I found Ed O’Brien’s journal entries during Radiohead’s Kid A/Amnesiac sessions particularly helpful. Now I don’t feel so stupid. Such a great link.
http://www.greenplastic.com/coldstorage/articles/edsdiary/index.php
Writing songs as a group is not so easy, once you consider that there are minds that have different visions, and perhaps a multitude of versions sound good, but none are wholly complete, nor great. But we’re learning!
We now have our very own widget for our EP!
It’s in our “Sounds Like” section. If you purchase through this outlet, we keep more of the profits. Thanks for your support!
Thanks to Blurred Line Photography we had some shots of the action on March 1st… check it out here:
Flyers for March 1st. Click for full size…
These were done in-house by our very good friend Stephanie Foo. Pure class!
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This past Sunday was our final day of mixing.
Not only that, I re-recorded the vocals last-minute for three songs… with a somewhat raspy, flu-laden voice. Will you notice? Maybe you wouldn’t have if I hadn’t told you. Perhaps you would have thought I just sounded particularly sexy for some unbeknownst reason. Ah… but the cat’s out of the bag. However, I am very relieved that I was well enough to do it after being sick twice already this year, once bad enough to warrant a trip to Urgent Care. Any later and we would have delayed the whole process, jeopardizing the timeframe for the EP’s release! Yikes.
But yes, the day has finally come when we can say we have a legit, professionally-mastered recording. Pretty scary… but we put a lot of thought and heart into every moment, and since it is semi-permanent, we thought it would be a good idea to have the whole thing brought up to industry standard specifications, and basically polished off like all other serious records.
That’s essentially what mastering is: evening the volume levels from song to song, making sure the loud parts are not overbearing, and the soft parts are audible, making sure the vocals have presence, and bringing out the frequencies that get lost and toning down the frequencies that get muddied-up. Oh, and “mastering” sounds really cool, too.
Chris from Hyperraje Records. This is one cool dude.
He’s got the creds to prove it, too
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Funny/terribly sad/cool story:
For our cover art, I spoke with a photographer from Italy who was willing to license a photo of his out to us for free, if only in return we would send him a CD. Good deal, right? Yeah, well after going back and forth for a few weeks, this photographer’s lab supposedly suffered a terrible incident the night before our deadline. Wonderful! So yeah, I had one night to come up with a new concept for the design. Oh well. I don’t think I did too shabby a job though. I almost like it better my way…
***
Oh, and if you want to be surprised by the track listing, I suggest you LOOK AWAY NOW
So our demo is pretty much done on our end. Yet there is so much work to be done.
Let’s see what we’ve done so far:
-Recorded some music and edited/mixed it. That’s about it. Hahahaha.
What has to be done still:
-Mastering (to be done tomorrow), need to submit it tomorrow night
-Artwork (i have been talking back and forth with a photographer, but the photo is not in my hands yet, electronically speaking), don’t know anything about Illustrator and working with templates, need to have it done before Wed morning…
-CD Replication needs to be finished before March 1st so we have something to sell at the show!
***
None of this could have been finished any sooner either, considering I have gotten sick twice this year already. Vocals were completed yesterday… Insane.
This has been a crazy ride, learning how to do our own recording completely DIY with no more than 4 mics and a Firebox. Software tricks, late nights, hard decisions, and now the whole process of actually printing the CD/artwork… wow, who would have known this would take so much work? But hopefully, people will see a glimpse of Phonofield’s vision. And that is what makes it worth it. If one person truly gets it, I mean GETS what we’re doing, then it’s all been worth it.
Yes. You can buy your tickets in advance now for $10 at TicketWeb!
We worked very hard to make this show available to ages 18+ as opposed to a 21+ show. We hope to have an all ages show sometime in the near future, but for now, bring all your college-aged friends for Phonofield-themed merriment.
Show Info:
March 1st @ Cafe Du Nord
Phonofield with Dora Flood and Ice Climber (George Cochrane & members of French Miami)
Doors: 7pm, Show: 8pm
$10 at the door, or buy in advance.
Can’t wait!
And the most exciting piece of info… we will be releasing our very own demo at this show. Get your copy!
Confirmed.
Advance ticket info and flyer with details TBA.