Busy weekend of working on Blacktape

This weekend it’s all Black tape for a blue girl over here!

I’ve been designing the digipak + booklet for These fleeting moments. I’m working with the photos I shot this week of Mercy in the bass, the band photos, and the lyrics. It is a process of realizing the ideas that have been drifting around in my thoughts for the last couple of months. Trying design ideas out, keeping them, or rejecting them. Improving, improving…

It’s looking good.

While I work at my computer, I’m listening to the most recent (and almost) final master of the album. It sounds great! Mastering is the final process of bringing the album together sonically. Howard takes my mixes, and adds compression, eq, and other stuff that tightens everything up and pulls the tracks together. The songs are diverse, with different instrumentation, and different vocalists. Now it’s sounding like one session, one band.

I dropped by Stereotypes and listened on very expensive speakers, plus on the three sets of speakers here in my house. We’re almost finished with the mastering!

In this process, I’ve learned about what I like to hear in my music, as far as what colors are important to me. This is a good lesson for working on the next album. Because yes, I’m already thinking about starting the next Blacktape album!

I had to reject the booklet on Remnants of a deeper purity (30th anniversary edition) because the printing was off (seems like not enough black, but the rep at the plant says it was too much yellow and cyan). Either way, argghhhh! They have to throw those 1000 in the trash and reprint; at least they’re paying for it, as they are the ones who messed up. Why don’t they proof things, before they go through the whole process of cutting, stapling, shipping? Oh, for the days of tight quality control. I don’t know if I mentioned I had to throw away the first run of stickers, because they were badly printed (by a different plant). Ugh! The booklet reprint is delaying the album a bit.

But it’s got to be done right! Especially since my patrons at Patreon are helping me pay for it!

I’ve received the vinyl on the BIKE SHOP ep, at long last! If you’re one of the Kickstarter backers, or if you’re curious, check this post. If you want to pre-order a copy, order here at the Projekt website. Do keep in mind that when I launch the Kickstarter for These fleeting moments, BIKE SHOP will be included in the vinyl tier.

As I sit here at the computer for hours, I’m spinning around ideas about what could be in that Kickstarter. If there’s anything Blacktape that you think would be an interesting reward, please suggest it on the Patreon page.

Have a great rest of your weekend,
Sam