So this video is actually based on 12.42 awesome remix "Why i love HitRECord", evolution of a record :)

It's about creative process, making remixes, about hitrecord, etc.

For all the amazing people here on hitrecord, and

Happy Birthday Joe!

P.S.  I don't like to cut music, but it's 5 min long, so I had to. It is really really great, by megancarnes,  and you should listen to it from the beginning to the end.

Hello, xxx

This is a low quality version of the intro that was prepared for the RE: Resident Curators video.  Images were originally edited as gifs, which is why they are super LQ (Oh dear; lesson learned).  ...RE-drafting in high-quality.  Soon!  Soon!  Soon!   Thank you to all the artists whose work was remixed.  Compass (a.k.a. tori-bird); thank you for holding my hand at "5am" and helping me see this through to the finish line...  Adore youuuu Miss.  xxx

hiRECord - I'm deeply honoured, and crazyyyy nervous, excited!  =D

THANK YOU...

Love, love, love...

Ö

<3

hi everyone! :)

i'm so honoured & excited to be a part of the team of resident curators for the site, as a video & text curator. i'm champing at the bit to support & encourage the incredibly talented writers, video-makers & remixers on hitRECord. 

here's a little video i put together to introduce myself & tell you a bit about what i'm planning to do.

thanks! <3

For some time now there has only been a few of us featuring RECords on our homepage. We have now assembled a team of 8 Resident Curators from the community to assist in featuring records. This will be an evolving list and will change over time and I'm really excited to see what these artists find and feature, as well as how the community remixes their featured records.

Each of the Resident Curators is not only a great artist in their own right but their recommendations have helped draw all of us toward records that the production company can use. They understand the direction of the company and have played an integral part in its growth.

So, without further ado, I introduce to you hitRECord's very first Resident Curators:

Sorry I'm only just getting around to putting this RECord up, after about a year in cold storage.  It's a document of creating the vinyl RECord hitRECord released last fall.  I was pleased to be entrusted with overseeing the operation, and it was a very interesting session for me, since even though I've been making music and RECording professionally for 20-plus years, this was the first time I've had the opportunity to watch a lathe cut a disc.

For those interested in the technical details:  It's a real time process, one in which if you screw something up halfway through, the whole pass has to be thrown in the trash;  Sort of like the way final mixes used to be before automated consoles, only in this case, you can't roll back and re-RECord over a piece of tape...You have to pull out a fresh slab of vinyl.

The songs were given a mastering pass in order to put them at equal levels, and to make them sit together well generally, and then the songs were sequenced into two separate digital files, one for each side of the vinyl, with gaps in between songs already in place, done at the time of mastering.  So really, all Pete, the cutting engineer, had to do was to set a proper level for the lathe and run the pass.

The "blanks" used to cut the music to are aluminum discs covered in a high-grade vinyl.  There's only a couple of factories making them in the US now.  They're the size of a 33 1/3 RECord, only a bit heavier due to the aluminum,  and you often cut them only on one side (ie:  One disc for side 'a' and another for side 'b').  A long time ago, these "lacquers" or "acetates" would be the only way an artist would be able to hear their music outside of the studio in between recording sessions, since it was very rare until the 1970s for most musicians to have access to open reel tape machines.  Since it was (and still is) a fairly specialized process, and not every RECording studio would have a cutting lathe in house, that privilege was generally reserved only for the biggest artists.  These RECords, while very high in quality, are also extremely fragile, succeptible to the lightest of scratches, and generally can only be played a few times before they start to deteriorate.

Once cut, discs meant as masters for duplication must be very-carefully handled, and are optimally sent to the pressing plant as quickly as possible (certainly within days of being cut), as they're somewhat perishable due to storage conditions, dust, overhandling, etc.  At the pressing plant, these discs are then metalized (dunno how) in order to create the stamper, which can then pump out a certain number of copies of vinyl before they, too, wear out and need to be replaced.  

What you'll see in the film first is us jumping around from track to track to confirm that the individual songs are hitting at the same level, and with the same general tone and EQ curves.  Then you'll see the first "test" cut, wherein we took a piece of scrap vinyl, and ran a pass to make sure the amp settings are good, the grooves are cutting correctly, and that everything sounds good coming back off the vinyl.  Then, it's on to the actual final pass, where we created the actual "master" which was sent to the pressing plant, to be duplicated on that sexy red vinyl we ended up with.

One cool detail I didn't know about until this session:  You know the fat grooves in between songs on a vinyl RECord?  They're not fat grooves because there's no audio there:  In fact, they're the product of a real-time process done by the cutting engineer at the time of cutting:  During the pauses in between tracks, he turns a knob to advance the lead screw such that it creates a wider groove, and then returns it to its normal setting once the new track comes in.  I thought that was cool : )

It's too bad I wasn't able to capture what it looks like under the scope:  It kinda looks like a zebra print...Black and white, and as you spin the disc, you can watch the grooves wiggle in response to what's going on with the audio.

Strawberry Bootlaces

I'm pretty bad at writing descriptions as you can see.

this is definitely becoming more of a dream-like narrative exploration, which I'm not sure is the direction it's supposed to go, but it's sorta leading the way all by itself. I'm not actually driving this thing, I'm just putting it on paper. :'D

sorry this gets so loosey-goosey towards the end, but being that this is a work in progress (and will be for a while) I managed to convince myself out of feeling bad for uploading it like this.

if you ever felt the need to get a closer insight to the process of an ADD artist, this looks a lot like it.

I totally started this evening with an excellent work ethic, but then I started watching 'How to Train Your Dragon' and that put a right stop to that.

also, I kept her in black instead of white (mostly) like IrmaVep's image, 'cause I wanted to maintain some continuity of character and keep the contrast between the male and female figures for later. just so you know. :D