Comp CD UPDATE - 1/20/00

[Slackmaster2K]

- YES THE PROJECT IS CLOSED TO ANYONE WHO DID NOT SIGN UP. I think that ample warning was given and we need to move forward. There will be more projects in the future so keep your eyes open. You are more than welcome to purchase the CD of course.

- I think we have a pretty solid list. Dragon, let us know how it's going with the rummaging and whatnot. Are you going to submit something?

So far we have 25 people. The list is as follows (if you don't see your name on the list, and it should be, please contact me):

jitteringjim
Emeric
S8-N
crazyhorse
Recording Engineer
sonusman
dmcsilva
Jon X
drstawl
Dragon
37point5
David
Ranger
Buck62
Brad
gibs
ametth
Layth
Cmiller
houdini
bobbo
Jal
rj
mick_mundee
DaveX

- The deadline for submitting your song TITLE and LENGTH is January 31st 2000. Email it to me at hr_comp_cd@hotmail.com Please don't use the email address in my profile or there's a chance I'll miss it. I've only recieved song titles from 4 people so far. If the 31st is too soon let me know.

- ARTWORK! We need artwork. I know that crazyhorse and S8-N both offered to try and come up with something. So far we have nothing. nothing. nothing.

- The issue of using MP3.COM to burn the CD's came up and was not well received. It looks like we'll be using CDR...but we should keep the MP3.COM option open if the CD turns out to be good. (though dragon mentioned something about handling CD sales? We'll talk about that more when the time comes I suppose.)

- Everything's moving along smoothly so far...although we're just now getting into the hard stuff.

- I'm really glad to see how this project has boosted the number of submissions to the Mixing Clinic. It's good to finally hear music from some of you guys.

- Money. We should start talking about cashola soon. Maybe we need a treasurer? It might be nice to have a single person that we can forward money to...I don't know. It should definately be someone besides me so that we can obtain some level of security (that is, you send money to person X and also tell me (or maybe the group) how much money you sent them). Preferably a senior member. People who spend money are advised to keep receipts and good records. Ideas on how to handle this are more than welcome.

- Mastering. Ick, I don't even like to think about this one anymore. It seems that we all agreed that we should maybe do this or maybe even that. Ed will be charging a fair price for pro mastering of your song....but for those who don't want to use Ed's skills, do we need to come up with some sort of specs for songs submitted? This would be for the good of each person as well as the CD as a whole.

Slackmaster 2000

[Emeric]

Hope you don't mind me posting this in here, can allows move it to another thread.

Yes, the mastering issue. I don't see too many options here. One way I can see that it would work: Everyone sends their song to Ed (or whoever has agreed to do it) and mastering is on a submitter request basis. Now, as for the other songs. Leave them as they are, unless: Some of them are way below the average level of the other songs - in which case, I think Ed agreed to do some general normalizing.

In someways, having some of the submissions mastered may illustrate what mastering can do for some songs compared to others which were not. Sort of along R.E.'s 2 song submission idea.



[This message has been edited by Emeric (edited 01-20-2000).]

[Emeric]

Actually, now that I think about it, this really wouldn't make sense unless we were comparing the same song unmastered and mastered. 15 Sec. snippet of the unmastered and then the mastered song back to back? Maybe with 80min CD-R's. I don't know.. I'm rambling.

[Emeric]

Well, whats the plan? The mastering issue has to be resolved before this can carry on. Correct? What's the concensus?

[Slackmaster2K]

I dunno.

I say screw it. Everyone will be responsible for their own material. When it is time to start taking actual submissions, I'll post instructions that will include "how to make your track loud" Seriously though, we can't expect people to do much more than get their level high enough. You start getting into too many specifics then people will get confused...and not everyone has great tools. So we'll post a few specifics and those who are confused will be welcome to post their music to the clinic for help. Thereby we'll all do a bit of "mastering".

There's really no way that we're going to get a nice consistant sounding CD with the diversity we're dealing with. It'd be quite the job so I don't think we have a choice but to ignore that fact and move on.

As far as the mastered vs. unmastered song that RecEng brought up...we'll have to wait to see what kind of space we have.

Which brings up a very important point. I only have 5 song title and length submissions from a group of 25! Our next step is to really get an idea of how much music we're dealing with.

Oh, and we need artwork...and some legal advice...and; well, everything else we've been talking about!

Maybe next week I'll compile the options that came up in the mastering debate and we'll just have a big ol' vote?

Slackmaster 2000

[DaveX]

Mastering? Go the 70's route... apply chorus to the whole CD! That should make it all sound great.

JUST KIDDING, SHEESH!

Actually, I am in favor of everyone taking care of their own mastering, as well as posting songs to the clinic for help. This way the dynamic of the group really shines through. I think that it will be quite interesting to see how every musician does compared to one another. An "across-the-board" mastering may sound more professional, but some individuality that makes this effort up will be lost. I like having the ability to ask for help, and get that sort of mastering... because that seems to be what this site is all about. Why change it now?

By the way, is 5 minutes too long for our songs?

As for art... I would suggest something along the lines of a photo of a home studio person all tangled up in Radio Shack mics, with a dog barking in the corner, 1/4" cables all over him, and various recording gadgets in a state of disarray making it look like all hell is breaking loose on the hapless fellow. Dragon is a photographer, he could try that, right?

I'm not too worried about legalities. I like keeping it simple. As for me, a promise that you won't turn my song into a Burger King commercial (sorry, Jimi) will suffice. I'd just like to get my stuff out a bit, and into the hands of people who appreciate music like I do. I've got real problems with the attitude that someone else has to validate your music. When I released my first album (back in October, since I'm so old ha ha) I was having a hard time selling it until a review came out in the entertainment paper. Right after that, all the people who I had been bugging to buy it suddenly got all interested and started talking about how cool it was and they wanted one right then. That's lame. I'm not seeing the connection between being validated by others and actually being talented. Personally, I see myself as being very talented, regardless of my noteriety. Sorry, I'm ranting. Carry on.

DaveX

[S8-N]

DaveX just ripped my idea for artwork... Not totally, but kinda... I was gonna start shooting today but my camera batteries are dead...
My drummer is a semi-pro photographer so I guess I'll probably get him in on this, although he isn't much for deadlines...
Here is the important issue:::
HOW DO ALL OF YOU FEEL ABOUT BLACK AND WHITE ARTWORK???
I'll post whatever we come up with, but we both prefer to work with b&w... A black and white photo would look good as a CD sleeve with a color "HomeRecording.Comp"logo on top.

[Jon X]

B&W artwork with the color logo works for me. I'm also fine with not having my track mastered, since that has become an issue. It will give me a good benchmark of how I'm doing on my own. I don't mind if other people want to pay for mastering on an individual basis. The worst thing is I might have to adjust the volume between every song. I can deal with that I guess in order to hear a CD full of everyone's stuff all at once.

[Recording Engineer]

Regarding legal issues, read what Dragon and I were discussing under the post "Legal Issues".

[CMiller]

I like the idea for a cover, B & W is fine with me, I think we should each be responsible for our own mastering, and I'm on the fence about what I'm putting on the disc. The two I'm considering are "Mattole" 2:40, and "Reach" 2:03. I've thrown choosing onto the backburner because I can't freakin' decide! I'll make up my mind and send an email to Slackmaster in a couple of days.

The money...hmmm...I'm stumped there. Maybe we oughta have at least a sketch of what our production is right? If we can agree on a first run, say 50, 100 or whatever. I'm just making up a number here for shits and giggles, then at least we have a cash number we need to work around. I don't think this is puttin the cart in front of the horse is it?

Also, we're burning the discs ourselves right?