I shipped the CDs off to mastering today. It was a time to give up.

The last 2 weeks, I lived with my mixes. Listened, listened, listened, and kept tweaking. And more listening. The degree of tweaks I made got smaller and smaller. Toward the end I was making 0.5dB changes. That's really not audible except in the most critical listening environment. There were times when I tweaked something, and the next time I listened, I changed it back to where it was.

It was time to give up.

My family's coming back today. I missed them dearly. I was mixing until this morning, but finally gave up, took down all my gear and put them away. We're turning the second bedroom into my daughter's room -- so I'm even losing a dedicated space for my music, which is fine by me, at least for a while. I'm exhausted.

Well, that "tough middle stage" lasted well long after mid stage ended -- I started mixing and then going back to re-record takes that I couldn't live with, and that lasted until Saturday. But the toughest part was done on Thursday night. Once that happened, I saw the end of the tunnel -- if that was the end of recording, I probably would have been able to live with the result.

I have one week left, and thankfully, I also see the end of this project. I have one more song that I need to rebuild from scratch (it's actually not as bad as it sounds -- it's a simpler and easier one of mine, plus I know exactly how to play each part.) and just a few bits and pieces here and there. I've already started mixing, and it's coming together well.

OK, this is getting bizarre. Yesterday I lost appetite. I'm eating, don't worry... but usually I love eating, and for me to lose appetite is somewhat extreme. And a part of me is enjoying the ache of hunger. I'm turning into a masochist!! :-) I have this picture in my head of an artist cutting himself and using his blood to paint. Creepy, isn't it?

I just can't do it alone. I just can't.

Beause I'm working on my music alone, to meet my own standards alone, without my family or others to give me reasons to maintain my sanity -- or at least collect myself enough to face them -- my life has been reduced to a juvenile melodrama. I go from top to bottom in seconds. The bottoms and deep and low. They hurt like hell. This morning I was ready to pull the plug, and I just might.

Hmm, that title sounds pretty risqué. No, this is not a naughty post. ;-)

I ask a lot from life, and my computer is no exception.

I just got myself a new MacBook. And let me tell you, I'm loving it. It's terrific, and after 2 hours of initial hesitation, I now totally "get" OS X. To top it off, I got a Windows XP loaded via Bootcamp, and that's working well, too. Amazing. I can't picture myself going back to Windows-only machine now.

The little album I produced, Marc Gunn's Irish Drinking Songs: The Cat Lover's Companion is now released. It seems that the pre-release buzz from Marc's fans are fairly positive. I'm grateful.

That can be said about many things in my life right now -- just a lot of things nearing closure, in transition, etc.

But I'm referring to the Celtic Folk project with Marc Gunn. I'm mastering the 13-song duet album right now.

Now, I'll be the first one to tell you that I'm not a mastering engineer. That's one area of production that is best left to (and usually is) a specialist. Mastering is an art that requires highly specialized skills and equipment and while with the digital age came an easier access to such tools, it doesn't make one a mastering engineer no more than digital camera makes a rock a dog. (a stretch of an analogy??) Anyway, he does know that I'm really not a mastering engineer but he thinks I'm good enough for what I'm charging -- and I generally don't argue with my clients. :)