June 9, 2005

The packaging

Finally (!), as promised: The packaging. The short answer: jewelboxing.com, a friend who is an excellent graphic designer, blank CDs you can print onto, new Epson ink jet, lots of trips to the printer for laser printed inserts = Grappa release. The long answer: the packaging isn't the gating factor.

The Jewelboxing folks deserve as much praise as you can heap on them. Their system allows you to produce a polished product on the cheap. Basically, you get the parts of a sharply designed jewel case complete with rounded corners and clasp closure that works. In addition, you receive perforated card stock sheets and downloadable templates for your graphics software. Hand over the templates to your excellent graphic designer friend and then print them out.

This is where it does get a bit tricky. I decided to have the inserts laser printed. The artwork turned out well and my ink jet printer couldn't saturate the card stock properly so proper printing became the only course of action. Unfortunately, the printing turned into a bit of an ordeal. After getting a good tip from a friend that Leewood Press was the place to go, they farmed my job out to someone who inserted the pages in the wrong direction thus ruining them. Honest mistake. But it cost me several weeks and some cash to replace though I didn't have to pay for that particular printing run. All in all I think the printing ran me $256 for 127 sheets, some double sided. Not exactly cheap.

Printing is just one of those steps in the record release process that just takes longer and costs more than expected. Gene, who managed the print job, was very understanding and patient so I can't complain too much. Printing is also one of those things that is painful at the time but the pain diminishes in the memory. That's why I'm writing this all down.

My only complaint with the Jewelboxing system is that some of the corners of the perforated sheets are difficult to punch out. There is one section that has longer cut marks and thus it is prone to ripping. Then the rounded corners, which fit tightly into the rounded corners of the jewel cases, can be cantankerous and rip at the most inopportune time. In other words, as long as you have some coordination, unlike myself, you'll be fine. Just work with the sheets in small batches. I did ten at a time and I'd say my error rate was 1 or 2 rips per ten. I simply stacked those up in a give away pile (though I never actually gave them away; it just made me less upset about it).

I bought a 30 pack and then a 60 pack of the standard CD cases which ran me around $150. The blank CDRs cost $48 for 100 from CD Dimensions. The Taiyo Yuden CDRs can be inserted into an ink jet printer. I picked up the Epson Photo R300 which allows one to print onto one CDR at a time. It is tedious but the printer only cost me about $180. The price of ink jet printers is pretty astounding when you consider the output they can produce. I'm plenty pleased. It took me a few tries to get the ink saturation just right on the CDRs. Ron and I had to darken the art work a few times to get that rich brown color but in the end I think we got it right.

Finally, a short note about the art work itself. The photo is a shot I took at Fushimi Inari in Kyoto, Japan. I handed over that photo and some others to Ron and blathered on about how I wanted the look of a card from a library card catalog, something literary, familiar, staid, yet graphically striking. Then some more mumbling about adding some schematics. To Ron's credit there was no eye rolling and any of the four designs he came up with would have been perfect.

Thus far I've received plenty of compliments about the jewel cases and the art work. It is visually striking and stands up well next to more expensively produced releases. The only downside is what's inside. It is going to be a little while before CDR releases are treated with the same level of respect as a replicated release. But the sharp packaging helps folks get beyond the technology and into the music.

Posted by human_companion at 09:46 PM | Comments (0)

March 28, 2005

Selecting a medium

Since I started textilesounds I have been looking for ways to release music quickly and cheaply. Unfortunately, neither has come to pass. The first release, a clear, 180 gram vinyl 12" in a clear vinyl bag was just about the most expensive and extensive route to take. However, it was important to make the first release count. With the second and third releases I went with a stock sleeve design that was then letter-pressed with the name of the band and the title of the release. The purpose of a stock sleeve however is that it may be used for any release. It usually identifies the label and nothing else and is quite popular for dance music labels. I had intended to have stamps made and to stamp the covers but the allure of the letterpress went right to my wallet. So now I have a closet full of "stock sleeves" that are specific to their releases. Duh. In retrospect, I might have been able to do a combination of stamps and letterpress and then had blank sleeves left over for future releases. But it occurred to me as those releases were being made that vinyl was just too expensive for me to continue to do in spite of my efforts to economize.

This realization came despite the fact that I managed to press two vinyl 12"s at the same time, cutting both editions in half. 250 were pressed of TS002 and TS003 thus constituting a pressing of 500 which is a magic threshold resulting in cost per unit reductions. Unfortunately, the mastering cost and the master plates from which the vinyl copies are stamped out have to remain per release. These costs are not insignificant. Basically, it is difficult to release a vinyl 12" for under $2,000 which is the magic threshold for releasing a four-sided digipak compact disc. As long as one is going to blow the big money you might as well get more tracks and more chances that a potential future owner will be able to listen to those tracks.

Therefore TS004 was a four-sided digi-pak compact disc. Don't get me wrong, I love vinyl. I will continue to buy vinyl for my home listening enjoyment and I will continue to press vinyl on textilesounds. However, there is a large portion of the population, let's call them the majority, who don't care one jot about vinyl. If they can't get a compact disc then basically the release doesn't exist to them. The same theory blots out the sun of the future: an all digital release.

Textilesounds is very fortunate to have digital distribution through IODA. This means that all textilesounds releases, vinyl included, are sent to the IODA offices where they are digitized and then made available to most if not all of the online music stores and digital download services. It is possible for me to release a collection of tracks completely digitally without ever pressing a CD. While this is may seem ideal on the surface the problem for a small label is exposure. IODA is a distributor, just like toneVendor and Revolver are for the physical products. However, none of them have the time to push my releases. That's where a very expensive publicist would come into the picture. Or an equally expensive advertising "blitz" possibly managed by an independent marketer (if you meet their invisible criteria).

While advertising, reviews, and word-of-mouth are important to any release, they would be absolutely critical to a digital-only release. Textilesounds and the bands on the label are not known to even the independent music crowd at this point, never mind the average iTunes Music Store surfer. None of the acts can really tour to support the releases due to work and family responsibilities. In addition, I cannot justify spending a lot on advertising as the return on investment is poor.

More importantly, there is no critical review of digital-only releases. Very few of the online music stores provide any kind of editorial input. No online or brick and mortar publications are covering digital-only releases in any meaningful way (I'd be happy to be proven wrong about this). Thus the same glut of ill-conceived and cheaply produced 7"s and EPs that drowned out any worthwhile indie rock in the early 90s haunt the digital emporiums of the present.

Not that a physical artifact really buys a label or a band all that much. It does however give you something you can give away for free to a bored and stilted music press. But I'll save my derision for that branch of the industry for another installment. At any rate, digital-only is out which leaves: CDR.

After a little research I discovered that:

1. You can encode each copy of a duplicated disc with the pertinent CDDB data so long as you burn all of the copies from the same master and use that master to upload the data. Thus when you stick the Grappa CDR into your computer you will get the correct track listing. Very important.
2. CDRs will play in most modern players. Even DRM friendlies like Sony have released DVD and CD players that play CDRs of all types (full length, MP3 CDs, etc.).
3. Duplication machines are expensive. Replication machines are ungodly expensive and not something you can house at home.
4. Buying white-faced CDRs for home burning is relatively cheap as are ink jet printers that can print directly onto that matte white CD face.

With this knowledge, the decision was simple. CDRs are cheap, can be made at home, and can be used without too much hassle by the average consumer. Yes, some folks still own older players that may reject a CDR but chances are fans of textilesounds have a second player or a computer (at home or at work) that will accept a duplicated disc.

An unfortunate side effect of this decision is the lack of distribution for CDR releases. Revolver would not agree to carry them as they presumably represent a hassle if someone does have an older player that rejects the disc. Also, the price paid per CDR is less than a replicated CD. I'm not sure why exactly but supposedly the public isn't willing to pay the same price. This is a down side I'm prepared to live with. Folks will eventually come around to CDR releases. In the meantime, it gives those of us unwilling to perpetually lose money an alternative format.

Next time: packaging.

Posted by human_companion at 08:52 PM | Comments (0)

March 5, 2005

The recording process, part II: the secret weapon

Cary Roberts made some modifications to this guitar pedal and then let me try try it out. He gave me a photocopy of the original settings and told me that he modified most if not all of the sounds. There were a few settings I liked but one in particular made this amazing noise when I wasn't playing anything at all. I really enjoy gear that acts on its own.

I became so enamored with this particular setting that I decided to try nearly every instrument in the house through the pedal.

The first three tracks feature the Reverberator and its distinct "aliens rise from beneath the blanketed ground" sound. It is the very fuzzy sound that swells and then covers an entire frequency range throughout and links up the tracks. As you can see from the picture, the Reverberator has a wah-wah style pedal. Move the pedal all the way down and there is noise and a smidgeon of guitar signal. Move the pedal all the way forward and it creates more noise and lets more of the original signal through.

I started out playing the bass on "Designer Ecology" through the Reverberator. Then the guitar on "Happiness is the desired result". Actually, many guitar tracks on both of those songs. Then I got a little crazed and tried to make the Nord Lead 2 keyboard make sounds like the pedal for "Lack there of". Once my little triumvirate of noise was complete I managed to stay away from the pedal for a few weeks. It makes another appearance later on in the CD but in the end I resisted the temptation to smother every track with it. While it would have lent a unifying tonality to the album it probably would have also driven some folks to distraction.

I wrote a bit about worrying if the record would be cohesive sonically and then deleted it. This part is about the recording process and not "let's read an internal dialog that should have stayed internal debating the success or failure of the author's intent for their recording".

The real secret weapon is support. When I played some tracks for friends they gave positive feedback which is priceless when you are working on your own. Working solo can be a long haul. Usually in a band setting you have to coordinate recording sessions and generally things get done on some sort of time table. Alone you have no one to please but yourself. Having someone tell me that what I had produced thus far was not hateful was a big boost. Granted, I don't always believe what I'm told and certainly not for very long but, it is nice to hear all the same.

Next time we move to the production of the CD.

Posted by human_companion at 02:17 PM | Comments (0)

February 27, 2005

The recording process

In the first of what I hope will not be a terribly embarrassing or worthless collection of information regarding the process of creating and releasing the new Grappa CD I'll write a bit about recording "Designer Ecology". Grappa started back in Ron Harrity's Oakland apartment, specifically his closet. Ron and Rob (of Nord Express fame) converted what had been a beauty salon store front into an apartment/practice space. We recorded two tracks and a bunch of drums over a weekend in the narrow studio closet. Those drum tracks can be heard on "The water beggar". I played Ron brief snippets of the guitar parts and he came up with those drum bits. We recorded the drums onto an 8 track ADAT and then I loaded them into Pro Tools over a light pipe connection. That was back in 2002.

It takes a long time to make a record. Well, for me anyway. The first lorelei album took two years or so to coalesce. The last LU record took two weeks to get the basic tracks and then six months for me to put it all together. Grappa turned into a bit of an experiment with technology replacing band mates.

The challenge is in where to begin. Traditionally I have created some guitar parts and then brought them to my band mates where we can play ideas off one another and develop the track. Unfortunately, machines have not yet learned to be so interactive. For Grappa I tried a mix of approaches: write the entire song on guitar first, start with no guitar parts at all and head straight to the drum programming or take a guitar or bass part and then try to sync up some drums quickly.

Either way the actual recording process stars with drum tracks in Reason As an aside, I just saw the Reason 3.0 trailer and I was giggling away with crazed anticipation. By far my favorite piece of software. It is a joy to use and I cannot wait for the new version. Anyway, I ride the train to and from work for a little under two hours each weekday. This gives me some time to work in Reason. It is easy to get lost in Reason because it is so flexible.

I actually track more than just drums in Reason, for example, the piano in "Bent, Unbent". I like sequencing all kinds of percussion instruments in Reason because I can approach the track like a piece of electronic dance music, subtly changing the patterns without necessarily making a part a, b, and c. Unfortunately, I tend to whip right through all of the patterns without giving them enough time to take hold. That's an area for improvement in the future. "Great plains" is the most Reason-based track and probably could have been a LU track (i.e. instrumental).

I usually dump the Reason bits out to aiff files and then import them into Pro Tools to start on the accompanying tracks. However, now that Reason can be used as a Rewire plug-in to Pro Tools I try to hold off on settling on the drum parts. Unfortunately, I often get lazy and freeze the drums too soon. So if the drum programming is tedious and boring to you I apologize. Another area for improvement.

Once inside Pro Tools I quickly lay down some guide guitar tracks or occasionally bass. If I have written the song on guitar I now find that the drum tempo is slightly too fast or slow. This was definitely the case with "Shortness of breath" and I'm not doing myself any favors by pointing out the rocky start to that track. In fact, because I was struggling with the tempo the drum machine wanted and how I wanted to play it I decided to just let that ride. I find it adds tension to the track and lends an unsettling feeling that hopefully strengthens the lyric. Or it's just hopelessly out of sync. You be the judge!

I play a Guild Starfire six string hollow body guitar that I've played on everything I've done. I removed the pick guard and Davis moved the pick-up to the front after I stupidly smashed it on the ground and split the wood during a lorelei performance. Amy L. borrowed it for the Aislers Set's "The Last March" record so it has even made guest appearances. The low end tone on this guitar is fantastic and I hope I have it for a long time.

I use an open tuning (E-A-E-A-G-E) which allows me to play very simple but solid chords with a minimal amount of dissonance. Or at least I know how to control the dissonance precisely because I've been using this tuning for over ten years. I don't see the point in going back to a standard tuning. I also played some prepared guitar on "Bent, Unbent". Prepared guitar in my case means laying the guitar on my lap and sticking lots of strips of metal between various strings at various points along the fret-board and then banging on the metal, strings, neck, head stock, and body with more metal bits.

I play a girl's bass guitar. Specifically, I play Kieca's Fender Musicmaster bass. It is a small scale bass so I can move swiftly over the frets. It has a decent tone but I do need to upgrade to a full scale. I also have an acoustic guitar and an arsenal of "toy" instruments including a xylophone from Ikea and a Tonette flute which makes an appearance somewhere in "Happiness is the desired result".

I play the guitar and bass through the Really Nice Compressor and the Really Nice Preamp which I adore. I use a Boss SX-700 multi-effects processor and an army of plug-ins including the Pluggo collection from Cycling '74. The Pluggo collection is definitely worth the price of admission. I especially enjoy a filtered delay plug-in which I put on the vocals of several tracks. You get a vast amount of control over the delay time and the frequency. It ends up sounding like layers of vocal tracks.

UPDATE: I left out some key components. I use an Audio Technica 4033 microphone (as can be seen in the picture at the start of this post). I also have a Nord Lead 2 and Access Virus keyboard. Those make more of an appearance on the LU recordings but the Nord came in very handy on the Grappa CD.

That's the equipment round up. Future installments will include discussions of the decision to release a duplicated (CDr) rather than replicated CD, the packaging (from jewelboxing), and distribution both physical and digital. If the reaction to this (if there is any) is not entirely negative I will write more about the actual process of recording the tracks and perhaps step through a particular track.

Posted by human_companion at 06:37 PM | Comments (0)

January 16, 2005

What's in a name

The title of the first Grappa release, "Designer Ecology", jumped out at me when I was looking over this small booklet I picked up in Tokyo called "Designer's Week". It accompanied a collection of art exhibits going on in Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto. The highlight of this particular year was a container exhibit. I desperately wanted to see the containers because I had read in Brian Eno's diary a description of him preparing for something very similar. By the way, while I have not finished Eno's diary I highly recommend it. Very entertaining reading.

Anyway, K. and I didn't get to see the container portion of the exhibit because it was in a remote section of Tokyo and we were none too skilled at moving about. We did however get to see some furniture by Swedish design students which was solid though I can't tell you anything about it now. But luckily I picked up the book describing the events which features a sketch of a naked man peeing on some flowers while standing on a large box labeled "EXHIBIT". Inside there are sketches describing the events. The sketch depicting the music event features one man farting while dancing and the other coving his nose. Typical Japanese brilliance. Endearing without being overly cute.

I've made the book sound ridiculous but it is actually quite insightful and well designed. If our stupid AGFA scanner had OS X drivers I'd scan it and share the best pages (the maps are really well done). Unfortunately, AGFA has decided that the scanner bought last year is now a $100 paper weight and would you please by another.

So back to "designer ecology". There are descriptions (in English) of each container in the exhibit along with a snapshot of the artist. Some of the installations are sponsored by the likes of Adobe, Peugeot, the Italian Trade Commission, etc. But others are left solely to designers. Those descriptions are the most terse and interesting. An example:

"We will change the space into another type of space with geometric figures made up of surfaces, vertical lines, and different levels."

Yes you will. Rereading them I'm not sure why I found them so amusing. At any rate, one of the descriptions (which of course I can't find now) mentioned ecology and I liked the idea of designing an ecology. It is a very Japanese idea which is reflected throughout the culture. Describing a shrine, rock garden or bonsai as a "designed ecology" was not something that occurred to me while in Japan but now it makes perfect sense.

The ecology was not something I had considered humans intentionally controlling. Destroying it sure, but not designing it. Designing implies thoughtfully planning out our peaceful existence within an ecosystem. This is not something we do so well here. But, if you've got a container . . . now your in business.

So I put it in a lyric then named the track and eventually chose that track title as the title of the album. Then when I was looking for something for the cover it dawned on me how much the Fushimi Inari shrine was a "designed ecology". I took more photos there than anywhere else. I was just dumbfounded by the size and beauty of the place as well as the significance it clearly had to the people there. Japan is inspiring.

Posted by human_companion at 08:47 AM | Comments (0)