Another Update…
We went back into the studios last weekend to mix our recordings from the previous week. The process took 7 hours and was pretty damn tedious, if the truth be told. Basically, we would sit with the engineer, listen to one song at a time, give him the ideas we had for it and then he would shoo us out of the booth while he worked his magic. Once he was satisfied, he’d call us back in, we’d listen to his mix, offer any further suggestions which he’d do on the spot and then move on to the next song. This process would repeat for each of the tracks, making it a very disjointed day indeed. Despite this, we walked out holding our little baby in our hands and feeling very happy with the results.
The next step is getting the mixed versions mastered. Mastering is the final creative process of making a record, and is the last chance to modify a recording before manufacture. Mastering is the process that creates a record from a collection of recorded songs by matching the tone, volume and spacing of each track, to make the songs all sound bigger, richer, fatter and louder. We’re hoping to do this as soon as possible and then move on the rest of what we need to do to get our music into the public domain.
To give you all an idea, the whole process so far has cost us about AUD $600. Mastering will cost a further $700 and then CD duplication, artwork etc will probably burn another $1200 to $1500 for 500 discs. Of course, there are other costs such as preparing the promo packs (a necessary expense if we want to send the disc to radio stations, publishers, record companies etc), promo merchandise such as stickers, coasters, t-shirts etc; web site maintenance, musical equipment, photos, video production, etc. While this has been a labour of love, our wallets have also had to come to the party. The passion is necessary, but so are the bank accounts. It is no wonder so many talented people give up in disgust, particularly given how many people of limited or dubious talents at best seem to get big record contracts.
I expect we’ll probably end up spending over AUD $3000 by the time we’re ready to launch the disc. If we sell it for $10 and we sell all 500, then we’ll make about $2000 back. While this may seem a small amount, if we have to make more to sell beyond the first 500, then our profit increases. At this level, we’d be kidding ourselves to expect to make a great deal of money off this disc, but who knows. I believe there are at least two songs of the five that have enormous hit potential. Now all we need to do is get them heard. But that is another battle I will write about some other time. Stay tuned for further updates.