The last time I checked, the artist with the biggest-selling debut album of all time is Boston (1976). I've found opinion to be pretty sharply divided about this band, but I played the grooves out of that album when I bought it back in '82 (and for many years to come). I bought their second album, "Don't Look Back" the next year, and found plenty to like in that record too, albeit not quite to the same degree as the debut. Then, the trail grew cold - there were reports that Boston had broken up. Finally, in 1986, Boston surfaced again with their third album. I was flabbergasted. "Don't Look Back" had come out in 1978 - how could it possibly take eight years between albums? Back in the seventies, it was common for bands to put out an album per year (Kiss and Elton John would sometimes produce two or three!!). For what it's worth, Boston still exists, and still averages one album every eight years or so, albeit with only one original member left. Meanwhile, I'm a little older and wiser now, and have finally submitted an album for manufacture containing recordings begun in 2004. It's true, folks - I have found my own way to take seven years to complete an album! I honestly didn't think it was possible...here's how it's done:*
Firstly, I'm happy to say that the writing process had nothing to do with any delays - in fact, most of 'Get Inside' was actually performed at the 2003 release party for our last CD, "Better the Devil You Know...". Most of the bed tracks (that is, drums, bass and rhythm guitar and piano) were completed in 2004. Over-writing might actually have caused some of the delay in bringing this album to market, because I simply didn't stop recording bed tracks until I had enough material for two albums. My reasoning was: if we have all this material and we're busy laying down bed-tracks, why stop? So - while recording bed tracks for a few more tunes here and there, I was also putting overdubs (i.e.: additional guitars, percussion, vocals, etc) on the existing pieces. I'd pause in the recording process to make demos of new tunes for the annual Island Music Awards, and then get back to work on the project - but now with additional new material. Add my full-time teaching job and involvement in some very time-consuming cover bands over the years, and it's easy to see why a) the recording progress was slow, and b) I don't have a wife and kids.
I'd often run the nearly-completed tunes past friends and bandmates - and the bandmates were the toughest critics, perhaps unsurprisingly. Around 2008 I thought I was done - but Curtis was unhappy with the mixes, and I thought I should investigate the art of mixing further. With the help of the Engineer's Handbook (by Bobby Owsinsky - highly recommended to would-be mixing engineers!), among other sources, I got to work re-mixing, tweaking and trouble-shooting all 25 tunes. I even had a couple of local producer/engineers take a stab at mixing some of the material, but the results were not what I was after. Finally, by the Fall of 2010, I had the mixes sounding as they should, and it was time to get the tunes mastered and manufactured (mastering is a process that developed as a necessity in the days of vinyl/shellac records. It puts a professional-sounding sheen on a recording through dynamic compression and frequency equalization). We started shopping around for mastering houses, and found some prohibitively expensive, and some to produce disappointing results on test samples of our music. I was also told unanimously that I'd mixed all the tunes too hot (i.e.: loud) for decent mastering. So, I took the bull by the horns (and my thorough notes from previous mixing sessions, thankfully) and re-mixed all 25 tunes at a a lower volume. It was around this time that Trevor brought mastering software to our attention, and the band decided it was worth our while to try mastering this project ourselves. It was a daunting task, but well worthwhile. For a solid week, I mastered the music of "Get Inside", test- playing it on a couple of my home stereos and my car stereo, trying to find settings that could sound good on any set of speakers. The fact that I wasn't sick of the tunes after hearing each of them a billion times indicated to me that they could stand up well to repeated listenings and/or I had lost my mind.
By this point, while the band had a few grand ideas about cover art for the new CD, we eventually decided that anything that would require a lot of time and effort to execute would not be an option. We eventually settled on an idea that was striking yet simple and easy to produce. I educated myself in the uses of GIMP and Adobe Illustrator, took a few photographs, and voila - a CD was born.
The good news from all this is that I've learned a helluva lot about mixing, mastering and graphics over the last few years, and could put these skills to much quicker and more efficient use in the future; we have another CD of material recorded and mostly mastered; and the band is determined to make our next recording a quick and painless affair. I'm all for that!
Of course, there are many out there who would question the necessity of a CD. With song-by-song music downloading the usual method of choice for music consumption these days, is it necessary for music to be released in 45- to 65-minute albums? Necessary, no - but buying music one-song-at-a-time for me is like buying random chapters from various books - the overall story is lost. Even if there is no continuity of lyrical content, my favourite albums tell a story from start to finish, and that's what I aim for with my records. I'll be interested to see if 'the album' regains any sort of cachet in the future, or if singles or EP's will continue to gain dominance. It's a safe bet that there will be further change in the next decade as to the form in which we buy our music - and that Boston will release no more than one album.
*Of course, the reasons for delay between albums for Boston in '78-86 is a completely different, far stranger and much more exciting story...tho' it's excitement I'm happy to have avoided in my own experience.
Firstly, I'm happy to say that the writing process had nothing to do with any delays - in fact, most of 'Get Inside' was actually performed at the 2003 release party for our last CD, "Better the Devil You Know...". Most of the bed tracks (that is, drums, bass and rhythm guitar and piano) were completed in 2004. Over-writing might actually have caused some of the delay in bringing this album to market, because I simply didn't stop recording bed tracks until I had enough material for two albums. My reasoning was: if we have all this material and we're busy laying down bed-tracks, why stop? So - while recording bed tracks for a few more tunes here and there, I was also putting overdubs (i.e.: additional guitars, percussion, vocals, etc) on the existing pieces. I'd pause in the recording process to make demos of new tunes for the annual Island Music Awards, and then get back to work on the project - but now with additional new material. Add my full-time teaching job and involvement in some very time-consuming cover bands over the years, and it's easy to see why a) the recording progress was slow, and b) I don't have a wife and kids.
I'd often run the nearly-completed tunes past friends and bandmates - and the bandmates were the toughest critics, perhaps unsurprisingly. Around 2008 I thought I was done - but Curtis was unhappy with the mixes, and I thought I should investigate the art of mixing further. With the help of the Engineer's Handbook (by Bobby Owsinsky - highly recommended to would-be mixing engineers!), among other sources, I got to work re-mixing, tweaking and trouble-shooting all 25 tunes. I even had a couple of local producer/engineers take a stab at mixing some of the material, but the results were not what I was after. Finally, by the Fall of 2010, I had the mixes sounding as they should, and it was time to get the tunes mastered and manufactured (mastering is a process that developed as a necessity in the days of vinyl/shellac records. It puts a professional-sounding sheen on a recording through dynamic compression and frequency equalization). We started shopping around for mastering houses, and found some prohibitively expensive, and some to produce disappointing results on test samples of our music. I was also told unanimously that I'd mixed all the tunes too hot (i.e.: loud) for decent mastering. So, I took the bull by the horns (and my thorough notes from previous mixing sessions, thankfully) and re-mixed all 25 tunes at a a lower volume. It was around this time that Trevor brought mastering software to our attention, and the band decided it was worth our while to try mastering this project ourselves. It was a daunting task, but well worthwhile. For a solid week, I mastered the music of "Get Inside", test- playing it on a couple of my home stereos and my car stereo, trying to find settings that could sound good on any set of speakers. The fact that I wasn't sick of the tunes after hearing each of them a billion times indicated to me that they could stand up well to repeated listenings and/or I had lost my mind.
By this point, while the band had a few grand ideas about cover art for the new CD, we eventually decided that anything that would require a lot of time and effort to execute would not be an option. We eventually settled on an idea that was striking yet simple and easy to produce. I educated myself in the uses of GIMP and Adobe Illustrator, took a few photographs, and voila - a CD was born.
The good news from all this is that I've learned a helluva lot about mixing, mastering and graphics over the last few years, and could put these skills to much quicker and more efficient use in the future; we have another CD of material recorded and mostly mastered; and the band is determined to make our next recording a quick and painless affair. I'm all for that!
Of course, there are many out there who would question the necessity of a CD. With song-by-song music downloading the usual method of choice for music consumption these days, is it necessary for music to be released in 45- to 65-minute albums? Necessary, no - but buying music one-song-at-a-time for me is like buying random chapters from various books - the overall story is lost. Even if there is no continuity of lyrical content, my favourite albums tell a story from start to finish, and that's what I aim for with my records. I'll be interested to see if 'the album' regains any sort of cachet in the future, or if singles or EP's will continue to gain dominance. It's a safe bet that there will be further change in the next decade as to the form in which we buy our music - and that Boston will release no more than one album.
*Of course, the reasons for delay between albums for Boston in '78-86 is a completely different, far stranger and much more exciting story...tho' it's excitement I'm happy to have avoided in my own experience.