Guitars are a strange and wonderful thing. Where would rock music be without them? Where would Brandon be without his guitar? It’s hard to imagine.
This week, we are finishing up tweaks on the main guitars, and then starting on secondary or background guitars and the acoustic EP. At the same time, Bass, Keys, and Vocals are beginning to be recorded. (EDIT: Our website has been down for a while, so all of the above things have been or are in the process of being done.)
A few people have expressed their concerns about the money they so graciously helped us with in our crowd-funding campaign. Please allow us to address those concerns here:
- Lane getting a new drum kit. No, we won’t be re-recorded the drums. In fact, the drums we already recorded are being doubled and beefed up as you read this. His new drums and drum mics (made possible by selling off older equipment) will be heard loud and clear on our second album and thereafter. We’ve already started writing for the second album in the little spare time we have. We’re excited for what we have in store for you over the coming months!
- Our guest bass player. Ryan Sloan is an amazing bass player who was with The Silent still for a brief time a while back before life swept him away to another state with different goals. We’re honored to have him be a part of this album. We wish Alex Boccia well in his adventures in teaching guitar and his band, Old Ironsides, but despite him playing a few shows with us more recently, and being one of the faces of The Silent Still for the last year, he will not be on this album since he hasn’t been with the band for quite some time.
- The amount of time this is all taking. Many do not realize how long it actually takes to record, mix, and master and album. Throw in the serious set backs in health that we’ve talked about before, other day jobs and businesses to pay the bills, building our own, albeit light recording studio (incl. our own cables), our other deliverables, and getting very creative in order to put out top quality with very little money, and time becomes the most valued asset that we have. No excuses. However, we want to break it down for you so that you understand why it is taking a lot of time to complete everything for you…
For those concerned about the amount of time we’re taking, this is the most important paragraph you will read in this update. An album usually takes an hour per instrument per song just to record. That’s drums, bass, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, multiple keyboards, vocals, background vocals, and overdubs, for 12 songs. Then two acoustic guitars, hand drums, vocals, background vocals, and overdubs, for 4 unplugged songs on the acoustic EP. Then add five to seven hours per song for mixing and mastering, and we’re up to 250 to 300 hours behind the console. That’s not counting time to build cables, do photo shoots, find affordable yet quality deals on other recording equipment, input shipping rate cards, get the online store online and stocked, research and solidify merch suppliers, design merch and crowd funding goods, and day to day band business.
Our main focus for the last 6 months has been on this album and deliverables for our merch and memberships. We’re pushing for delivery to our amazing funders from the crowd-funding campaign by the turn of the year first, and have been planning some other special things for you! Pre-sales will go up at that time for those that missed their chance with the campaign.
Who would like an online chat with us before then?
*image by AZAdam
