I've finally released this album. You can buy it on iTunes, Amazon, or CDBaby.com
Publication Date: Jan-26-2009
In short, it sux and it's not easy. There are a million factors that contribute to a hit album, and I'm familiar with exactly none of them (so far.) Thus, as I go through the endeavor of writing, recording, producing, mastering, AND releasing my own album, I realize why the big dogs get the big bucks. It's hard. When it comes to the two elements of production and mastering, I'm getting familiar with the technical aspect (not so hard considering my day job in IT.) However, having to change mindsets from musician to producer is freaking killing me. The only word that my mind lands on is monotony.
Listen, take notes, find mistakes, fix, re-render, repeat. I'm in the 4th week of this process and I've been saying I'm almost done every week. The truth of the matter is that perfecting music in recordings is NOT fun. I've done this once before with the strobe album, and at the time had fewer tools in my arsenal to achieve the end result. The end result there was a decent recording but in no way industry quality (hence the fact I never released it publicly.)
This time around is different and I have every intention of achieving mastery of production and mastering (at least for my music.) I have a hard deadline of the 20th to release online. So as I get closer to that magic date, I'm compressed between the job, the family, and my trusty pair of headphones. So far, all sounds great until I get it out to the car. That's where I find all of the mistakes. I'm not sure why the car's audio system is so much better at highlighting hiccups, flat notes, and funky clicks in the background. I guess it's because that's where I listen to most music in general and my ears are attuned to hearing a professional product there. My novice attempt at mastering is easily noticed when played back-to-back against the radio or a pro cd. So, I'm in a loop and it's getting quite nasty. The more I listen, the more mistakes I find. If I did this full time for other people, I'd be wearing a very special white jacket by now. I'd ask for luck, but what I need is patience...
Publication Date: Nov-11-2008
This last month with work (at my job,) has been been quite exhausting as we migrated from one production hosting outfit to a new one. While the outcome wasn't 100% perfect, I feel it was pretty darn close. However, one of the unexpected side-effects of this month-long work-fest was that, instead of being completely distracted from music, somehow, I focused my very limited spare hours more intently. The result is that I'm at about 95% finished with the new album. I've changed the name of the album to Mysterium (a previous candidate that finally settled in.) As far as the history on this album, I've been working on it for about 4 years now and am SO ready to wrap it up.
I've done alot of new drum and vocal work, and editing editing editing, in the past 30 days or so. I've got my barcode setup through cdbaby, I've got the primary wave of mastering completed. I have alot of web work to do and also haven't even really begun with marketing it. I joined ASCAP last week, which I think will help me with the marketing efforts later on. I have the album art and credits page finished and have completed the slim jewel case layout. I've decided to go for the more green option on replication and print to cardboard sleeve. I'm awaiting reponse from the copyright owner on some samples that I used in one of the tracks, I'm giving it a week to wait for the response. If by the end of the week I've not heard back I edit them out :(.
All of that said, I'm getting pretty excited about the finished product and the prospect of starting fresh on some ideas that I've been picking at for the past year or so.
It IS frustrating that everything about this process just takes so much time. The fact that this time has to be balanced with having an active career in another industry, being a father and being a husband, makes for a VERY long process.
The bright side of it is that my next venture will likely be considerably more streamlined.
My main goal with this album is to streamline the process (further,) and then figure out how to get more exposure to greater number of people. My music (IMHO,) isn't exactly the most "popular" in subject and content. Plus my style just isn't for everybody (at least on this project.) However, it is what it is, and it's heartfelt. I've already achieved my main goal with some of the alpha-releases in that various people have enjoyed the work. That is really the best feeling for me. Being an introvert and a musician can be a grinding dicotomy, so when I get positive feedback, it really means alot.
With that said, I want to get the rest of the work done so that I can call wraps on this thing. Regardless of the outcome (my expectation is VERY modest in terms of response,) I've had alot of fun making the project and have definitely learned massive amounts about "perfecting" the process.
I've consulted a buddy of mine who has gone through the more formalized process of releasing an album and am working on an overall release strategy. Those of you who have been attentive to myspace, have heard the alpha versions of a number of the tracks. So, if you have any good advice to dole out, feel free, I'm in uncharted territory personally, so, I'm all ears.
Publication Date: Nov-02-2008
i pushed Sheer out yesterday. Not completely happy with the vocals, but what's new. Music is often more akin to a bodily function than I'd like to acknowledge. Sheer is sappy and cheesy and to be honest, I don't like the song all that much. I've struggled with "fixing" it for years now and can't. The message is simple and excruciatingly personal. I guess that's why I released it. I realize it sounds weird to hear someone degrade their own creation, but what can I say. I'm compelled to get it out there, just as one might be compelled to sneeze or well.... Anyways, I hope that someone out there finds comfort in the song. I for one am glad to be done with it on a number of levels.
Publication Date: Jul-06-2008
I released the 4th track on Mirage tonight. Since I'm doing this particular project piece meal style, I'm pretty fickle as to which tracks get released first. Also released hallelujah under misc yesterday. Not sure where that track fits in the grand scheme of things but thought I'd go ahead and throw it out there. If something congruent comes along that goes well with it, i'll likely group em up under some name or another. Just having fun in the studio as usual and makin a little progress for once...
Publication Date: Jun-01-2008
Just got through tracking and uploading editFreeArdour and thought I'd drop a couple of notes on the track.. The first thing is that this was completely recorded without edits and is adlib on my part. I played all the instrumentation (drums too ;) ) one time through without punch ins (hence the warbles here and there.)
However the really impressive thing is that this is recorded on completely open source software. Ardour is a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW,) being written and distributed by an open source group of developers. The software runs on any platform, is 100% free. I am really quite amazed at the quality and stability they've achieved with this application. If you know much about digital recording, you know how expensive most DAW packages are. The fact that this thing is cross-platform (I used a Mac,) and is as close in functionality to Nuendo as anything I've ever seen totally floors me.. I just want to give a shout out to all those developers dedicating their nights and weekends to providing society in general with professional tools for making music. Their contribution will ultimately touch all of our lives in one way or another... starting here ;)
If you're a musician and are looking for a comprehensive DAW please support Ardour on their website http://www.ardour.org/ They have a number of ways for you to contribute, but $$ always works the best...
You can find the track under Misc.
Publication Date: Mar-08-2008
There have been inquiries into Paradigm Mind and whether or not that band is defunct. The answer is that yes the band is defunct. However, I don't have any problem answering questions about Paradigm Mind. Paradigm Mind was a place and time with people that I'll treasure for the rest of my insignificant little life. To me the manner in which it came about, persisted, and even ended, was more than just being in some garage band. The music itself had a life of its own that exists with or without any one of us that participated. That music reverberates in everything I write now and likely ever will write to be honest. So much so that I actually wrote a song about it under the same name (you can find it under Joel Johnston.)
The guitar element is a derivative of the song Paradigms written by Cullen Lisbony. In essence the song describes the timeless state from which inspired music comes. I write it from the point of view of the music itself and it's inception into being through the mind. CH-CH-CHeesy as that may sound, I invite you to envision it for yourself through the music. It's not perfectly performed or produced as a result of bad backup strategies on my part (and the fact that I'm not all that good in the first place,) but I hold that song in high esteem.
As for the band, there's a number of tracks for you to sample for the good-ole-days. I hope you enjoy listening to them as much as we had fun making them at the time.
Publication Date: Feb-23-2008
To start things off, Welcome to my music blog. I'm a musician, computer freak, and developer (among other things,) living in Encinitas, CA. You've happened upon my music blog and I'm glad you're here.
I've been working on this site for much longer than it should've taken. My initial intent was just to have a place to post various compositions and recordings, so that friends and family could follow a simple link instead of burning 40 cd's with 40 different versions of however many songs. However, as I started laying things out, the simple page needed a flash music player. Being a relatively novice developer, I plugged in the first thing I could find. However, I decided (in all of my infinite wisdom,) that a simple player wouldn't deliver the content or gain the feedback that I want. So, I dove into actionscript and ended up writing this database back-ended tool that can grab the id3 tags from any track, index it, sort it and serve it up, all in one fell swoop.
Two years (and change,) later, here we are... Like any idea that lingers around my head, the concept behind the site continues to grow and I intend to add functionality up to a certain point. At any rate, the point of this particular section is to focus on Music and the process of creating and/or recording it.
Publication Date: Jan-20-2008
To read my entire blog please http://j03lmusic.blogspot.com.
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