Okay, the blog post is way late, but the track did make it up on SoundCloud on time. I said I would post tracks. I never said I would make blog posts for all of them! BOOM! Lawyered!

My early working title for this track was “Clouds”. It was later on that I realized that it was my ninth Saturday Sound and then it hit: “Cloud Nine”. Serendipity! Of course, whenever I use something, my brain compels me to look up the origin of it, even if I already know it (because sometimes what I “know” was either just legend, or new information comes to light), but that was not the case for “Cloud Nine”. Where did “I’m on cloud nine!” as an expression for being especially happy or pleased come from?

The reality is we really don’t know. The hypotheses that it comes from American weather standards or a Buddhist concept aren’t very credible. In fact in the early 20th century the phrase was “cloud seven”, not nine. Anyway, if you’re nerdy and you know it, check the link!

I did not actually get to finish this track. It’s musically complete, but it wasn’t fully mixed and mastered again, despite my early start. Life came at me pretty hard for the later part of the week and finding time to finish was difficult. If I hadn’t gotten an early start, this might have been my second mulligan week, and my first unscheduled one. With that said, the pre-mix isn’t horrible, though I think the track is a little quiet and needs to have its dynamic range punched up some. That’s still one of my (many) producing weaknesses. I’m starting to feel like the tight constraints on this project are starting to work against me a little because it’s pushing me to rush the steps that I think if anything I need to put MORE time on to improve my skills. I think the musical ideas are more solid, and the arrangements are getting better. There’s some progress on sound design too, but I’m kind of hitting a final mix and mastering wall.

In any case I hope you enjoy this belated blog post and totally not late track!