Kirk's New Release Finalized!
Kirk and I had a heck of a time uploading his wave files to DiscMakers last Tuesday, but we finally got it done.Pops had loaned us Monster, his big P4 with 4 Gigs of RAM to do the transfer and it kept crapping out on the uploads time after time, so I got annoyed with the DiscMakers servers and used the slowest computer I have, a little 366 Mhz PII with 182 Megs of RAM running Lucid Puppy 5.11 and it all went without a hitch on the first try.
We spent Wednesday reviewing the uploaded waves and re-doing graphics for the insert and tray, trying to get them to display properly in the preview. He was using 2500 pixel images and we cut them down to a smaller size and still had problems with the 3D preview showing the upper left quadrants of the images.
Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, we won't get to pick back up on getting our questions answered until Monday. Hopefully the project will be finalized then and we will get the finished CDs by the 9th of December.
I ripped the master CD and uploaded the mp3s to the project playlist at Blu Streets Records so everybody can listen to their heart's content.
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Finalizing Kirk's CD
I have been listening to the pre-release copy of Kirk In Spirit, and so far it's better than I thought it was going to be. It was nice to hear it on good stereo systems instead of in headphones for a change.My assignment is to listen to it on as many types of systems as possible from the cheesiest to home theater (and everything in between) to see if any of the mixes suck on any system. I will do the same in mono, from low power similar to am radio on up to a mono PA.
Then on to a heavy duty home theater system to check the bottom end for any overly heavy excursions on the subwoofer, and we'll know if there is any re-mastering to do.
For a guy who bought a digital recorder and jumped right in, Kirk did a darned good job. I only caught what might be one small clam on guitar on one song, and he did a pretty good job on the bass lines he did on 10 of the songs on the album. Nice arrangements.
Once the final Master is ready I can rip it and pump the mp3 versions into the playlists so folks can listen to their heart's content.
Perhaps he will sell a few hundred copies after all!
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Wrapping Up Kirk's Project
Last Friday I whapped out a funky little bass line for Kirk's instrumental song while he recorded it.This is the last song to be recorded! One other song is mixed musically, but Kirk wants a special effect at the end, so we have to work out the effect and graft it onto the end of the song.
Kirk has been working on CD pricing, liner notes and cover art.
Nicole, his lovely niece, has taken a photo of one of her more massive ouvres and he is planning on using that for the artwork.
So close and yet so far away!
We just have to finalize the last mix, master the last two songs, finish up the CD label and jewel case insert, send away for the first hundred or few, and ready Kirk's sonic guerilla marketing machine.
It's going to be so nice to be wrapping this project up, since we are both exited about the next projects, which are a short string of singles in assorted genres.
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Audiocasting
By audiocasting I mean broadcasting audio content over the internet. Podcasting is what most people think of, but many sites stream music without being a podcast. Many social networking sites allow members to build and share playlists. This is a very popular activity, and many artists and big labels think they are getting burned, when actually they are getting free publicity and being broadcast in a new medium.When radio first came on the scene most big labels were against their music being broadcast because they feared no one would buy records if they could listen to the songs on the radio for free.
Now we are into new technologies and instead of radio stations we have people sharing their favorite ear candy by embedding it into their "FaceSpace" page, on web sites, and emails.
There are many applications that audiocast content on web servers and generate embedding codes to be shared.
Opentape has become popular in Ekone, and it is time to state how we use it. All content in our playlists are either in the public domain, or are copyrighted by the people whose works are in the lists, and who are grateful they are there ready for "air" play. The owners of the songs retain their copyrights and distribution permissions. We get content. People get get music and information. Win-win-win. Nobody's losing.
Instead of a few hundred radio stations broadcasting to America, we now have millions of micro audiocasts in a myriad of flavors going out all over the planet over internet technologies.
For downloads the distribution permissions we follow are that the person downloading the music must agree to not sample or sell the files and explain the deal to anyone who they share them with. Working musicians are allowed to play any of the songs in their shows as long as credit is given to the songwriter and a recording of the show, or at least of the set the song was in, be sent to the songwriter.
That's the deal for content that is "broadcast" in forms that allow downloading.
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Blu Streets Records
Kirk has started Blu Streets Records to release his CD Project on his own label and has asked me to administer his site.Comments - Edit - Delete