Spend evening getting the levels right for LH. 3/4 done.

Finished corrections to LH in time for Simon Anderson to view. He seemed happy - and liked the fx!

First night of serious work on the score. Have watched the rough cut about six times through to get a feel for the pace of the program. Have tried several different approaches tonight concentrating on the opening titles. I'm hoping to establish a main theme which can be remixed and rearranged for opening titles and end titles. Have tried a Dub like feel but discarded this after only a short while as it seemed to clash with the pictures.

Spent a couple of hours building up a theme based on a harmonica riff. Added Guitar chords, Rhodes bass line, synth and organ only to discover that it really wasn't working so discarded everything and started again (actually kept this session but started a new one). Tried a more structured melodic tune towards the end of the night which sounded OK but not for Lost Highways so I'll keep it in an odds and ends folder. Going to bed very disappointed, but had some nice sounds at least.

My studio is very limited and I have no reverb/delay type effects which will be an issue later on. Am going to use bathroom for reverb and an old tape machine for analogue delay, should be fun but will be slow

Started cutting percussion loops etc to see if I could find anything that would inspire me. Had a few misses but eventually came up with a really nice looped percussion bed and was able to very quickly put some basic synth parts behind it to make a nice ambient wash of sound. I think we have a winner!

Will get a good night’s sleep and try to build it up tomorrow.

Spent today replacing an organ part I had originally recorded with a similar part recorded on my Fender Rhodes. Had no luck trying to get analogue delay going and so am resigned to the fact that I'm going to need a digital unit. I called a friend who is going to loan me an old Alesis Midiverb 2 which isn't the best unit in the world but it will do.

I am going to have to record with the effect as I have no aux feed from my mixer, this is also not ideal but will be OK. Also re-recorded a drone from my Korg synth today. The opening track changes meter half way through from 3/4 to 4/4 and at that point I have added a pulsing octave jump on the drone.

Wanted to try a slide guitar part tonight. Spent some time this afternoon trying to make a slide as I don't have one. I tried an old bottle and a bit of steel but both weren't right.

Raided a metal pipe from a set of built in robes and cut that up (hope Gen doesn't find out!), worked well.

Spent the rest of the time extending the percussion loop to the right duration for the opener as I had only been fooling with a 30 sec grab up till now.

Shifted the percussion loop a little too make it work with the photo sequence and spent a little time trying to get a sound from my amp set up (more on this later). Didn't have a lot of luck so will try again tomorrow.

Avalon Beach Lost Highways 3 RS walk towards us - track back 2002/1/10 14:37:59 LS

I don't own an electric guitar or amp so I am having to improvise a guitar rig, here's what I have done so far.

Last time Simon was with us (to drop off the rough cut and do some work on the top 10, we visited a local scrap yard where I found an old valve tape machine, a Byer 66 which I bought for $30. The Byer 66 is an old valve tape machine built in Australia (see this site to find out more about this machine and other vintage Aussie gear). I have had a bit to do with these machines from my early engineering days so I knew a little about them.

As well as being great little tape machines they also have a nice valve pre amp including mike and line inputs and line outputs. They even have a nifty little built in speaker. So I am using the Byer as my $30 Marshall stack! I mike up my acoustic really close to the strings and run the mike into an ART tube pre amp, take the line out of the pre amp into the Byer and the output of the Byer into the US 428 (my computer soundcard) Wind up the gain of the pre amp to 11 and away we go!

Recorded a few takes tonight and had a little play with them (cutting them up running them backwards etc... Nothing worth using tonight so I'll try another set up tomorrow.

Had one last go at getting the guitar sound that I'm after tonight. Ran the miked output of the guitar through the pre amp and into the Byer then into an external speaker that was miked. This produced the best sound so far a kind of softly distorted "live" sound. I recorded a couple of sections which I processed and chopped within Deck (my digital multi-track software).

I'm still not entirely happy with the sound but am going to leave it for the moment and get on with some new sounds and experiments. I'll spent tonight trying to beef up the percussion tracks and add some atmospheric content.

More experiments with slide guitar/amp combo's. Last nights recordings were too "dry" as I directly injected (DI'd), the output of the Byer into my console. I can't use the built in speaker on the Byer as it is a tiny thing that freaks out if you drive it hard so I have tried running the output of the Byer into my Fender Rhodes amp.

Biggest problem is that since I am miking the guitar I am getting a tonne of feedback from the amp (Fender Rhodes have 4 speakers two facing in each direction so it is hard to isolate them without leaving the room). I can't be in another room as I am both recording engineer and performer so I'll have to find another solution.

In the last month...

I have been adding audio filters to the soundtrack to reduce the hiss that the VX2000 has been adding. I have come up with an Audio Filter setting that seems to do the trick.
Also I have burnt another rough cut VCD of the doco which I have been viewing at work and making notes on:

Filter noise Dingo/avalon
Filter Hum / flip of photos
5:05 Quieten exhibition petrol background
5:55 Noise page flip
6:05 Hum
7:32 Hiss
7:45 SK
8:58 Quiet Tripod BG
9:20 Quiet BG
9:46 Quiet BG
11:18 favourites.. Glitch SK
12:12 Yard SK FIX
12:21 SK
12:30 Yard drop bg
12:53 Garden Tour
14:14 Fly & pigeons
15:00 Uh huh
16:24 quieter Bg
16:34 milkbar click wipe
18:18 louder storeroom
18:35 sladen remove giggle sk
21:25 shutter effect
21:23 Quiter bg
22:12 remove giggle
22:54 STILL
23:06 longer fade in of demolition
23:56 Flash frames on cuts???
24:18 jump frame
25:27 fade sound
25:27 lighten talk like a wanker
26:18 end yeah
Lighten Night Bay shot

Aaah the minutae of editing...

Can’t work for the next two nights so I did a little test today to try and rig up an analogue tape delay device. This is how it was done before digital delay units took over in the late 70's. Basically you send an auxiliary feed from a sound source (I am using a kick drum sample) send it to a tape machine and record the output. The time difference between the input to the tape machine and the record head of the machine makes a delay.

Now send a small amount of the newly recorded delayed sound back out the aux bus to the tape machine and you get secondary repeated delays. Only problem I have is that my US 428 has no aux feed! Any attempt to send signal to a tape machine and record it creates a feedback loop :-( So... I'll have to come up with a different solution.

Having watched Lost Highway the last couple of lunchtimes, I completed the collection of tweaks to the Final Cut. Tomorrow I will burn a new Video CD to send to the Baker man. Catching up with Dick for lunch on Friday.

Made latest burn of LH & Music reference CDs to send to Steve Baker.

Final sound editing & spot sound effects. LH is now tight, buffed and ready to face the music. Started to consider exporting stills & preparing a web site to promote it...

Minerva Bowser Lost Highways 3 RS looks moves tripod closer 2002/1/10 17:49:00 LS profile track in around RS & tripod NICE

Picked up the Alesis Midiverb yesterday and also recieved the final cut of the pictures from Simon. The timings had shifted a little between cuts so I spent the first part of this session shifting the existing track back into sync. Spent a little time playing with the delay/reverb fx's before starting to record in earnest.

The first thing I did was add a couple of spacey fx to the opening track. This filled it out quite well and I think that we are about done on this track apart from a piano part that I am still working on. I re started work on a dub type track today for use elsewhere in the program. The new delay helped a lot and in a fairly short time I had the basic track down. It consists of a sampled snare drum which I then recorded to tape and then re recorded with echo/delay in sections. A kick drum sample and a piano track with large reverb.

Will spend tomorrow working on Piano for opening titles and hope to start preparing to mix it off later in the week (hopefully).

Have selected 55 stills in FCP and exported them as Photoshop Images. De-interlaced them. Looking at the various apps to create a thumbnail gallery.