andrew dodson

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Originally uploaded by AndrewD300.

As promised… click on the picture to be taken to the photoset on my Flickr site. Enjoy!

I had a good night of recording tonight.  I laid down tracks for five songs, which is half of the album for me (one song doesn’t have drums).  My next scheduled night for recording will be Friday.  I’m not anticipating getting done, but it would be nice.  I should have everything finished by next Tuesday, though.

The decision to use different snare drums on different songs has seemed to be a good one.  After listening back to what I recorded tonight, I’m liking the sounds I’m getting much better.

I’m also considering doing some percussion overdubs on several songs - shaker, djembe (pronounced “jim-bay”), etc.  It’s always good to use my creativity to dream up what sort of sounds will be good for the songs.  It’s actually a great challenge for me - I’m typically satisfied with laying down basic drum tracks.  But, I want this album to be great, so I’m doing my part to make it that way!

Pictures on the way….

I actually don’t post too often about one of my favorite things in life - baseball.  So, I figured, I’d give everyone a heads up with my favorite teams.

In case you haven’t noticed, the Cincinnati Reds are smokin’ right now.  They’ve won six of seven, and newcomer Bronson Arroyo tossed a one-hitter today against the Washington Nationals.  At 15-7, the Reds are in a tie for first place in the NL Central, and have one the best records in the league.  So far, so good!

The Lexington Legends started off strong (maybe due to motivation from Roger Clemens’s openind day appearance?), but have faded lately.  They recently lost three in a row, but have come back to win the last four.  They’re currently 12-6 and 0-1 with me in attendance.

Also in Lexington, the UK baseball team is enjoying one of its best seasons ever.  They swept a weekend series from No. 7 South Carolina to improve to 31-10 on the season, and a No. 13 national ranking.

Same old, same old over in Georgetown.  The Tigers are in the midst of another near-.500 season at 26-24 with a 9-11 conference record.  Since I have a personal connection to the Tiger baseball club, I gotta say - I just don’t get it.  The MSC is consistently strong every year in baseball, but GC can never seem to get over the hump and have a strong season.  Oh well.  I’ll take .500 ball over, say, 5-30 any day.

I haven’t kept up with local high school baseball much this year, since I don’t get the State Journal (still waiting for the online PDF version to be available).  Last I saw, Western Hills beat Franklin County, which is always a bummer.

There ya go.  Now yer all caught up….

The drums are all set up.  The mics are in place.  Sounds have been checked.  Time to roll tape.

I’ve spent the last two evenings at an “undisclosed location” preparing to record my drum tracks for the new JMB album…again.  Since we’re going for the best possible sound on this album, I wasn’t thrilled with my snare & tom sounds that came out of the Cedarmore sessions.  So, I’m taking my time and making sure I get the sounds I want.

This time around, I don’t have an acoustic drum shell around me.  It’s just me in an open room - which I prefer for drum recording.  I’m using different mic techniques, choices and placements for these recordings.  Also, there are three different snare drums at my disposal to help me get the right sound for each song.

Pictures will be coming soon of the setup.  I tried to take pictures tonight, but discovered my batteries were dead.

LOTS of web projects on the table…

- The Point’s media site - nearly completed.

- new JMB site to coincide with the release of our new CD… early May??

- Revamped CLS site… still tossing around ideas, but I’ll also be putting together a web store for one of our bigger customers.

- new personal site, using CSS.

- new Saxton’s Cornet Band site - completed.  Just waiting for the “go-ahead” from the band manager.

I’m excited about all of them, but I just wish I could stop time to finish them!  Oh well.  I’ll keep truckin’ along until they’re all done…

…if you’re a MercyMe fan.

By far, they’re my favorite Christian group.  On Tuesday, they’ll release their latest album, Coming Up to Breathe.  As I type this, I’m listening to the clips on their website.  While they probably don’t do the songs justice, I’m hearing some good stuff.  I can’t wait!

As I’m sure most of you have noticed, I’ve started using Flickr for my online photo gallery.  It’s fairly easy to use, and it syncs up to this blog, so that I can share pictures here.  Tonight, I discovered that it’s not all that I thought it was.

You see, I tried to create a new album, or “photoset” as they like to call it, and I’d already created three albums.  I learned this is the maximum for “free accounts.”  I guess somewhere I missed the fine print.  I would’ve been able to keep uploading photos, but they would’ve been an unorganized mess if I couldn’t put them in albums.

I was prompted to create a “pro” account at the rate of $24.95 for a year.  While I wasn’t thrilled about it, I decided I like Flickr enough to keep using it.  Now, I get unlimited bandwidth, more storage space, and all sorts of fun stuff.  Click on my Flickr badge in my sidebar to see my photos.

After some discussion, the JMB has decided to possibly delay the release of our new album.  While mixing the vocals last night, and after the band had a chance to review the mixes, Josh has decided to record his vocals again.  We didn’t quite get a good sound, so we’re going to give it another try.

It’s a tough decision because we’re extremely excited for everyone to hear the new songs.  But, we also want it to sound as good as possible.

There’s still a slight chance we’ll be able to get the new vocals recorded and mixed before our anticipated release date of April 29th, but it’s a long shot at this point.  I’ll keep you posted!

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Originally uploaded by AndrewD300.

I had the good fortune of landing some Legends tickets last week. These photos aren’t the best, but the game was a lot of fun. It was especially nice for Lori and me to catch up with our old friend, Kelly. A good time was had by all…except for the Legends, who lost.

Dear Jesus,

Remember that time you were hung on a cross? Then, that Joseph guy put your body in a tomb? And then, you came back to life three days later? Remember how you did that to make salvation possible? Remember how you did that for a bunch of hacks that couldn’t make to heaven, no matter how “good” we tried to be? Yeah… that was pretty cool.

Thanks,

Andrew

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I hope everyone had a great Easter. I decided I’m not going to call it Easter anymore. I think that takes away from the significance of the day. I’m going to call it “Risen Lord Day.” No joke, folks. I think that’s a more God-glorifying name for it. And, after all… we’re here to glorify God.