Done?!

I didn't get around to writing an update last weekend.  I was hoping to have "The Effects of Connection" EP wrapped up, and due to more minor issues with levels going in the red, I had to reset the entire song again which ends up throwing everything off.  I have definitely learned that I need to really set levels WAY earlier in the process.  You can't necessarily prevent some adjustment when you're finishing up a mix but you shouldn't have to move it anywhere near to the level I had to.  Because of the multiple moves in levels and just how far it moved, it ended up throwing off the mix multiple times, so it was like getting the mix finished, then purposely ruining it, and then doing it all over again...x3.  It was both a bit annoying and frustrating for me.

Regardless, the EP was not sent off last Monday as originally planned, and I spent all week, literally every night, making minor tweaks, etc.  The good news it that what I have now is actually noticeably improved since I manually went in and fixed any snare hits that were bothersome to me, amongst other items.  This helped the mix tremendously, along with a bunch of other small fine tuning details.

I've spent this weekend doing the finalization and I'm fairly certain it'll be sent off for mastering either tomorrow night or Tuesday.  I have just a couple minor tidbit questions that I need to answer first and then it's good to go.  I just did my headphone listen and was fairly pleased.  Finishing a mix is not something I'm super familiar with, as you know, since finishing anything has not been my specialty over the years.  I'm doing my best to keep notes, etc., with the hopes of speeding up the process in the future.  I'll hopefully get a lot of practice this year in general.

The downside is that I have yet to actually start on the artwork since I've been still so focused on the mix.  I'm probably going to start dabbling with the photos tonight and will probably do it little by little during the week, provided I'm up to it.  I would have done more already but there have been way too many tasks at home to attend to, and quite frankly work has been quite hellish lately.  This all catches up to me in a bad fashion and I've been honestly in a fairly bad mood lately due to it all.  How I manage to hold it together at all sometimes kind of amazes me.

It's now February 25th and I'm supposed to start on Defrost Nixon next weekend.  Sigh.  Well, I knew things wouldn't exactly go as planned so I'm not terribly shocked.  "Mirror Land" is not ready to be sent for mastering yet so there's quite a bit to do there, and "...Fish!" certainly isn't wrapped up either.  I guess I'll just do the best I can while also beginning on Defrost Nixon.  It's going to be a very busy three months, let me tell ya.  Hopefully, I survive.

Releases on the Way

This post is a bit late in its arrival since things have been continuously hectic around here.  I swear, between working full time and trying to do music in the evenings and weekends, amongst other things, it feels like I rarely get an opportunity to just sit down and breathe.

In any event, I did send off the "As Evening Brings Tears" video edit version a little over a week ago.  The first version I got back was quite low in volume, even lower than the original version, so I rejected it and had to wait for the redo.  I just got that back on Monday and didn't have an opportunity to go over it until last night.  The overall volume is much better and I'm actually pretty pleased with the mix overall.  I do think, however, that I overdid it a bit on the kick volume, which is really apparent when the track starts, and I kind of wish I had fixed that before hitting submit.  Since this is primarily going on YouTube, though, I'm not going to spend the time or the money redoing it for I think it's pretty good overall, especially since it'll be played primarily through crappy computer speakers.  Mixing is a learning process, as I keep saying over and over, and therefore I just learned yet another tidbit.

I also have "The Effects of Connection" EP basically ready to go.  I'm still doing a couple manual de-esses here and there, and also some very minor little tweaks, but the mixes of both tracks are basically ready to go.  I'm hoping to send these tracks off for mastering no later than next Monday.  This means that I'll be cranking on the artwork for it this weekend of which I fortunately have a few ideas already cooking.

The "Mirror Land" EP shouldn't be far behind and might be submitted for mastering about a week later.  That artwork is more or less already put together and has been sitting around dormant for about 4+ years.  I simply need to make a couple tweaks and then it should be good to go.

I think I might be running a bit behind on the "...Fish" mixes but I don't think it'll really interfere with my starting on the Defrost Nixon album around March 1st.  Again, I'm trying my best to stay on target this year so that I can get as much done as possible.  Defrost Nixon is really the big variable and I don't know if allotting only 3 months is going to be adequate but I guess I'll find out.

That's the news from over here.  I'm hoping to get the "As Evening Brings Tears" video posted on YouTube within the next 2 weeks.

Success

I didn't have a great weekend overall but it fortunately left me with pretty good news.  The "As Evening Bring Tears" video edit version is going off for mastering today, and I'd expect it to be returned to me probably by the end of the week.  I would imagine the video itself will be available on YouTube within about 2 weeks.  I'll certainly make that known here once it's been posted.

Also, "The Effects of Connection" EP is also done and will hopefully be sent off for mastering at the end of this week, or the weekend at the latest.  The guy who's going to do the mastering seems like he's having a slow period so I'd expect it to be turned around super fast.  I'd think that the tracks will be available on Bandcamp within the next 2 weeks as well.

The really good news, though, is that the "Mirror Land" EP is finally done at very long last.  Talk about getting a monkey off my back...my god.  I have been struggling with this EP for a decade...no joke.  It's gone through multiple mix changes, more than I count (although nowhere near TFTO), and the overall result is pretty positive.  I think I chose wisely walking away from it at the end of 2023, only to return to it with new tools and techniques in hand, and fresh ears, and managed to knock this out in about 2 weeks.  To say that I'm patting myself on the back for it is putting it mildly.  Now, when mixes are "done" that means that there's still a lot of listening, mild changes, etc., so it'll be some time before that one is actually available (maybe a month?), but the core mix is now really solid and sounding pretty good.

Full steam ahead back to the "...Fish!" mixes, of which I put aside for the past 2 weeks in order to get these EP's done.  I still feel that I'm on track to have the "...Fish!" mixes tightened up by the end of the month so I'm actually on schedule, quite possibly for the first time ever.  Let's hope this continues.

Minor Update

Just a quick minor update on some going's on's...  First up, I have removed "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything" from being visible on my Bandcamp page.  From my understanding, even though I purchased download licenses for the song, it's not able to be "streamed" on the Bandcamp page proper without a separate "performance" license which apparently you can no longer purchase from the various "cover song" licensing sites at a reasonable rate.  Therefore, it just seemed best to make the song unavailable in that medium.  The song is still included in the download version of the album as well as the CD...the downside is that one can't necessarily tell that without reading the small blurbs on the page.  This is so far the only way I've found to be able to restrict a song from streaming on Bandcamp.

I'm now really leaning towards not doing any more cover song versions, mainly because it's such a hassle and has a sometimes semi costly price tag, with the real downer being that the majority of the cost doesn't go to the artist but instead to the website that's the middle man (go figure).  The downside is that I already have a ton of time invested in covers such as  "Two Step" and the whole "It's Raining Elvis Fish!" album so there's no turning back now.  I think I'll be using the same method as mentioned above for "The Effects of Connection" EP, where "Two Step" will not be streamable but will be included in both the download and CD versions.  As for "...Fish!", I'm not sure how I'm going to do that one as of yet.  I was wondering if I could simply have no tracks be streamable and only offer CD's and downloads.  I did a test and it seems like it might be possible but I can't say for sure without literally publishing the album to the site.  It's all very curious.  Provided that works, though, that'll most likely be my approach.

This week I'm prepping not only "As Evening Brings Tears" (the video edit version) but also "The Effects of Connection" and "Two Step" for mastering.  "...Evening..." sounds really great but I decided to tweak the bass just a tad bit more, nothing that'll take more than another pass at the most.  "...Effects..." sounded boomy when I revisited it last night so I'm going to make some minor mod's on that one before moving forward.  Again, I fully expect all three songs to go off for mastering early next week, at the latest.  I will be placing the shortened edited version of "As Evening Brings Tears" on Bandcamp as soon as I get it back and I'd imagine that "The Effects of Connection" EP will be visible on the site in the  next couple of weeks.

My focus is now on getting the "Mirror Land" tracks fully done and then I'm going to start on artwork for these releases as well as prepping the drums for Defrost Nixon.  The "...Fish" mix modifications will probably continue for a little while but there's nothing too heavy left to do.  I'll be working on the track order as soon as this weekend.  At this point, I fully intend to meet my mix deadline of the end of February.

I'm also investigating KickStarter and/or GoFundMe campaigns.  The former seems a bit intense for just me to handle on my own, to be honest, but I might dabble in it...who knows.