Thingawowzer.

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Bounte: Two will be a slow album release. The tracks are out for mastering right now. Once mastered, I’ll finalize the artwork and officially release the digital album on Bandcamp. We’ve all waited long enough for the music, and I see no need to wait on any record labels for it. At that point, the product is all yours! Then starts the next phases of release, with hopes of wider distribution and promotion.

I’ll send the tracks to all the licensing outlets I know, and continue to talk to record labels to see if there is any interest from them. And I’ll be writing to anyone I know to check out the music. Alan has also convinced me to work on videos for the tracks, so hopefully I can get some youtube buzz going.

In anticipation of Two‘s release, I’ve given bounte.com a bit of a facelift, which is so easy to do with WordPress and some webskillz.

All songs are mixed and the unmasters are ready to go. I’m very happy with how they’ve turned out, and I think people will enjoy them a lot. In case you missed the preview track I posted on Facebook, I’ve included it at the end of this post.

I’m close to deciding on a release method. I’ve submitted to a bunch of labels, but unless I hear of serious interest, I’ll get it mastered on my own, and release through bandcamp. If I can generate enough sales on my own, that would definitely interest a label more. I’m still deciding whether to print discs. I probably will, in one form or another, just because I want a physical product to add to my pride collection and to hand people.

Enjoy Unborn, featuring Lauren Cheatham:

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I’m still deciding what to do about releasing this album. I’ve been submitting demos and talking to record labels to see if there is any interest, and also to learn what a record label does these days. I gather there is a huge difference between large labels and indie labels, and what a label does for any particular artist can vary greatly. But I can do a lot myself. I can make the music, get it mixed, get it mastered, do the artwork, get CDs made, put it online myself, put it in online stores myself, sell it myself, tell people about it myself, collect royalties myself. What’s left for a label to do for the artist?

From my experience with Positron, a label has greater distribution, promotion, and licensing systems, knows different people than I do, and has a wealth of knowledge about the music industry. And many of those things I specified above that I can do myself, I learned from working with a label. I’m thankful for that, and wonder what else there is to learn. But is it essential for an artist to enter into a legal agreement over all these things? I get the impression that a label doesn’t generate sales for an artist, but handles accounting and organization that are beyond what an artist can handle on their own. In that sense I suppose an artist really “knows” when they need a label, rather than having all these questions like I do.

The flipside is, how does a label benefit from an artist, and what do they rely on the artist to do/provide? Not really a question I can answer, but I’m curious.

…from digital. I bit the bullet and ripped my entire CD collection to iTunes. Most of my new music purchases in the last few years have been digital downloads, and my listening habits have been geared now towards iTunes on my computer. I only listen to CDs in the car (especially since my iPod was stolen), or occasionally on the big stereo.

It took a few weeks of swapping CDs in and out of the computer, but it’s done, and kind of like being rescued from a desert island. Yeah, I had my one or two desert-island albums, but I’m suddenly reunited with all the musical bounty society contains. It’s like restoring a lost part of my identity.

Another part of the ultimate goal is to start DJing again. It’s fun, I like going out, I like sharing music, seeing other people have fun with the music. I just have to finish prepping clips for my laptop software.

I listened to One all the way through for the first time in about 3 years. And right at the end was a little something that made me feel a bit better about taking forever to finish Two. It’s a little song about how it can take forever to finish writing a song. Three Minute Miracle:

Last night ALL the audio on my computer, from Ableton Live, to iTunes, to the internet, was all pitched and slowed down about a step. It was inexplicable and freaking me the hell out. After some panicked investigation, I found my MOTU 828mkii Word Clock out of sync with my external clock, and it was playing 48kHz synced to 44.1kHz.

I’m not sure how it got set that way, but I fixed it by changing the Sample Rate from 48kHz to 44 in the MOTU Audio Setup software.

I’m sure a lot of people are wondering if I’m still making music. I very much am, but it’s a slow process putting a whole album together. When I started on it, three years ago now, CD albums were still pretty much what a musician shot for. But I don’t write songs that fast. About a year into it, the whole industry seemed to change, and the concept of the CD album melted away, dissipated, unraveled. It seemed like smaller online EPs and singles were necessary to keep your music current and accessible. Not to mention that live performances seem almost essential now for generating buzz, and Bounte has never been much of a live project.

But I was left with this whole album project in mind and in process. So I kept at it, writing demos, and filing them away, took hiatuses for getting married and honeymoon, developing Beatserv and for playing with The Atomica Project, took some trips around the country. This year I became a homeowner and moved around town, and helped some friends produce their music. By this time, all the writing was done, but 11 songs still needed final vocal recording and mixing, and that all takes time as well.

Right now 2 or 3 songs are completely done, ready for consumption, and I’m deciding what to do with the whole pile of work. Do I share a couple tracks now to keep everyone interested? Do I reserve it all for a come-out-of-nowhere surprise attack? Do I release the whole thing myself? Do I shop around for record labels? Any ideas?

Not from me though. My friend Pete’s band, Number Nine, has been playing so hard that they blew up their bass amp. So he called me up and asked if they could try blowing up mine. So I said, sure, good luck! I installed a 15″ Eminence Legend speaker in my GK combo, so it’s twice as loud, twice as heavy, and there’s no way the amp can pump enough power through the speaker to blow it or overdrive and fry the electronics. There are definitely better amps out there, but this has one hell of a speaker.

I was going to invest in some acoustic treatment for my studio, but I’ll have to maintain my car instead. My studio has some odd bass rumbling, so I’ll need some bass traps, but my car had some odd rumbling in the brakes. I figure the priority is in stopping the car before stopping the bass.

1969 Martin 016-NY

I’m borrowing a very nice guitar that’s made for finger style and sounds stunning when played by someone with guitar skills, so I figured I should learn how to use it properly. So I took a finger picking guitar workshop this weekend at the Old Town School of Folk Music. What better place to learn how to play a folk guitar? It’s a friendly and relaxed atmosphere there. The workshop leader, Charles Kim, is a very fine teacher who seems to enjoy playing and teaching.  While I learn most things just fine on my own, it’s nice to have some foundations to build off of. At least I know how some of that jangly contrapuntal guitar music is made now. Actually, for someone like me with a more linear music sense, the finger style is a comfortable concept. And as a bass player, the finger movements are already somewhat familiar.

I don’t know that I’ll include the style in any songs, but it is a new tool in the toolbox. I’ll keep practicing the couple patterns I learned and see how it goes.