Part 16 of 18 serialised by Nuance, New Straits Times
7th November 2002
When I got up, my back felt as stiff as a board. I couldn’t move without excruciating pain. The only way I could be mobile was to shuffle slowly – a journey from bedroom to kitchen would take ten minutes – and my flat is not big. I couldn’t bend, I couldn’t kneel, and my tummy was acting up again. As you can imagine, an upset stomach and an inability to move quickly is a pretty bad combination. There were a few close calls, I tell ya.
There was no way I could go to the studio. At least half an hour bouncing around at the back of a cab followed by hours of pacing around a studio would have been suicide. So I decided that it would be best to spend the day resting my back in the hope that it’ll improve by tomorrow.
So it was I rested. I watched tv, read, slept and ate. Iskandar was a star – he sent a cab over with some food for lunch. This was the first time in months that I spent the day vegetating, and bar the disability, it was really enjoyable.
In the middle of my restful enjoyable afternoon, Ronan called from the studio. There was a problem with the quarter-inch tape machine. Oh man. I didn’t need this. Then Mr. Loh the owner of the AKG spring reverb called to say his repairman had been to the studio but no one was there. Huh? Watdyamean? I had just spoken to Ronan not 5 minutes ago and he was calling from the studio…
Strange.
It turned out that Mr. Loh didn’t know we had moved to Synchrosound and sent his repairman to Digit.
God help me.
Then Ronan called again. The engineers at Synchrosound had tried their best but were not succeeding in reviving the quarter-inch machine. Sigh. Time to work the phone. So I stirred from my sick bed like a demented dog. I spoke with the studio manager. No banana. I then spoke to the General Manager, who promised he’d sort things out for me. I also phoned Digit to see if we could rent their quarter inch tape machine – but it turned out that their machine was buggered too. Crap.
I hear you ask – ‘why not you just rent one from elsewhere?’ Well, that did seem to be the obvious solution. But given my back condition, the fact that my car was still in the basement car park of Synchrosound, and I wasn’t sure when I could get out of the house again on account of my crooked back, who the hell was going to arrange for transport? In any case, it was extremely unlikely we’ll be able to find anyone who has a quarter inche tape machine for rent. Since the arrival of the DAT tape, hardly anyone uses analogue tape machines in Malaysia.
Anyway, Ronan called again after an hour or so. He said he would just go ahead and mix the record on half-inch tape. That’s a good idea. Sure, we had promised Leo that we’d deliver quarter-inch versions of the mix to him for mastering into an audiophile version of the record, but given the current situation, we can’t afford to let it hold up the entire mixing process anymore. We’ll just have to worry about the audiophile version later.
Okay, at least things are moving again. I was so absolutely drained by that spate of activity that I took a nap and didn’t wake till the next day.
8th November 2002
I could move very slowly without pain this morning and was determined to go to Synchrosound for the remainder of the mixing sessions. Iskandar, who was heading to PJ too, offered to share a cab. I stopped on the way to do some banking and bought some lunch. I shuffled along the street ever so slowly and crookedly. People kept staring.
When I got to Synchrosound, Ronan had just finished the mix for ‘The Red House’ and was very excited by it. He said it’s technically the best thing he has ever done. He’d also mixed the rest of the slow songs yesterday. So we sat down and listened to all of them. Most of them were good except I remained very far from being convinced by’Marianne Called’. I was also uncomfortable with how ‘Where Have The Years Gone?’ turned out. Ronan did not share my misgivings but agreed to re-mix it immediately.
I also found that the AKG spring reverb unit had been repaired. It sounded great. They also fixed the quarter-inch machine. I won’t bore you with the technicalities, but it took ages.
It seemed that whenever we moved to a new place, we encounter technical problems due to equipment failure. Is this normal? It is easy to blame such neglect on bad management, though perhaps it is fairer to deem them as manifestations of an industry in deep trouble as record sales plummet due to piracy and illegal downloads. It is well-known that record labels and artists suffer from decreasing revenue, but less poblicised that studios go out of business because of this, and that engineers and backroom people lose their jobs. Folks need to know this.
Still, it never ceases to amaze me how every little thing could throw a spanner in the works. It’s not just the time wasted; it’s also how energy-sapping waiting is and how tiring fire-fighting can be. Needless to say, it also stops the creative juices from flowing freely. On a tight budget and schedule, little things going awry can easily be the difference between a good record and a bad one. I must put that down as a lesson learnt and build in more contingencies next time.
If there is a next time, that is.
Anyway, when Ronan finished re-mixing ‘Where Have The Years Gone?’, we left for the day having not accomplished much. Still, we seem to be doing okay with time so I was happy to give my back a rest with an early night. By the time I got home, my back was really stiff again. I took a quick hot shower and got into bed with what has been my comfort reading since I was a child, i.e. epic Chinese kung fu novels. I fell asleep while some super cool villain was chucking lethal chopsticks at some helpless maiden.