Here is an update to “Omega,” which will be the last track on my album.

download: mp3 | sheet music (TAB) | lyrics & chords

It Gets Worse Before it Gets Better

Have you ever started working on a small project, but ended up doing much more than you intended? Renovation and cleanup projects are often like that. It’s hard to clean the garage, for instance, without finding half a dozen little projects that all demand your attention, and to do a thorough job of cleaning usually takes a few hours. Halfway through the work you are likely to have things scattered all over the floor, and it probably looks worse than it did before you started.

Such was the case with Omega. Recall from my previous post that this song was a fairly simple synth instrumental, and I liked it a lot this way even though I knew that most listeners would just sort of gloss over the track. Earlier this year I listened to it on my brother-in-law’s amazing sound system and found my original mixdown somewhat lacking. The bass register was notably weak, so I decided to reopen the project and fix that while I was remastering all of the tracks for the album.

While I was fixing the bass and tweaking a few other things I got to thinking about some lyrics for this song:

“When everything is said and done
What’s there left to do?
Can we turn the clock back
And make everything new?

“When everything is lost
Can we find our way again?
Can we turn back the pages?
Or have we reached the end?

“Time flies away on wings of lightning
We cannot call it back.
We cannot call it back.”

These seemed like fitting words for a song called “Omega,” the last song on an album called “Lost and Found.” The bridge lyrics are a slightly adapted quote from an old Latter-day Saint hymn called “Improve the Shining Moments” by Robert Baird (1855-1916).

After I had recorded these lyrics and the new guitar, bass, and drum parts in the bridge, my kids were really excited about the song. Some of them said it was their favorite song I had ever recorded.

We Need an Epilogue Here

But my wife didn’t like it. “You can’t end the album that way,” she said. “‘You can’t go back in time. What’s done is done.’ That’s not an uplifting message at all!”

And she was right. I had to admit it. So I fixed it by adding another verse:

“We might not have tomorrow
And we can’t go back to yesterday
So we’ll learn, we’ll love, and we’ll forgive
And we’ll hold on to every hour that we have together

“Because I know there’s a bright day coming for you and me
And we’ll hold on to every promise we have.”

Of course I was thinking of Evelyn and the rest of my family when I wrote them. The promises I refer to are the covenants that will enable our “family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave.”

Thanks to my wife for pushing me to do better than what I thought I was satisfied with already.

About the Recording

This song has the most complex signal flow of any recording I have ever done, with the possible exception of “Cyberian Joe” (which was honestly a total mess). The three parts of the song have very different sounds, and a cadence pause between them allowed me to subtly change the master bus effects to bring out the unique sound of each movement.

Actually, this was accomplished by the use of three separate “submaster” busses, as you can see in the screenshot below. A similar set of effects plugins was used on all three, but their individual settings are quite different.

This song was produced on Linux using 100% open source tools: LMMS, Ardour, AVL Drumkits, Calf Studio Gear, x-42 Plugins, Dragonfly Reverb, and Guitarix. The sheet music was made using MuseScore.

About the Album

We are on track for a December 2019 release date for Lost and Found, and I have finally started recording the title track! My work on remastering the old tracks is pretty much done, but you’ll have to wait until December to hear the others.

Until then, thanks for listening and enjoy the tunes!