Blog

New Site

Once again it has been a bit of time since my last update. My excuse this time is that I have been designing a new website, part of which you are seeing now. I say part of which because the design is not complete. A lot of my time was spent behind the scenes, updating the code that runs the site. My old design was based on code I had written over several years, so things were nothing short of a mess. I decided to move to something called Expression Engine, and I am absolutely loving it.

I can now easily update every part of the site. Pictures can be added effortlessly, as well as video, audio, etc. Over time I will be introducing new features, including ones that relate to building a fanbase/community. You will notice two links at the top of the page: "Register | Login". Go ahead and hit register to create your own account for the site. This will work for commenting, for the forums, etc.

All of this goes to say, please bear with me as I continue to work on the site. Some things might be broken, content will be missing, etc. This will still be better than what has been up for the last several months, however. Hopefully this will be enough incentive for me to post more often.  In fact, make sure to check back tomorrow, as I will be posting a few song files from a project I've been working on!

Collaborative Effort

I've been making quite a bit of progress on many aspects of the project in the last several weeks. The mixing is coming along really well. We've worked on seven tunes so far, and are at, or nearly, the halfway mark in the mixing process. In the photography department, my good friend Matt Feyerabend has finished shooting the photos we will need for the album design. We've had a total of at least five shoots, and it is nice to finally have things nailed down.

Now that I've outlined where we stand on mixing and photography, I'd like to touch more deeply on the subject of album art. This is an area over which I've had much anxiety. Despite the digital bliss that can characterize much of today's music distribution, I find myself mainly purchasing physical copies of music. To me there is nothing like opening up a new CD (or vinyl when available), firing up my speakers, and enjoying the album art while I follow along with the music. Dave Matthews Band's latest effort, Big Whiskey, is a great example of this. I purchased a special edition vinyl version of this album and spent hours looking through and enjoying all the nuances of the artwork. Much like their music, the artwork provided something new to discover on each viewing.

The album artwork/design is the first taste a listener will get of an album and can make or break the beginning of the experience. My last album left much to be desired in this area, not to mention sonically. Three and a half years have been put into The Sun Still Rises so far, and it is critical that the album cover shows this. While still unreleased, it has quite a history. The album art must convey the amount of thought and work that has gone into every moment of this record.

With these things in mind, I wanted to find someone who has had experience in this field and shares a common love for great album artwork and design. I've been working closely with Short Handed Studio (John Holcomb) on the design of the album art, logo, and new website. The album art is being created entirely by hand. The only role that computer based image processing will play is with the text. I am blown away with how great the art is looking and can already envision myself opening up a copy of the album and browsing through while I listen. John spends a considerable amount of time thinking through his work and making himself familiar with what has already been created. It has been amazing to work with someone this knowledgeable, skilled, and who loves what he does to such an extent.

As I began to work on the list of credits to give to John, it struck me just how many people have been deeply involved in this project. Counting only those involved directly on the music side (audio engineers and studio musicians), the total comes to around seventeen or eighteen people! The final total will be well over twenty once we have hired the final musicians, include mastering, and the designers and photographers are added into that figure.

Let's go back to something I mentioned earlier in this post: my previous album. A total of four to five people were involved in that effort with me as the only musician. I remember taking pride in the fact that I did all of the recording, mixing, editing, mastering, songwriting, album design, singing, and playing. While it was fun to get to do so much, I realized that to make a great album, I couldn't just do it all myself. Besides the pride factor, I have historically found it very hard to trust pieces of my projects to other individuals.

We could have released what was finished in the first three months of recording, but it would have been much too similar to the last album by lacking an improvement in quality. At this point (May 2007), a total of three musicians had been involved and there was not very much diversity in the sound. I remember feeling worried when Lendell suggested the idea of putting some pieces into the hands of more competent people. While this kind of trust is still something I struggle with, I think tremendous growth has taken place. Looking back, it is easy to see how this album would not be nearly what it is without the many contributions of these incredibly talented individuals. This lesson is one I will continue to learn, and must learn if I plan on taking this where I want to some day.

I envision getting to work with a full orchestra and band live. To do this, the production team alone will be pretty large, not even taking into consideration the number of musicians! I feel that the experience of making this record has prepared me for what is to come. I must thank so many of you for being patient with me as I slowly learned these lessons. Thank you for your continued patience, I feel it is truly paying off!

New Website

For the past couple of months I have been working on a new website. I like to call it my “Dream” site, as it incorporates many features I’ve always dreamed of having.

Photo uploads are majorly streamlined and work in a way that will let me effortlessly update the site’s design. The website takes care of any relevant image resizing. Simply uploading the existing images (~24) and associating them with the proper entries took a significant amount of time. The goal is that I will never have to do this again. Ever.

In the past it was a significant undertaking to add audio and video files, especially to blog posts. I already have the audio part figured out, and am hammering away the video details.

*Disclaimer: If you are put off by technical details, my feelings won’t be hurt in the slightest if you choose to skip the rest of this entry, though it’s not as if I will have any way of knowing anyway!

The “holy grail” of website design has been, to me, having my own custom video system very similar to Youtube. I want to be able to upload a video file, associate it with my blog entry, and let my server take care of any relevant conversions. For all of you Unix nerds out there, the best command line tool to do this is called Ffmpeg, and it is a royal pain to install and get running, due to a huge number of dependencies. I’ve tried several times (unsuccessfully) to get Ffmpeg installed on my server. I am with a hosting company called Dreamhost and as it so happens, they go ahead and install a default version of Ffmpeg for use.

I’ve tried their built in version in the past without success, but that was a couple of years ago. After a failed attempt to install a custom version this evening, I figured what the heck and gave the built in version a go. To my amazement it knew exactly what to do with my X264 & AAC encoded video file.

This leaves one very difficult step: creating a shell script, scheduled via cron, to automatically convert video files when they are uploaded.

I have come up with the following system:

1) User goes into control panel of website and creates a new video “entry”. They can either upload their video file there, or choose a file they have previously uploaded to the server via FTP or SFTP.

2) The user posts this entry, which includes any information they deem interesting/necessary about the video file. A “Flag” is set automatically that categorizes the entry as Queued.

3) A shell script that I mentioned previously runs every x minutes (I am thinking 1 or 2). This script checks the database and sees the Queued flag. Since the file is associated with the entry, it knows exactly where to find it, and it is assumed the file is complete (As in fully uploaded).

4) The shell script runs the file through Ffmpeg as many times as necessary. I am thinking I will have a High Quality, original resolution version (up to 856x480), a compressed version with the high resolution, and then a lower resolution version. That will require three conversions. I might also in the future offer a couple of download versions, but for the immediate future, 3 conversions should be more than enough.

5) Once these conversions have completed successfully, the shell script updates the entries’ status to Open. This will tell the CMS that it is ready for use. I am hoping to use related entries to hold up the publication of any blog entries associated with the video until all relevant processing is complete as well, but I still need to think through this step.

So that’s what I have been hard at work accomplishing in my spare time. The next steps will be to finish the video feature , build out a couple other small areas of the site, and then begin finalizing the design aspect. If anyone has had experience in the video conversion field, don’t hesitate to get in touch, I am sure I will greatly benefit from any help you might be able to provide!

The goal of this redesign is to make it much easier for fans/users/people to stay up to date with what is going on with me. I’ve often passed up opportunities to post media to the site simply because I didn’t have a very good system in place. I am very excited to see how this new website will help foster community and how it will stand the test of time!

A Substantial Update (Finally!)

Well, it’s been a long, long, long time, but I am finally ready to post this substantial update. My last entry, way back in June, stated that I had begun looking for help with the mixing. Over the last couple of years, I’ve tried sending the album off to be mixed with less than acceptable results, tried mixing it myself, and tried working with a few other individuals. Unfortunately, for some reason or another, none of these attempts yielded what I consider a professional result. After spending three years on this record, I have a pretty good idea of how I would like the songs to sound but lack the skill and experience to get them there. It was clear to me that I needed to seek out someone who has had years of experience.

For the last couple of years, I have been building a friendship with a gentleman named David Teegarden. David has had many years of experience. He has worked with musicians including JJ Cale, Eric Clapton, and Bruce Hornsby to name a few. He was also the drummer for Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band and won a grammy for their 1980 release entitled “Against The Wind”.

We had our first session on November 15th, and things have really been coming together. This week, we had our third session and made a ton of progress. We mixed “Waves” and nearly finished “Perfection”. This means we have three songs complete. For the first session, I chose to have us start with “All For You” which has quickly become the most difficult song to work with and has caused the most trouble mixing. The combination of a very dynamic arrangement and several instruments has made it a chore to mix (but it sure is sounding incredible).

Anyway, I will be sure to keep you updated here through the site and especially Twitter. I am in the middle of overhauling the design, but, hopefully, it will be back up shortly. Thanks again for the incredible support. It means more than I can ever say!

Where we’re at

Wow, where to start? Lots has happened in the past couple of months, so I will just start at the beginning. Hannah graduated in March and found a job at a local company called Cobb. Cobb is in charge of quality control for Tyson, a huge supplier of chicken. She is thoroughly enjoying the opportunity, and we are so thankful she found work in her field in such a difficult job market! (Plus the high honor of helping bring this fabulous food to plates across the country!)

I spent the first week in June helping my family move into their new house in Overland Park, Kansas. I also had the chance to reconnect with some old friends who moved away from STL years ago and just happened to end up in KC. What a wonderful week it was!

Unfortunately, the week did not fare so well for our 1990 Honda Civic. I felt it was time to have a mechanic look it over due to some sounds I had been hearing, and thank God I did! Turns out the entire steering system was shot and would come apart at any moment! It’s amazing I made it safely to KC! Unfortunately, this was just one of many issues the car had been developing. The clutch is just about worn out, it leaks over, there are multiple problems with the brakes, a rear wheel bearing is going out, etc. Long story short, it is far from feasible to fix.

Fortunately, my lovely wife was able to come during the weekend to rescue me. This actually opened up a fun opportunity for us. My younger sister, Charis, has been working all summer on artwork for a film entitled Works in Progress. Turns out, they were shooting some major scenes, and they needed extras. Our moment of fame comes when Hannah and I, hand in hand, cross in front of the main actors. Hopefully, the scene will stay!

Anyway, we were a bit bummed as this was our only vehicle with functioning A/C. Then again, we payed only $580 for it (with a full tank of gas!), and drove it at least twenty thousand miles. We would have preferred this to happen at the end of summer when it would have been more affordable for us, but at least it wasn’t when Hannah was still searching for work and needed a car throughout the day.

Fast forward to the next week: I was on my way to Fayetteville for a recording session with Lendell (yes, we are still working on it!), when the engine went out in our remaining car, our 1993 Sidekick! Two cars in one week… Ouch! Hannah’s folks are letting us borrow one of their vehicles while we work something out. Really this is a blessing in a lot of ways because we need something more reliable. Ultimately, we do need two cars, but we can manage on one for the time being, so we could certainly use prayer for this minor setback. However, we are confident things will work out. The Lord will provide!

On the album side, Lendell and I are continuing to chip away at the remaining pieces. The vehicle situation has certainly slowed us down but will not stop our progress. We pretty much HAVE to have the rest of my vocal and guitar work done soon as Lendell will be moving to Oklahoma City to begin teaching at OCU as he was recently hired on as their Professor of Composition and Film Scoring! In the last two years, he has had the opportunity to score a couple of films as well as increase his exposure on television, both on the local and national level. This is a huge step for him, and I am so excited to see what opportunities will come as a result!

Let’s see… I suppose I can also give an update about mixing. Several of the songs are now as close to final as I will be able to bring them. While I feel everything is sounding good, it is not yet sounding great. My limited experience only allows me to do so much. Because of this, I am seeking some professional help outside of those we have already worked with. Another reason for this is to bring fresh ears to the table. After two and a half years of constant work, I am finding myself unable to be as creative as I otherwise might be. I’ve listened to partially mixed versions of these songs countless times and need to be able to think outside the box more. I will be certain to post some updates when we have figured out who will be able to help us.

Thanks for continuing to follow our progress as slow as it may seem. I will be the first to admit that it has been a long, difficult journey — one that I certainly never imagined. There are many days when I feel burned out; I feel like quitting. I think, “There’s no way this will ever sound good or even be done for that matter!” Then we have an incredible day in the studio, and all of my worries disappear. While I often find it hard to hold on to hope, I am not giving up. We’ve come way too far for that to be an option and are so close! I take much comfort in the words of the Psalm 139 that the Lord knows every single detail about me. He has lead us down this path and has yet to let us down. What excitement awaits us when it is finally finished!

Mixing Fun

Phew, it sure has been a busy couple of months for us here in Arkansas! Hannah just completed her final college exam, which means she is now done with her schooling! I am so proud of her diligence in finishing out her final two classes. She is now looking for work. Of course it is a difficult time to be looking, so we would appreciate your prayer in this area…

I’ve had quite the time keeping our vehicles running as of late. Fortunately this has taught me some much needed mechanical skills, and we are quite thankful for the fact that Hannah’s father studied car mechanics in college. He’s worked with me for several hours on both vehicles. Thanks Cliff! We look forward to when we can replace our ailing vehicles, but until then, are thankful that they are still running.

So life has been busy in many aspects. Despite this, we’ve been making significant progress on the album. It is almost halfway mixed, and it feels so good to be finalizing things! It’s so fun and rewarding to be putting all of the tracks together into finished songs. (Especially after waiting for it for over two years!!)

One huge benefit of doing the mixing ourselves is the ability to make changes up to the very end. “Perfection” is a great example of this… Nathan Miller did the electric guitar work for this song, and came up with a brilliant riff that I never would have thought of. About halfway into mixing this song, I decided we would start solely with the electric guitar part and bring everything else in later. It completely changes the mood, and really lends itself to the relaxed feel I want the song to be. There are so many opportunities to be creative in the mixing process, and I am learning more and more how much the mixing is crucial to a record.

I am hoping to record a few more of the final changes in the next week or two, at which point we will be well over halfway in the mixing process. It’s getting quite exciting!

Welcome to 2009!

Welcome to 2009! I hope you all had a good Christmas and safe travel! Hannah and I spent Christmas in Siloam Springs with her family, who moved here from California in July. It was so nice to not have to travel. Her entire family came out to attend the Christmas Eve service Hannah and I helped lead at Faith Journey Fellowship Church (where I am an interim worship leader), and it was a wonderful evening. We are enjoying our time of service at Faith Journey and are excited to see where the future takes the church.

Our Christmas was nice and quiet with Hannah’s family, and we enjoyed playing many games, sharing fond memories, and eating lots of food. The very next day, they packed up and took Hannah away from me for a ten-day trip to Los Angeles to visit family.  I would have loved to go but had too much going on here at home. As usual, we found it hard to be apart but were thankful for safe travel as they drove more than sixty hours total!

Heading into this new year, we are thankful for several things, especially when we think back to last year; I now have a great job that is helping me continue to pursue music; Hannah is almost done with school; we are now in a nice, warm apartment with affordable utilities, and life in general is going fast because it’s so fun! It is crazy to think that, in six months, Hannah and I will be celebrating our three-year anniversary… Just… crazy! We were talking about it the other day and realized that we have been working on this project for the majority of our marriage. Also crazy…

As you may have noticed, I have not offered an exact date on when the album will be done… well, not since the previous three or four other times.  The last two years has been a wild ride of excitement, perseverance, personal growth, financial setbacks, logistical setbacks and, most of all, mind-blowing opportunities. When we set out to do this two years ago, I expected the project to take, at most, two months to record. If you remember back to my last album, it was completed in about a week. I mixed it in one night, and it was sent off to be duplicated. Due to how quickly this went, I thought making a professional album would be a piece of cake. Right?

In fact, we actually did have The Sun Still Rises mixed and ready to go in May of 2007 with guitar, piano, and some sequenced drums (which you heard on the “Most Wonderful” demo). Lendell and I had such a great time creating what we had so far, and he thought the project could benefit greatly from a fuller sound. I agreed completly, but could not imagine how it would sound. It was at this time that Lifeword Studios was opening their brand new facility, and they worked hard to make it possible for us to track bass, drums, and electric guitar in their state of the art facility. We finished four songs in twelve hours, and it became clear we needed to have one more long session. Mark Malone and the rest of the gang went above and beyond to stay late (very late!) both times and cannot be thanked enough!

We got back from these sessions with so much material to sift through. It was a dream come true because it was the first time I had ever heard a full band on these songs. Perhaps it was due to lack of imagination, but I was just never able to envision it. Now the songs were reaching their full potential, and I could never go back. This was such a step up in professionalism and quality all due to the incredible players who were willing to work with us and Lendell’s hard work.

Summer 2007

Hannah was studying in Washington State for most of July and part of August, so I spent the time with my family in Chicago finding whatever work I could. We moved into a small house in Bentonville in late August, and we both began jobs at Starbucks to help get us through while we determined the next step on the album and for life in general.

Throughout this time, we still continued to work on the album. One of the difficulties in adding a full band is that previously recorded material often needs to be changed. It’s funny how something can sound so simple on guitar but become quite complex once other instruments are added. We found that vocals which sounded great with acoustic guitar and piano sometimes did not cut it when the energy of everything else was added, so, in many ways, back to the drawing board. Fortunately not all of our energy was spent on redoing our work. The delays allowed the opportunity for Lendell compose string work for many songs which also had to be recorded, so while it felt like things were not progressing, we were taking care of a ton of important logistical pieces.

January 2008

Lendell and I had spent the end of December 2007 and the first week of January tidying things up, making final changes, etc. We then headed down to Lifeword Studios to begin the final mixing process. After listening to every single song and every single instrument for the last several months, I had a good idea of how I wanted it to sound. The final mix we received in February was not at all what we were looking for. While it was done well and appeared to have a lot of work put into it, we were looking for something entirely different.

So it was back to the drawing board… again. That seriously was one of the worst days of my life. I wanted to be done with this thing and was so ready to give up. There had been difficult moments before, but nothing like this. We were pretty much out of funding, and I just didn’t have it in me to push on. I got a job at a computer shop to help in the meantime, and we took a much-needed break from things. After a year of being so entrenched in this project, I had to take a step back and stop thinking about it for a while.

Lendell and I met and decided it would be best if we did the mixing ourselves. We didn’t have all the fancy gear we would have liked, but, then again, that’s not what the project called for. Plus, the recordings we did at Lifeword Studios were of such good quality that it didn’t need much work due to the great studio and outstanding musicians. I spent the next several months listening to CD after CD, reading articles about their producers and mixing engineers and learning just how vast the art of music creation and specifically mixing is. I also felt there were several changes that needed to be made to solidify specific songs, but could not yet place my finger on them.

Summer 2008

Lendell and I had met several times to discuss ideas and figure out how to finalize the songs. I now had a steady job, so money, while still tight, was not an issue like it had been previously. I stated on the website my plan to complete everything by the end of the summer, but I should have known better from experience. Had I not learned anything from the previous year!?

Sure enough, life’s circumstances prevented me from working much on it as we were preparing for a move at end of the summer, and life was very busy. Lendell was tied up when I was free and vice versa, but nothing could have been better for the album. It was during this time it became clear what touches the songs were missing.

Between August and December, Lendell and I worked a few times each month. Since Christmas, however, we’ve been working nearly every day. We are recording the final electric guitar parts in the next few weeks along with some percussion and perhaps a string quartet. I’m finalizing one final guitar track next week and finalizing the vocals when we have time. I have to say this is the first time I feel we are near the end. All the other times I set a date, something just did not feel right. I felt I had not been able to think through the material enough to know what finishing touches to add. I finally feel we are just about done with each song and have really been able to explore every possibility.

Looking back two years, I was so incredibly naïve on a million different levels. I simply expected everything to work out quickly without incident. I expected the money to come in on my time and terms. It’s been a huge eye opening experience to what real faith needs to look like. My confidence needs to be in Him and not in myself. We certainly have had our share of “misfortune” and difficult times scattered throughout, but I’ve learned this is not something to complain about. While I have done more than my fair share of complaining along the way, it would be foolish of me to not recognize what an incredible journey this has been and how necessary the pain was and is. I truly believe that I needed to experience this to learn how to care more about others. I’m learning I can always give even when it seems like we don’t have much extra. I think we will be much better equipped to reach out due to all of this.

If I could go back two years and do one thing differently, I would not put a date of completion on the project. I would say, “We do not yet know the scale or complexity of this project, so we don’t know when it will be completed. However, we would appreciate your support as we delve into this new journey.” Of course, I could not have known the opportunities that would arise, and, perhaps, that’s what gave me the tenacity (and stupidity) to pursue this thing, but it was certainly a mistake to put a date on it especially the second, third, and fourth times, and I am deeply sorry for that. I cannot thank all of you enough for sticking with us through everything. You’ve stayed by my side while I learned these lessons, prayed for us, and have gone out of your way to be a support. This project would not be what it is today without each and every one of you.

We are incredibly close to being done, and many exciting opportunities are already showing their face. I’ll be determining a release date when the album is back from mastering and is on its way to being duplicated. I will do my very best to keep you informed of what is going on as we take these final steps.

And thank you all, again, for everything. Who knows where all this will go? Regardless of what happens, this has already been the journey of a lifetime despite being only the beginning, and makes everything more than worth it.

Rejoicing

I mentioned several weeks ago that my Father had been let go from his position at First Free, Chicago due to financial constraints of the Church. I have been very proud of my parents with how they have graciously dealt with such an abrupt change of plans. For the past couple of months, my Father has been interviewing for the Administration position at a church in Leawood, Kansas. It’s no secret that our country is facing tremendous financial uncertainty. This further has exacerbated the difficulty in his (short) search for his next assignment.

Despite these concerns, Christ Community Church chose this past week to formally extend to him the position of Pastor of Administration. It is unclear at this point the exact timeframe, however, the transition will be taking place in the next couple of months. I am also thankful for this development on a selfish level: For the last Four years I have lived more than 12 hours away from them. This move will put them no more than 3 hours away.

Several of you have been praying for the next step my parents would take. There are still many details to be worked out, but the most major hurdle has been crossed. Thank you for your support, prayers, and concern.

More Randomness

Life has certainly been a whirlwind for Hannah and I lately, but fortunately that’s a wonderful thing! I’ve been busy working, which has included helping my boss, David Allen, in his campaign for Mayor of our wonderful little town. Despite the added work of the election, he has been very gracious in allowing me the time to push forward with the album. He’s been involved in various capacities to make The Sun Still Rises possible, earning the title of Executive Producer.

As far as work is concerned, I have also been looking into a possible part-time worship leader position at a local church. Hannah and I visited a couple weeks ago, and then last Sunday were invited to lead the service. It’s been nice to take a break from live performance/leading for the past year or so. Now it is refreshing to be back to share, and we are thinking and praying about this decision.

On the album side of things, I’ve spent many evenings with Lendell to work towards finalizing the mix. For all of you audio nerds out there (like me!), we have chosen to use Logic Studio and are very pleased with the results. We did all of the initial recording with Pro Tools, which allowed us to go between studios easily.

Lendell and I really love the interface, features, and plug-ins included with Logic, so we figured we would migrate everything over and give it a shot. We’ve been quite pleased with the results. Beyond the immediate benefit of the ease of use and tools available, it has enabled me to do some of the work from home. From an early age, I have been intrigued by the process of creating an album: the recording, the mixing, the effects used, the technology, etc. It’s been incredibly rewarding to not only learn, but to be able to learn on my own material.

The sheer amount of audio we have recorded can be overwhelming, but the results well worth the work. Most Wonderful is a prime example of one of these songs, as it’s gone through the most revisions. This was the track we sent out as a demo nearly two years ago as an example of what the record *could* sound like. At that stage, it was comprised of: one vocal track, guitar, piano, synthesized bass, and a pre-recorded drum track. We went back and tweaked the piano and re-recorded the vocals and guitar. Then, at our second (long!) session at Lifeword Studios last year, I went ahead and slipped Most Wonderful into the itinerary. We came back with an awesome bass track (John Houser) and much better drums (Matt Outlaw). Something was still missing, and we decided we needed a full orchestra.

The fun thing about this song is that by using all these instruments, we are achieving much more interesting dynamics in the song, and a full sound that was simply not possible with just guitar and piano. The mix is most of the way done for this one, and all that remains is to record electric guitar and make a few more tweaks.

There is certainly lots more to be shared, but I am waking up in less than six hours to shoot some more pictures for the album cover. I’ll try to keep the updates flowing a bit more regularly as we near completion of this two year project. As usual, your prayers are much appreciated, and feel free to get in touch if you would like to know any other details.

Random Tidbits

Over the last couple of weeks I have spent considerable time in the studio. Once again I am reminded how thankful I am that we have gone with a more flexible finishing date. This has allowed us to really get in and (yes, once again) revamp key parts of a few songs.

I am learning how much of a balancing act mixing really is. A few of our songs have upwards of 50+ individual audio tracks. Each must be eq’d, checked for consistent levels, effects applied, and then placed properly in the mix. What is so fun is that Lendell and I are working side-by-side to complete the mixing process. He certainly is more skilled than me in most mixing and technical aspects, but it is still fun to contribute. His faithfulness all along the way in seeing this through, combined with his giving spirit, has opened up to me such a world of possibilities on how to mix this. We have gotten to the very end of working on a song, and more than once decided to completely overhaul the string part, for instance.

This time has also helped me become much more familiar with mixing techniques, fx, etc. Some of the things we are accomplishing are only feasible due to some of the latest technology available.

Lendell is an accomplished composer, and I have to say that I am beginning to really develop an itch to go back to school if time/finances allow some day to study composition. (And choral arrangement).

I was originally going to title this post “Tidbits”, but I think “Random Tidbits” will be a much better name. Please get in touch if you would like some more specifics on exactly where we are on the project. I should have some more exciting announcements in the coming weeks. Thanks again for your faithfulness in support and prayer.

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