Where Have You Been?

Man, has it been this long since we've written a blog post? So sorry, everyone; sometimes we get so wrapped up in everyday life we forget that some of you may want to know what we're up to.

DW has been relatively productive the past few weeks. Seems like it's been a bit hard for the three of us to get together consistently lately but whatever combination of us gets together during a particular week has proven fruitful.

I think the biggest problem we've been having lately has been our ability to focus on one piece of music. We have so many musical ideas floating around in the air - and many new ones being developed every week - our writing efforts have definitely been schizophrenic. I'm not exactly sure if there is a solution to that, and a part of me isn't sure finding a solution to that is even a good idea. In some respects it's bad, obviously, as it sometimes gives off the perception that we're not accomplishing anything; in other respects, however, it's great because it allows us a lot of freedom to get our creative juices flowing.

I also think we're still trying to figure out how the three of us work together as a unit. Mark and Scott have been playing together literally for 20+ years. Mark and I have been working together for about 7 or 8. Scott and I have never really worked together in an official capacity, and the three of us - short of the occasional jam session - have never worked together as a trio, either. Our three musical styles in all areas (talents, writing style, influences, playing) are completely different from each other. Although I firmly believe we all compliment each other very well musically, it sometimes also takes a while for us to catch on to another's vibe and be able to contribute. All in all it's a great musical learning experience. Don't think of that negatively, either... I don't want to give off the impression that I'm complaining or anything like that. If anything I'm very encouraged and excited to have so many musical options to play with.

Right now we have a "prog pop" song almost completely finished - I would say about 97%. We also have a metal song about 70% done. Though they definitely have the DW sound on them, these songs are definitely not typical DW fodder. The question then becomes, "What do we do with them?" I'm not sure I can answer that just yet. We've been tossing around the idea of releasing them all independently under different project names (a metal CD, a "typcial" DW CD, and perhaps one or two others), or maybe putting them all under the DW moniker and letting you guys sort out how to classify them. I don't know how the DW brand for lack of a better term would be affected by releasing a metal CD. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we have enough material written for an entire CD. In the meantime, we'll keep plugging away, trying to push ourselves to write music we all want to hear.

A couple new things just sort of came out of the blue!

So, Josh has been absent for a few weeks; Scott and I have still been getting together, but we spent some time working on some other projects. But last night, Josh, Scott and I all got together for a session. We worked a bit on "Beyond Gray Walls," which is the one we're furthest along with right now - it's got some scratch vocals for the first verse, and some really nice things going on.

After we hit a slow point, Josh mentioned that he'd just written a new riff that he wanted to show us; it was a cool, complex picked pattern - very trippy! So we opened a new file, put that one down, and started playing some more with it. After adding a few new parts and a drum loop, we ended up in a COMPLETELY different place than I expected. Very cool sound, looking forward to working some more on this one! A nice, fruitful session!

Continued writing...

Scott came over for "music night" last night; we were minus Josh due to a prior commitment, but we were quite productive anyway!

We've got a bunch of songs in progress simultaneously at this point; the one we're working on the most right now is currently untitled because it has no lyrics associated with it. That needs to happen soon, since we're getting to the point where the lyrics will dictate the direction of certain parts of the song. So far, it's got a real "Rush-inspired" beginning that morphs into a nifty verse and pre-chorus, then dives into a really wide, atmospheric chorus, with lush pads and acoustic guitars. I'm looking forward to fleshing this one out, it promises to be a winner!

Scott and I also assessed some of our other musical tidbits, and some of the other ones on "the front burner" for now are "Undertow" (starts with a sonorous vocal over a Rhodes progression), and "Gray Walls," which is based on a two-handed tapping bass progression I've been riffing on for many years.

Other current "back burner" songs include "Tell Me Why" (a piece Scott wrote), "Fifteen Minutes," and a long-format (album side?) concept piece I've been working on for a while but can't quite wrap my mind around. Scott and Josh also have a few things they did at Yoshi Studios that they're keeping in the wings so we don't get overwhelmed!

Things are happening, and I'm hoping that we can increase our output and have something really substantial moving before long...

Recent Work, New Toys...

Over the last two weeks, Scott and I - and then Josh and I - have gotten together to work some more on the tunes we've got going. It's been a little tough getting started, because at the outset we've got a LOT of little bits and pieces, and haven't really been able to hunker down and focus on one or two. We're still sort of finding our rhythm, so to speak. But we're starting to zero in on a couple of tunes that are moving us more than the others, and I think that shortly we'll be in full-on songwriting mode.

In the meantime, Scott has been upgrading his home studio workspace; he recently added dual-displays to his computer setup, and (as both Josh and I proclaimed when we did the same) he's loudly announced that he'll never go back! That sort of flexibility of workspace makes things work so much more smoothly. He also upgraded to Sonar 8 Producer.

I've also added some new things to my studio; new drum mics, the most recent Sonar Version (Producer 8), T-Racks Mastering Suite, and more... Of course, I'm ALWAYS adding new toys... My big project is going to be the ongoing improvements at Digital Din, our main studio. While the room is "finished," the walls need treatment and design, the windows need replacing, there's a little drywall to finish, doors to hang. It's always something. ;-)

More progress...

All three of us got together at Digital Din last night to do some more work on the music. For a bit, we concentrated on "Undertow" - first doing a little bit of musical editing and re-arrangement. We then switched to lyrics, since we only had a few initial lines and haven't fleshed out the concept. We brainstormed for a bit, then came up with a few really unique ideas for where to take the lyrics... more on that later.

We then played with some new/old song ideas; Scott has a couple of really cool acoustic guitar-oriented pieces that he's been kicking around for a while. One, in particular, seemed to really get the wheels turning - a song called "Tell Me Why" which has a great progression and a haunting melody. We'll see if that can become a Din Within tune with some more work in the future.

Also of note, Scott brought over a CD of some other musical things we had worked on quite a while ago as "Digital Loss" (with John Lewis and Dave Hutton). We may resurrect some of that material as well - several of those tunes are really quite cool! Productive pre-production... things are working well so far!

(Crosses fingers)...