It's very complex, difficult, expensive, interesting and fun to be an independent music producer. Volume three covers my attempts to: make acoustic improvements to the studio; cut down my production times; learn the art of mastering in-house ad muc...
It's been almost four years (!) since I started recording the songs for the Change My Mind album. Since then, I have learned many things that have to do with mixing, marketing, promotion, distribution etc. But now I am trying to focus on one single thing or maybe two: getting the music completely mixed so it can be mastered and preparing for the book release as well. I am letting things that aren't priority go in an effort to get these two things going.
This means not writing in this diary as much as I'd love to and it means letting social media go for a while. I am a one woman show and can't get all this done at once. I have to prioritise!
Planning the release backwards
I am a bit of a nerd and love to understand what I do fully before doing it which meant that learning to mix took about two years. (I'm still learning). Mixing takes time, lots of time if you are picky like I am!
I have set a goal of releasing the album at latest Friday, September 6th (my birthday present to myself). Counting backwards, that means that I have to send it to CDBaby two weeks before that, the 23rd of August, 2019. Then there is the promotion weeks (at least two weeks before where I drop the singles one song a day on SoundCloud/YouTube/Instagram and then there are the two weeks that I have to let the mastering studio do their stuff and a week more for adjustments if I am not satisfied (three more weeks in all).
All of that puts me in July 26th as the date I need to send all my wav tracks to mastering in Australia. But I am on vacation then with my husband a lot in July. We plan on doing bicycle trips - taking the train as far as it goes on our summer card (approx 650 SEK for two months of unlimited train fun.) So, if I can I want to deliver the songs to the mastering company at the end of June. That way I can take a vacation before all the pre release promotion stuff hits in August and use my time to finish the book after I'm done mixing the music.
O.k. so that means I have to get all the mixing that needs to get done, seven songs, done before the end of June - the 28th to be exact.
That leaves 9,5 weeks for 7 songs. OMG help me in Jesus name! (A prayer, not swearing!) An average, remixing my songs has taken me about a month to two months per song. Is this doable? Probably not. But I am going to try. I am almost done with the song Now That I Have You (doing automation today) and have started on the song Rising. So if I get both done by the end of this week (good luck!), then I'll have 9 weeks to do 5 songs - much more doable but still crazy.
At the current rate of mixing, I would be done in November of 2019. But that is when I want to release the book. And the book takes time, too. So I need to work faster!
What I realise is that IF I want to release the album in September, I will have to RUSH and PRIORITISE very hard. No other stuff. No blogging, not many Social media posts....etc.
It is a trade off. Either I let things evolve as they need to and take my time building slowly up to a release with powerful live videos, social media posts and blogs or I just get this album done and let things grow organically as I move forward to release singles and more books.
I am sick and tired of doing the same thing for four years and want to get done. So. I am signing off until the release for the most part and you won't be hearing from me too often because I have to get done!
I hope you will understand.
My legs are swollen and my stomach is out of shape from mixing this much but I have to get done. And, today I saw how much money we have poured into this and want there to be an end to this madness.
I will tell you one thing, though....if my husband didn't believe in me and my music/books the way he does, I would have never got myself this far. He is amazing!
I hope that the Change My Mind album and book will help many. He believes that it will and the feedback I get from friends and every passersby who leaves a comment on the music on Twitter is very positive. Here was the most recent. Thanks to you, Mary!
Btw, check out her music. I did. She has an amazing, well trained voice!
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Btw, I am up over 37,000 words written in the Change My Mind book now and that feels great.
I am looking for a literary agent and some clues how to go forward. May have to drop that and do other things.
So, to summarise, I am signing off from Wattpad to mix and write and you won't be hearing from me much. God bless!
