Gili Trawangan

The month of April has passed. The goal was to finish the recording stage, but because some other work I had planned for extra income didn't come through I ended up having more time on my hands and was able to complete three mixes after recording. I keep finding out new stuff about mixing and going back to the songs to experiment and try to extract a better sound. So I've been tweaking every single song almost on a daily basis and (hopefully) improving them. Some little details are still off and the solution eludes me for the time being. I need some distance from them and to come back to them later. A few days ago it hit me that the EP is getting really close to its completion. It means I have to start planning the release and doing a lot of stuff that brings up emotional upheaval. I have to build a website, commission artwork, think about the marketing strategy, all stuff that I'm conditioned to think I'm not good at. So a lot of vigilance is required, I have to watch myself evade these marketing tasks and try to undermine their importance to the project. I get stuck on very trivial decisions like, should I get professional photos done? What I really wanted was a musical project that is mysterious, no faces, just a logo and some artwork on the website. But is that a turn off? I don't know, I guess I'll just have to try something out and make mistakes along the way. The whole thing is still fun, and for the most part I'm in a good mood throughout the days. It's like a game being played where it doesn't really matter if the game is won or lost. There is awareness of the ego thoughts that sometimes want to make up problems. They're seen for what they are and sometimes I find "myself" laughing at some of the thoughts that come up. They're so random and inconsistent. When no attention is paid to them there is a sense of calm and joy. A sense of being home already. And gratitude. All is well.

This might all be true, but I don't have a month to reset my system right now, so caffeine addiction it is for a while longer I tried to quit not so long ago. Went on a 10-day meditation retreat that didn't allow coffee. The retreat was great, didn't even feel any withdrawal effects. But when I came back to the "real world", with people and traffic and having obligations, and things to do, and the monkey mind, then it was awful. And I tried for a while, I went about another month without coffee. I just didn't have any energy to do anything productive and needed that artificial boost again. Still do. In my experience, a couple of weeks just isn't enough to reset. I went a whole month and could still feel the lack of that boost, it was both physical and psychological (in the end they're so intertwined, who knows the difference). The thought of a couple of months feeling like shit just to reboot is too much right now, no thank you.

I showed the first song to a few friends, and they were supportive, but seemed underwhelmed. I think that's just their way, plus some projection on my part. The reactions and the search for validation are seen for what they are, and then I go back to work. Currently mixing the second song, today I solved a huge problem at the end of the song, and was very happy with how I solved it. These production decisions are a lot of fun to make, you don't know if they're gonna work out but sometimes they do. This song is outright weird and I have no idea what people will think of it. Who cares anyway, it was fun to make it come alive. Aside from all of this, these are strange days. All spent alone, and there was a very interesting moment a few days ago, when it seemed like something big was almost seen. It was almost seen that there is absolutely nobody here. And I don't just mean that there is no person. Even saying that there is consciousness or presence would be saying too much. It was weird, it came and it went, it's a bit more than just seeing through false identification. I can't put it into words. Plus, it quickly went so anything I say about it will be a memory and therefore false.

Challenge completed! I'll say what's different, but take it for what it is, it could be related to the breathing exercises / cold showers or not. I mean, how can you know for sure, right? Before this started, I was having a persistent fungal overgrowth that had occurred as a result of taking antibiotics. It seems to have cleared up. Again, it could have just been the natural body response with time. But it's a relief. Another thing, and this one I find hard to believe that it's not related, is that I'm sleeping less. Come midnight, I still have a lot of energy and it takes me a while to calm down, and I fall asleep around 1am, sometimes 2am. But I still wake up every day at the same time. I might stop for a few days now and see what happens. Anyway, happy to have done it

All week I was mixing the same song, working 6-8 hours a day on it. It's a very interesting process, it feels like I'm developing my ear for listening to details that I simply had never paid attention to before. Every day I would think I'd done good work, only to listen to it again the next day and find problems with it. I also relied on feedback from a music production forum, I got some very nice tips there. I feel like I'm learning a lot. Mixing a song is basically about fixing problems. You hear something that doesn't sound right and you try to fix it. What makes it challenging is that there are multiple ways you can do that, and some of them won't work or will create problems elsewhere. Sometimes it's frustrating, because you solve a problem only to find that you've created another one somewhere else in the mix. So you keep fixing stuff and finding new details to focus on. And when you're done fixing problems, there's also creative decisions to be made, how do you enhance what's good about the song? Anyway, I have a preliminary mix on this first song and it's really not bad. It's not amazing either, but I have to accept that I'm a beginner who needs to be patient and learn as much as possible while at the same time making something that sounds pretty good. Next week I'll probably start mixing another song so I can rest from this one, and come back for the finishing touches once I have fresh ears for it again.

The last couple of days were spent mixing a song from scratch, and the result seems to be pretty good. Not amazing, there isn't the clarity I wanted to get, but it's only the second time I attempt to mix a song, so I can't expect it to be perfect. I'm learning too many concepts in very little time and the times when I'm not working there is a lot of mind agitation and even tiredness. It's what they call choice fatigue. There are infinite possibilities within any given mix, and making some decisions becomes stressful, even with the awareness that it really doesn't matter in the end. There is a real desire to master this, to become better quickly. I really want my first release to have professional quality. Aside from that, there are emotional ups and downs. Sometimes I can't believe my luck being able to working on something I'm passionate about while not having to work a nine to five job. Starting this week, because of the virus, I only teach four classes per week. And even so, if I'm careful with expenses I can survive on this salary. Yet, other times there's a sadness. It usually starts with agitation, too much excitement, then there's masturbation to obtain some release, and if that happens a few times in a day it causes a bad mood. Underneath it all there is a deep acceptance of that as well, I'm nowhere near depression. It's not even thoughts, not that I'm aware of. It's the body, there's too much energy or tension or whatever it is. And it feels very uncomfortable, so sometimes I go for meditation, others for masturbation. It's pretty funny now that I think of it. It's happened every step of the way so far. When learning how to use the DAW for songwriting, it happened, this overwhelmed. Then it got easier. With recording, same thing. Then it got easier. It should be the same way with mixing, and hopefully with promotion, even though I think I'll be getting external help for that. Maybe.

Lots of love, Leo!

It's fine, don't worry about it.

And the recording stage is over. I've spent all day so far cleaning up the recorded tracks, comping (which is choosing the best bits of each take) and basically ending with full tracks that I'm happy with. It's the kind of work that just makes time disappear, I look at the clock when it's over and time has flown by... The next step is preparing for mixing, which means editing every track. It's getting rid of unwanted audio pops and clicks, making sure everything is in time, gain staging the tracks so they are at a proper volume level, and organizing the sessions for mixing. Everything needs to be easy to identify, right now it's all one giant mess. It should take me a couple of days, at least, to do this.

I see an appreciation thread and I'm in Loads of love for everyone!

Heart emoji to you!

Still working hard on the project, and there was a synchronicity that couldn't be ignored: as I'm finishing up my first mix there's a youtube channel that I subscribe about home recording and mixing that has decided to offer a three-month free trial on their paid forum. It's a forum for musicians, producers and engineers who have home studios to exchange tips, advice and possibly collaborate together. I decided to go against my usual resistance about entering any kind of community (like what happened with Actualized.org as well), and I signed up. I've posted my first mix on that forum and got some great tips on how to improve it. These guys are more experienced than I am and they could pick up nuance that I wasn't hearing. Plus, it's fresh ears listening to the song, so it was really helpful. It's a nice system where you are encouraged to give feedback to at least two other people before asking for feedback yourself, which is what I did. Very happy about having people to turn to for some newbie advice. Plus I got some really nice compliments, they said it was an impressive first mix, despite some issues with the balance. Turns out vocals and synths were a bit too loud and the drums not loud enough. Good tips. Also, today I recorded some vocals that I still needed to improve, and did my first acoustic guitar recording attempt. Boy, am I playing badly. I feel too lazy to actually practice and rehearse, so I just play enough to be able to cut and paste later with the best bits. Really not ideal, but my heart just isn't in playing instruments, I just do the bare minimum. Of course, it needs to sound good in the end, so I might need another recording session.

I'll join the party, all the best to everyone here!!

Loving these appreciation threads, here's some more for @Serotoninluv

@Inliytened1 All the best, stay enlightened!

Did you read the rest of my comment? Maybe it wasn't very clear, I'll try to be more direct. Your true nature is NOT consciousness. Consciousness is a word, a concept you're holding in your mind. Your true nature CANNOT be put into words or concepts. It REALLY can't. Once you've begun to hold a concept in your mind about what reality is, you're already wrong and in a trap. Consciousness as a concept is just a trap. Once you let go of that, sleep has no hidden secrets anymore.

Hadn't watched this one, nice! Good timing for me

That's the problem with the word consciousness. It's the problem with any word... Consciousness, as in, all that is, does not mean being conscious of. All that is cannot be put into words. Consciousness is a word.

I've completed a first song mix that I would be happy with if it were final, aside from very small tweaks needed. The balance sounds nice, the last thing I worked on yesterday was the bass, and today I heard it again and it sounds well balanced to me. On the other hand, I decided to order some 10$ laptop speakers just to have a different system to listen with, even though it's a bad one. I don't feel like buying real studio monitors because they're expensive but even more so because they're very heavy. I don't like having heavy possessions. A thought that makes me feel good is that I could take everything I own with me if I wanted to travel or move somewhere, and it would take me half an hour to pack. From all of the music gear, I would only have to leave behind the microphone screen, which wouldn't be much of a loss anyway. Everything else is not heavy at all, and only the MIDI keyboard would present a slight challenge because of the length, though it's really light. So no studio monitors for me, just these very nice headphones and crappy little laptop speakers for a different listen. And I'll now start working on the other songs. I lost my guitar pick somehow, it must still be in the bedroom though I can't find it, so I ordered another one together with the speakers. Last week I replaced the guitar strings, and once the pick arrives and I practice playing with it for a bit I can start recording guitars. If all goes well, one recording session should be enough. Then I'll be ready to start working on mixing the other songs. Feeling excited, it feels like I can make something nice out of all of this.

I must be around day 12, not really counting. What I've noticed is that it does wake me up in the morning and gives a slight boost in energy, which is nice. Also, the moments during the breath hold are quite pleasurable, and sometimes the mind stops. Other times, it goes off into thought, there's no way to predict. The cold showers are quite easy here, I hardly struggle with them at all, but I'm sure that's because of the tropical climate. Anyway, will keep going.

It's like every day a new world of possibilities opens up. Today I found out how you can divide a drum loop track by copying it, making three different audio tracks, and then with EQ mix the individual parts (drum kick is the low end, snare in the middle and high hats and crashes the high end), giving reverb to the snare and not the kick, for example. It's a way of having more control over the drums mixing. There's a lot of ways one can screw up the mix by doing this wrong, I've only just tried it for the first time and saw how it's possible but it didn't sound good. I'm really not sure if I'm being too much of a perfectionist, considering this is my first song mix. A part of me wants to get it over with, because it already sounds pretty good, but another part of me wants to experiment and learn as much as possible before moving on to other things. Anything I learn at this point will help me with future mixes, it's not like I'm wasting my time. There is on the other hand an overload of information, but I guess the whole thing is a balance act that also needs to be learned along the way. It's only been eight days since the beginning of April and I've learned a whole new language: frequencies, reverbs and delays, compression, attack, release, gain staging and God knows what else, it's still a mess that the brain is trying to assimilate. But the process continues to be very enjoyable. And it has made clear that I currently have everything I need to make professional sounding music. There is no additional gear needed, just more know-how and experience. Back to work.

Even though I'd decided to focus exclusively on recording this month, I couldn't help myself and started mixing the first song. I had to find out if I had good vocal recordings, good enough to sit well in the mix. The only way to do that is by actually mixing, using compressors and EQ and stuff that I knew nothing about only a week ago. I've been working on it many hours a day, it's like time disappears, and today I felt happy about my first mix. I was able to bring in the vocals forward, there were a lot of mistakes along the way, but I learned a lot. And now I know that I have the material to get good mixes, so there's peace of mind and I can record the acoustic guitar parts soon. There's a few more things to prepare, like choosing a few different sounds, and then I can start mixing the rest of the songs. It might be faster than I thought, if I keep working as hard as I've been lately. It feels fantastic to feel such passion for something.

Completely overwhelmed at the moment. There is so much to be done, and I know so little, it feels stressful. I'm stuck on trying to get good sounding vocals, but there's so much that goes into making them sound professional... too much to learn, and not enough of a peaceful mind at the moment. Luckily I teach all day tomorrow, so will have a break from all of this. It feels like I'm really far from having proper sounding songs. And I do some research and it's a whole world of information out there, and it's just too much to handle right now...

Indeed, I don't know where he finds the time

The part of me that is focused is in charge at the moment. It is very clear what needs to be done and what I want. I was put here to make music. I thank God/Reality for my entire journey so far and for showing me Truth. I’m so grateful that I’m unable to really describe or feel it properly. However, “when you get the message, hang up the phone”. This is the plane of reality where I’ve been put. I was given a human body with certain conditionings and gifts. The biggest earthly gift of them all is the ability to make music. Plus, and just as important, it’s what I’m drawn towards at the moment. There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing. It excites me and it challenges me, and it’s mysterious and wonderful. Also, I want to manifest a life where I connect and share with others. My path has been solitary so far, and it might continue to be for a while, but what I want to manifest is a reality where I am able to connect with others on a level that I enjoy. I want to make music, share it with others and build a niche audience that’s big enough to provide connection and perhaps income. This is what I want to manifest. To make beautiful music, have others enjoy it and get some connection with that audience and some income that allows me to travel anywhere. That is the path within this beautiful dream. That being said, I will be fine if none of this is materialized. God is Good, the world is amazing and I accept God’s Will. I don’t want to live in fear. Fear of death, fear of losing. I want to be thrilled with life, to feel alive and connected and grateful and joyous. And I want to serve God’s purpose. Consciously if possible. I Love, even when it doesn’t seem that way. Love.