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:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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.