Some of the raving lunatics who show up at Toronto-area filk events my friends have suggested I should rename this journal "butifididitagain" as a reference to starting a second CD project. No! Three or more years from now? Maybe ... the fallout from this one hasn't all been measured yet.

( But if I did it again )

The current plan is that at 10:30 tomorrow morning I will be taking possession of 499 CDs. I am now almost convinced that they will be available at FKO ... in contrast to those who have been planning on it for weeks. :-)

I'm not sure how much more activity this journal will get -- possibly some marketing stuff in the next little while -- otherwise I imagine I'll grab an archive of it for historic purposes and let it fade. Thanks to everyone who has commented here over the past year. Your ideas and suggestions have been valuable both for information content and as catalysts to get me thinking about things.

I have an invoice, the manufacturing deposit is paid, and the clock calendar is ticking. I may have driven off a cliff, but I can't complain about the view.

I sent one more message to Silverbirch Productions today, saying that I'd really prefer a different margin on the one image, but if the graphics really *had* to be that way I'd live with it. I must have explained myself better because he just got back to me with the layout I'd been hoping to get.

"Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right"
- Robert Hunter

(In spite of some miscommunication on this point, the company really has been a pleasure to work with.)

I would like a small change to the way the image is being positioned for the CD's tray card (i.e. the back image on the jewel case). Either I'm not getting through to the artist about wanting him to trim from the bottom of the image or there's some reason that's not a good idea and he's not able to explain why.

But, you know, in the immortal words of Bill Murray, "It just doesn't matter." The more I dwell on this, the more it becomes nothing but an excuse for not taking the final step of placing the order. Anybody who decides they don't want the CD because of graphics alignment would otherwise have found some other reason. :-)

I have now received the first art proofs and have sent in a slightly modified version of one out of the four pieces. I've also told him to do whatever seems right about inserting a bar code -- possibly the least confident decision I've made on this project. (Bar code?!?) Assuming all goes through their process in the next day or two, I'll then be giving them the "go ahead" on the manufacturing order.

My plan is that first sales will be at FKO. (Yes, I might have them earlier, but that's mostly irrelevant.) After that, I'll want to get in touch with dealers and probably do something on CD Baby. My mastering/manufacturing people have an on-line store too that they push as a Canadian shipping solution, but between CD Baby and dealers, I probably won't bother.

My web site is making progress.

The questions:
Via Google, I found contact information for some filk dealers, but much of it seems outdated or pointing to non-existent on-line stores. Anyone know of, or have, a good source of links?
What other avenues for promotion and/or sales have filkers used with some positive results?

Last night I got janeg to check for spelling and other obvious mistakes in the text of the CD inserts. After a couple of small changes, I uploaded the Photoshop image files to the Silverbirch ftp site and notified their art and production people that it had happened. They are supposed to verify that the files conform to the print specs and get back to me about any changes. As I was not entirely thrilled by the clarity of their templates and instructions, I'll consider it a minor miracle if the layout is perfect. So there will probably be a bit of back-and-forth yet before things go into their two-week production queue.

It's interesting to note that I started this journal on March 10, 2008 with the comment that if I created a CD it would probably take a year. I have no clue why I picked that estimate, but we're close enough that it feels weird to re-read it. (One theory is that the prediction had to be right because if the project had dragged on much past a year, I'd have given up.)

The final piece of the accompanying material for the CD that I need to design is the back of the "insert". (To be clear, this is the page you see on the left side when you open the jewel case.) Elsewhere there is the track list (multiple times) with timing information and credits for all the instruments and vocals. I'm not including lyrics in the print material, but a link to the web site with words, chords, and notation. And, of course, "artist" name and CD title.

At the moment, I sit with a stack of CDs beside me, about to do a review of what other data people typically provide. In addition, I ask, "What do you -- or would you -- like to see on a package?"

Yesterday's mastering session went well. The improvement to the sound is noticeable, but even more valuable to me is the education in listening. If I ever do another similar project, I'll go into it with a much better idea of what needs attention during the mixing process.

( Details of the day )

Tonight I have three very tiny adjustments to make to the songs. There's a vocal that needs a bit longer fade out on one song. On another song, I'm bringing the lead vocal more into the foreground by a minimal amount. On the third, I would like the background voices to come in more gradually.

And then I intend to take the results of that and give them to the mastering engineer tomorrow so that he can load up the project and do other prep work as a time saver before our Friday appointment.

To quote someone or other^*, it's about to become irrevocable.

^* :-)

I'm now in the process of creating various bits and pieces of "art work" to go with the CD. I've started by making one picture with elements that can be used for the front and back cover and probably also for the disc face (with a bit of extra manipulation). I started with a small-ish version so that I could verify spacing for the title and track list and also get some practice doing Photoshop and Painter tricks before working with the real thing.

Hidden behind the cut is a JPEG, showing where I've got to so far.

( Rain on the Sand prototype )

I've generally claimed that I don't like reverb as an effect. I'm beginning to figure out that what I don't like is reverb that I can hear and identify as such. Essentially, it's the ringing sound that's hard to distinguish from tinnitus that accompanies bad reverb that bothers me. (a.k.a. Most of it.)

Example: I recently bought the CD "The Village Lanterne" by Blackmore's Night. So far I've only listened to the first few cuts. The music is lovely, but picking the lyrics out of the reverb effect is close to impossible (IMNSHO).

On the other hand, as a tool for getting all the instruments and voices to sound as if they were performing in the same room, reverb seems necessary. After trying a few tricks, I'm coming to the conclusion that the way to keep it from being a necessary *evil* is -- like so much else in mixing -- to cut the annoying frequencies.

A low-pass filter is a joy forever.

This morning my request for a vacation day on February 13 was accepted with no complaints and my deposit to the mastering people went through.

I started listening to the current mixes on my MP3 player on my way to work and, so far, don't hear anything I'm desperate to fix there. I noticed that as the noise level from the subway train/tunnel increases, the vocals are the last thing to be swallowed by it. That seems like the most graceful form of degradation the songs could have.

So.... I had the "nice surprise" that I didn't expect. Last night I sat in front of our main stereo and listened to my latest candidate burn of the mixes all the way through.

In every software application I've written there comes a time when I realize that getting it finished is just a case of checking things off my "to do" list. There's no more research required and no more gray areas that could invalidate my assumptions. All the remaining problems are ones I've solved before, so get to it!

What I heard last night makes me think I'm in a similar position on this project. I have notes concerning things to improve on five of the songs and I have to come to a conclusion about reverb in general*, but these are all things I understand how to do.

After realizing this, I sent an e-mail to my friendly neighborhood mastering engineer and arranged a session for February 13. Except for a deposit to hold the slot, which I should get to him tomorrow, it's set to happen.

Yay...maybe.

*_{Everyone else seems to like it a lot more than I do. I must find a compromise that I can live with.}

Well, I can hope that's true. What's actually happening is that I'm finding fewer things to fix (and there are lots of possible reasons for that).

By mid-afternoon yesterday I had all the songs ready for their audition, so I sat and listened to them in sequence, taking notes. There were six that I couldn't find anything wrong with, at least not things that I could improve without a lot of voice and guitar lessons. Most of the rest had flaws that were simple to adjust. (Volume boosts to a couple of words, a bit more -- or less -- bass, ...) There are still three of those remaining and I need to expose the results to more sound systems, but I'm happy to have finished what I had planned to do on the weekend...and even a bit more.

If I get anything else done on it before next Sunday, it will be a nice surprise, but I don't count on it.

In the meantime I'm reading books on my subway trips in an attempt to revive my old computer graphics habit. I have a napkin-quality sketch of what the cover may look like and need to figure out whether I can make that into reality.

I have one more song to clean up in my current iteration of fixes, which is to say I've made it through six more today on top of what I did last weekend. (During the week, I fail to find the chunks of time -- or energy -- that critical listening requires.) I think the final song and I will both be better for waiting until morning. Then, it's another burn and another round of "how does it sound when played on everything?"

And "Melkor's Blues" now has drums; I have no idea whether they'll stay or whether that was the sign I should have packed it in an hour ago. :-)

Last night I (actually, Jane) played a few of my most recent mixes for some friends. One person commented that one of the songs was distracting because the voices and some of the instruments didn't line up perfectly. Listening carefully this morning, I think I hear the "problem". I'm not sure whether the technical description would be counterpoint, or fills, or soloing around the melody, or what exactly. But it's intentional and, IMHO, improves the song immensely compared to what I can do with one voice and one guitar -- the way the person is used to hearing it. I wonder how much is familiarity with the "canonical" style of the song and how much is musical preference.

I understand the part about "you can't please everyone" and I'm OK with that. I'm finding it interesting, however, to learn that there's no limit on the *ways* in which you can fail to please a listener. :-)

Three things for today that I've added to my store of knowledge, two that I've been applying after hearing about them on the Reaper forum and one that I tripped over:

1) Doing part of my mixing in mono produces a much better result. Rather than depending on panning as the major method of separating various instruments and voices, get them distinct in a mono field and *then* do whatever panning makes sense to create the sound stage.

2) If it's not a bass instrument, put a high-pass filter on it and you will both create more room in the mix for all the instruments *and* reduce much of the low-level muddiness that makes a song sound dull. (Even a *mandolin* produces some low-frequency resonance when close-mic'ed that it seriously doesn't need.)

3) "Rain on the Sand" will inevitably be shortened to RotS. :)

It was an encouraging session with the mastering engineer. He listened to a sample song (Frozen April) and said that the levels and such were fine for him to work with. He thought it was nice and clean, without needing any particular fix-ups for noise.

He then gave me the 10 minute "here's the direction I'd go with it" demo, which was mostly using his outboard equipment to bring up levels, and some rather cool stereo enhancement. He found one place at the end of the song where a guitar and mandolin were fading at different rates and sounding a touch ragged. He made that sound much better in about 10 seconds. I asked about any frequency-band enhancement and was told that he often did that, but for this one he didn't think it was necessary.

So, no massive revelations except that if I make the other 15 tracks as presentable as that one, his job shouldn't be a total dive into a snake pit. :-)

As promised earlier, here is a detailed list of the tracks as I currently believe they will be. This is what's going on my "Release Candidate 2" burn for review in whatever sound systems cross my path.

( The story so far )
Ok, that was difficult to figure out. ...hope I didn't miss anyone.