Electronic release and CD pre-orders!

[solarbird]

All the mastered tracks for Dick Tracy Must Die have now been uploaded to the website for listening and purchase!

I really hope people will go listen to the final version of the album. It’s been a huge amount of work and an emotional roller-coaster at times, no lie. But I’m proud of it.

• This is the electronic release, and you can download it now. I’ve also added to a lot of the liner notes and such, where we have a lot of thanks given out.
• CD preorders are also now available. If you aren’t likely to run into me any time soon, and need a CD shipped, pre-order through the website. Pre-ordering the CD also gets you immediate downloads; it’s all bundled together. Yay, immediate gratification! XD
• Direct preorders: If you are likely to run into me (say, at Norwescon), or want to pay by cash or cheque, you can preorder by emailing crimecrimeandtheforcesofevil.com. You’ll also receive a download code, so immediate gratification still applies! Mostly. XD

Also, even if you’ve listened to songs from the album before? Listen again. Mastering is a collection of subtle arts, and you can hear a lot of them at work on these tracks. It’s really neat to hear, particularly in the denser studio tracks, and tracks with lots of drum, like “Stay Away” and “Shout at the Desert.”

I mean, sure, some of it is obvious; you’re doing equalisation across tracks, you’re putting everything to CD/download specifications, you’re making sure all the levels are compatible, things like that. And there are technical things, like ISRC codes, that nobody much notices, except that’s how iTunes knows the names of the songs on that CD you just put in the drive.

But some of it’s just surprising. In one case… honestly, I have no idea what he did. But it was like he took an unsharp mask filter and applied it to sound. It was literally like three adjustments, and is apparently a pretty normal thing to do, but… I have to say, it was a HOW DID YOU DO THAT?! moment.

There’s more to talk about, but that’s for tomorrow. To be continued! (つづく)

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil.

Comments

[solarbird]

You can...hear more without having to listen for it, if that makes sense.
Yes. That's what I mean by the unsharp-mask effect. None of the relative levels changed. Just the... distinction. Somehow.

Bass solo <3! It's pretty much me and Primus. XD

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Bass solo <3! It's pretty much me and Primus. XD
And Lemmy. Can't forget Lemmy ;)

Listened to it again on my iPod during my walk, and what really came through that second time was the Album Path. You've got a nice track arrangement there, flows well from the first live track through to the collapsing, falling apart ending of My Boyfriend.

There are also a couple of tracks that I think are kind of similar in overall sound, and might have gotten repetitive if they'd been next to each other, but they're nicely spaced out, and so they can each stand on their own instead of running together and getting muddled up.

Oh, and, of course, the fact that you do, indeed, have some great songs here. I've singled it out before, but Stay Away is just amazing. Sends chills down my spine. Great work, there.

[solarbird]

And Lemmy. Can't forget Lemmy ;)
God damn! What is wrong with me? Seriously.

what really came through that second time was the Album Path. You've got a nice track arrangement there
Thanks! I didn't think anybody noticed that sort of thing anymore. I put a lot of work on it tho', 'cause I'm like that.

If we were still in a pre-mp3 world, "Stay Away" and "Shout at the Desert" would be continuous flow, with no sound break between them. The sustained chord at the end of "Stay Away" would go directly into that ramping C chord that starts "Shout." We actually had it way on the first and second masters, too, but there's simply no way to make that work with Stay Away's ending once it's ripped - you end up with an abrupt chord "off" that's no fun. So we made the rampdown as quick as we could and still be okay in standalone and put no breathing space between the two, which works pretty well.

But we tried for the continuous flow, because damn that's awesome.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

I've put together a lot of mix tapes/CDs/Playlists over the years for various reasons, so I've come to pay a lot of attention to track ordering. It can make a huge difference. Actually, it's one of the things I really like about the MP3 era: I've re-ordered the tracking on several albums, because I didn't like the way it flowed (Oh My Girl by Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter), because there was an error on the album release (Sad Wings of Destiny by Judas Priest), or because I read that the artist wanted a different order (Rhythm of the Saints by Paul Simon). It's pretty cool to be able to do that.

I do have a couple of older albums that do try to run tracks into each other, and yeah, it doesn't really work when ripped. You could always just force it and put them together on a single track, but that runs into its own problems. I've been considering putting together two versions of some, with the tracks put together for smooth play when I want it like that, and separated so I can put just one part into a playlist or something. Because yeah, it is totally awesome when they just flow into each other like that.

I took a copy of the record over to my Mom's for the weekend when I went to visit. My Mom thought it all sounded the same, which confused me, but my brother and his wife really liked it.