An Indie Musician's Diary Vol 2

First Single Mastered as I Sleep & Graphics for the Promo

It's been a tough weekend!

On Friday I completed the last song of the album, Everywhere, and uploaded it to the Dropbox link that I set up with all my songs for the mastering studio. Then I drove to a friends house and helped them move for hours. We had a great meal together at the end of the evening - friends from 5 different countries: Finland, Switzerland, Sweden, Albania and Chile. My friend Mirjan from Chile made us greek food, Moussaka. Great fellowship and an awesome workout lifting tons of stuff all day. I needed the break and the exercise!

Then I mixed all day Saturday. 

Midnight Lullaby

By tomorrow I should have my first professionally mastered single, Midnight Lullaby, in my Dropbox. YAY! There is a 10 hour difference between Melbourne Australia and Sweden so he will be doing the mastering while I sleep. When I wake up I will have my first single! Yay!

The release date will be February 14th - Valentine's Day. That's sweet because it is a happy song about love.

I have been spending time designing various promo pictures and animations for Instagram, Youtube and more. Canva.com is awesome.* Just make sure you own the rights to the photos you use. 

Last minute changes to two of the songs from the Change My Mind album

Now the same guru  that is mastering Midnight Lullaby is mastering my album with 12 songs. Last night (Saturday the 1st of February) I was up until 3:30 a.m. making some last minute adjustments to two songs from the Change My Mind album: Questions and Now That I Have You.** Johan and I took some time to listen through the whole album to see if there were any last things we wanted to adress. We noticed that the synth on Questions was way too boomy and that the background vocals got too loud towards the end. 

In Now That I Have You, we noticed that the lead vocal was too quiet compared to the instruments if you consider all the other songs on the album. It stuck out in a bad way, like a weak puppy in a group of playful ones at a pet store. It needed some fixing. So my husband went to sleep and I worked until 3 getting the two songs fixed. I am a sort of night owl so I didn't mind it. And, I slept until 9 this morning so I was well rested 

* A week later (I add it now) 

I got a warning from Google about the tag on the main pic I used from Christian Motion Church Graphics, the one with the stars. I read the terms of use for freebies on their page and then I understood that I had done a no no. OOPs!

I had to replace all my graphics this morning and change the album cover that was already submitted to CDBaby. The new one is based on the one above. Hope it is o.k. too. 

Lesson: make sure you have the rights to all the pics that you use for promotion even the "free" ones. They, too have conditions and it can cause you to not get paid or even to get sued and or have to delete you material. I lost hours redesigning everything but now it is done. Lesson learned!

** Second lesson learned: don't force a release!!!! Not by any means. Making great music takes time. You need to let it settle like a heavy meal. I rushed the changes in the middle of the night and, in my opinion, the drums on Now That I Have you were too clumsy and too loud compared to the main vocal. A real miss. Would have been better without them. Another lesson learned. 

All these revisions took their toll on me and my stomach was in constant pain. 

Especially when I got back the first Midnight Lullaby MIx.....