I actually recorded everything fairly well. All that time slaving away at the bass was for naught. The bass sounded fine. I was just being an idiot repeating past methods.

The only real fix it needed was to notch out all my serial killer breathing one of the microphones picked up. The compressor was acting a little strange but did the job. I’ll come back to the bass again, this I am sure of.

The percussion was a breeze. This is probably the last time I will say this in this blog.

Light compression, light EQ, they pretty much mixed themselves.

The song I’m working on is `Jaw Filled Wreckage.’ Once I figure out the mix of this song the others should follow suit pretty easily. I’m not going to vary the sound too much since it’s the performance that is doing all the variations.

The Pittsburgh Penguins (my favourite NHL team) lost the Stanley Cup tonight. Perhaps if this was the NHL of the 1980’s I might have cared. I want bench clearing brawls, no helmets, tears, rivalries, smoking and drinking in the penalty box, and great technical passing. All of that is dead in favour of a sterile game played by genetically enhanced livestock instead of prisoners and French Canadians.

Fun fact: Mario Lemieux was a neighborhood acquaintance of the family way back when. My brother used to play football with him. So…local boy did good. When his back decided to work.

Tomorrow night is creating the ideal spatial field environment for the drums and bass. Sounds fancy!

It’s not.

I broke a toe. (So I am told)

I take this as a tell-tale sign that I am close to completion of this record. Nothing ever gets completed without some ridiculous unforeseeable incident. Take `Smoke and Origination’ as an example: I lost the whole album (and Torched Laughter, and the metal project) while mixing. The exception was `Lucifer Rising.’ That was because the guiding hand of Satan took care of me.

Thankfully, this toe doesn’t interfere with my hands or my ears. Nice try karma, better luck next time. I am used to your petty games. I know you put pin holes in the cosmic condom.

Moving right along:

The first step in this adventure of suck called MIXING is equalizing the upright bass.

The bass is the foundation of the music. Once I figure out how I can make sound as good as possible, it will make adding all the other instruments much easier.

Since taking a 10 minute break from writing this particular entry, I found the right sound of the bass. If I didn’t take that break, there would have been some mighty mean cussing in this blog. (It’s early yet)

I took a moment today to think about why I really despise the mixing process and frustrated at times with recording in general:

It stems from years of dealing with over-analytical technophiles who made anything and everything sound complicated. As a youth I would ask silly questions like `how do you get a guitar to sound really heavy without being mushy and sounding lifeless?’*

The answer would be a 6 paragraph manifesto regarding the impossibility of achieving said sound with gear that doesn’t cost in excess of 200,000 US dollars. At the end of this smarmy speech they would brag about the mixing board they owned that was once used for a rehearsal for Mahavishnu Orchestra back in 1972. (Before Jan Hammer & Billy Cobham left the band and sold out MAAAAN)

I say `they’ because there are several variations of the same answer from different experienced engineers I dealt with in the past. Some used Mahavishnu Orchestra as the claim to fame, some used Tool or Aerosmith. They made everything sound impossible.

While I sit here and play with equalization I can feel their fucking hockey haired smugness dripping acidic breath on my shoulders. If I was still in contact with them, they would be sending me the schematic of a kinetophone with the word FAIL going across it via e-mail.

Sorry, I couldn’t find the schematic.

This is by no means an affront to experienced engineers. Just addressing the rubbish that had no semblance of positivism, ingenuity or encouragement for those who were curious about the fundamentals of sound. If more guys were like Bob Katz, perhaps music and audio these days would be a much better creature.

Anyway, let’s see what Day 2 brings.

*Turn the gain down. Add mid range. Play around. Done.