A couple weeks ago I posted some descriptions of tracks I'm working on. That list has now grown from 7 to 8. I should feel like I'm getting close to reaching some sort of milestone for the record, but I really don't. With the exception of the two complete instrumentals on my Myspace/VF pages, the rest of the songs are all simply a collection of ideas right now. They are in serious need of structure and finishing, but the problem is, before I get motivated enough to finish one, I get an idea for the next.

It's hard to say what's going to happen to some of these tracks. I like them all so I will hope that I will get around to finishing some of them soon. Perhaps moving into my new studio space will spark something.

I really want to get some vocals down so you I can give you guys at least a small taste of what's to come. I am still rather new to the whole writing thing as far as lyrics go, and I'm finding it more difficult than I thought it would be.

This sort of expands on my post about what avenues independent artists can take to sell their music. Trent Reznor recently revealed the sales figures of Saul Williams' last album. A whopping 1 out of every 5 people decided it was worth $5 to download. I have absolutely nothing against piracy, but when an artist puts something out there at such a low price for you, and you still would rather just download the free version or find a torrent, that's just sad. If people didn't like it that's fine (i love the album), but I know there are people out there that just plain feel that music should be completely free, and the artist is entitled to nothing. Ridiculous. Still, there were 28,322 purchases at $5 each. That's $141,610 in sales. Saul's last album sold about that much, but it was on a label, and I can guarantee he didn't see that kind of money. There's certain expenses I'm sure, but that's almost 4 times my annual salary, I could more than live comfortably on that. Obviously you have to have the kind of fanbase that Trent and Saul have to pull those kind of sales, but I'm not looking to quit my day job any time soon anyway.

Music is very different today because of the internet, because of piracy. I don't believe that it has to be a turn for the worse though. We as artists just need to adapt. Stop selling your CDs for record label prices for one, you do not need to be as greedy as they are. $15? Give me a break. The information is out there on the net for anyone to see, and they all know that you only had to pay a couple bucks, maybe $3, to get that CD pressed. This would be fine on a label, considering you'd only get a few bucks or something kicked back to you per sale, probably less. But if you're independent, and getting the discs pressed yourself, that much profit, while nice, is too much. $10? Okay. But you could even go as low as $8 or $6 and still make double your money, which could then go into supporting a tour, or pressing more discs.

I still believe that a physical disc is not dead just yet. Here's a new thought I have had.

1. Sell pre-orders of the album at your designated price(probably $6-$8 by the time I'm ready).

2. As reward for preordering, give them a digital copy of the CD.

3. Offer incentive that if you reach a certain number of preorders (100 maybe), that you'll get the discs pressed and send them out when you get them back, free shipping in the US, or wherevever you're from. (Will probably have to sell for closer to $8 to offset that cost though, but that's still a great deal).

Think about it, you sell at least 100 preorders, giving you at least $800. That's the majority of the CD Duplication cost. I think this model could work out well for the independent artist and his/her/their fans.

I received my new monitors yesterday. Unfortunately, they are not the same model as listed in the auction. I have the TR6's now instead of TR8's. Rather than having to return them I've decided to hold on to them though, they still sound better than my M-audio 4-inchers. The guy selling them agreed to refund me $50, which makes the price I paid fair. So I'm happy. Next time I upgrade speakers I'll be going all out though.

As much as I like to work alone, I'm going to be getting some people involved in the making of this record. It should make for some pretty interesting results.

So far two people are confirmed as being a part of this project. A friend of mine who is working to get his own industrial band off the ground will be lending a hand on some of the writing, programming and guitar. Also, an old acquaintance from my high school days who is now producing some well made hip hop instrumentals (soon to have vocals added), is going to lend a hand with some programming as well, and possibly some backup vocals. As a trade-off, I may be producing a track for his album, which is a great opportunity as well.

There may be the possibility of others, but definitely not many more.

I posted this a few weeks ago on my vampirefreaks page, it sort of ties into my last post, so here it is:

Greed. It's apparent in just about anywhere in the world. But the kind of greed I want to talk about is the music industry, and the bands as well.

We all know that most record labels are run by corporate slime and are only interested in bands that will make the charts and sell lots of CDs. It's unbelievable that these people still can't grasp why piracy is causing so much grief for their still fat wallets. What's sad about this is that even record labels "in the scene" are acting nearly the same way.

I understand that they need to make their money, but charging $15 or MORE for a CD is ridiculous(I don't care if it is 2 discs, the second disc likely has nothing of interest anyway), and I do not blame the pirates for stealing. I also don't blame one of my favorite bands for not signing to a label yet, even though I'm sure they could.

But when I see a band(signed or unsigned) selling their CD directly to the fans at more than $10, especially with unsigned artists, it gets my blood boiling. I get that you want to get paid, but stop thinking you're some fucking rock star. Don't quit your day job. Go produce for Avril or some shit if you want quick cash. When did it stop being about the music?

Its might be a little early to be talking about album release, but fuck it. I don't expect that it will take me 3-4 years between releases like last time. The problem is, in the atmosphere of today's music industry, how does an independent artist with little fan base sell their music?

There's plenty of services out there: Snocap, Musicane, Tunecore(gets your music up on iTunes). The problem with all of these services is cost. You may as well sign to a label and get robbed, it's all pretty much the same, especially for the first two mentioned above.

I personally like the idea of a physical release rather than a download. It actually feels like you've paid for something, and as a designer, it lets me go nuts with the artwork. It can unfortunately be an expensive up front investment. One of the sites I was looking at offers 300 4-panel digipaks for about $1000, complete with CD duplication. Not too bad, but if it doesn't sell you're ripped off.

Burning them yourself used to be the way to go in high school, and it worked for a time, with lousy 20# paper liner notes. I wish I could find my old band's CD, that was just laughable. If I find it and my old release under a godawful name that I can't remember, I'll post them for free download. Good for a laugh. A year or so later I did the whole Staples CD Label thing. No case, no liner notes. Gave away a few copies and maybe sold 2.

For my last album I gave the internet a try. Used my own bandwidth and sold via Paypal. Again only sold a few copies. I posted it myself on a popular BitTorrent site(that unfortunately is no longer with us), and it was downloaded many times, but I haven't heard any comments, good or bad. Maybe they're afraid to admit to the artist that they've "stolen" their work? Even though I put it out there myself, and even posted a link to the torrent page.

Do people get turned off by completely instrumental music? I guess we'll find out once I get some vocals down and release some snippets to the public.

Maybe a combination will be a way to go:

Sell the CD on the specified release date, allowing people to pre-order to receive even earlier.

After a couple weeks or so, sell the mp3 version (192kbps quality). The reason for selling only a 192k version (and later) is because I will want the physical CD to sell rather than the download.


I have to work very hard to make this release something special. If it does not generate interest, then what's the point of even doing this anymore?

After some experimentation, I've been able to get a decent tone with a direct line into my Firebox and running Amplitube. For the recording process it looks like this is how I will work with guitar. I think my pedal board will work for live and for just fucking around. Another factor that may have played into it might have been that I was just playing to hard. For recording I don't need to look like a rock star strumming like mad. Got over a hurdle, guitar parts should be recorded very soon.

It'll also be helpful to use the hardware effects while writing, since Amplitube won't be running and eating up the CPU (which it LOVES to do). That should be less of a problem once I get my new PC up and running after the holidays:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 (dual core) 5000+ 2.6Ghz, could easily be overclocked to 3.0, if I need it.
2GB RAM
80GB System/Program Drive, 250GB Audio Drive
19" Widescreen monitor, maybe bigger if the prices are down by then.
My Firebox of course, and my new Events.