Ask Marian (Public)
If you want to know, ask! But note this section of the forum is visible to everybody, not just the Donors' Circle.
I might have already answered it here long ago on Formspring: http://new.spring.me/#!/user/mariancall/timeline/responses
I might have already answered it here long ago on Formspring: http://new.spring.me/#!/user/mariancall/timeline/responses
Comments
Such as: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1840231645/ref=oh_details_o06_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Is this cheating?
Thanks for being here, we would love thoughts from those extra resources! Not all of us have access to them.
There are cheaper copies of "The Sandman Companion" available. Some down to under $0.10 (plus the $4 shipping). I'd recommend it for someone who has read the series at least once.
Thank you so much for kicking this off!
And I hope that your mysterious / secret project idea pans out.
I felt before I started as if there is *something hidden* somewhere in Sandman that I need to learn. Don't know what sort of thing, don't know why, it's just been itching at the back of my brain.
Maybe it's still there and I haven't caught it yet, but I don't feel that dissatisfied searching anymore, I feel like I'm scratching the itch.
Maybe the thing I was meant to find was simply the act of absorbing these stories by osmosis, which will definitely make me a better artist. No doubt about that.
Maybe the thing I was meant to find was the part of my brain that has mostly been lying dormant since college. I miss these discussions. I miss combing through books this carefully. And I definitely miss the brilliance of some of the deep thinkers we have here, and the personal stories people have been sharing. I'm remembering a lost self, a more scholarly self. I'm getting in touch with my original true inner nerd.
And maybe the thing I was meant to find was the glory of a good old-fashioned forum where people just share thoughts. No fluff, no formatting, just people sharing. It has taken patience to read everything here, but I have read everything. It's slow and doesn't reward the pleasure centers of my brain like Twitter does, with instant jolts of shallow information. But oh, this is better. The patience needs to be re-learned. I want to retrain my brain for the research that still lies ahead of me.
My next art project, I hesitate to tell you, is almost totally unrelated to Gaiman or to Sandman. But it is about story and voice. It's always about story and voice. And this has been such a great place to learn new perspectives on art itself.
I should share this in a broader forum, and perhaps I will. Your question has elicited some good thoughts. Thank you for asking!
I would love to know the names of the books you are reading on Soapy Smith. I have been reading a few for a writing project of mine and could always use a few more.
The story is getting less and less about Soapy and more about much larger things though, so books like "Alaska: an American Colony" and "Crude Awakenings" are also on the list. But have I cracked the covers yet? Nope. Research is the ultimate luxury, it takes a lot of time and focus and organization, and I sort of have to build up a pile of money and stop doing other things to do it a shred of justice. I am hoping to have some time with library & university resources eventually.
The shuffler decided to play Vera Flew the Coop from Got to Fly and Songs of the Months in consecutive order. I found the levels different by a noticeable amount from track to track. So being in a hotel room and relatively bored after ironing, I decided to open up both files in Audition and see if I was hearing things or messed up doing the FLAC to WAV conversion. I saw that there was a visible level difference, here is a screen capture if you want to see... http://photos.bradfordbenn.com/photos/i-6KSgHG8/0/L/i-6KSgHG8-L.png
This situation is not a problem or a concern, it made me curious and I figured I would ask and learn something. When you release the same track on multiple albums/collections, do you remix or remaster? Is there a review or is it just reusing the file? Also when you do multiple formats, i.e. for Bandcamp of FLAC, Ogg Orbis, MP3 at VBR and 320Mb, do you export each as a separately mastered and tweaked format or do you just export once and then Bandcamp changes the format?
Yes, I realize that these questions could unwind to a bigger question, so if you want to table it - I understand. I am aware that my curiosity about some of these things can result in looking at details that most people never think about.
-=Bradford
For all my training in music I have NONE in engineering. The Song of the Month project was partially a way for me to learn and teach myself how to engineer songs.
Here's a clue: I'm still pretty terrible at it.
Those songs in particular are all over the place. That's part of why I call them "Bootlegs and Basement Recordings." Vanilla and Got to Fly were professionally mastered, though "Vera" in particular has a couple terrible sound flaws that I still regret.
Anyway, by the time I was done with Something Fierce, I had a better idea how to crank out a song, but I'm still not so good at it. When I want something really done right, I call a friend. (Also that costs a lot of money.)
I'm a little better now, but still not great -- the Classics album will be all mixed & mastered by me, and you will probably be able to tell. At least volume levels are the same now and the panning isn't messed up.
A number of fun things came out of SDCC and I'll post video to as many as I can find!
Ask me again regarding another city, though! Or maybe someone else here can help?