Mastering, gigging and a free download

Mastering is an interesting art. I was able to attend the mastering session for my record at Wav Mastering in Limerick, and experienced the recordings gaining more definition and going from being a bunch of tracks that I’d recorded to being an album that made sense to listen to. I find it hard to explain exactly what it’s like without resorting to a bread analogy – so imagine you’ve made 12 loaves but baked them just as a round of dough on a tray. Now, imagine all those 12 loaves were baked in the same loaf tin instead. They still will taste the same, but they’ll look more uniform as a result. I guess that’s how I see mastering. I don’t know if that even makes sense – but it works in my head and I hope in yours too.

I was due to play at Song Cycle in Whelan’s last monday, as a sort of prep for myself to road-test some of the really new songs I’ve never played to an audience before. However, the mental floods in Dublin that evening meant that the evening didn’t go ahead at all, so apologies to anyone who may have braved the weather to make it in.

I wanted to play those songs live before playing them at the Jazz Festival gig tomorrow, but alas, they’ll just get their first outing at that gig instead. So, if you’re around Cork for the weekend, drop into the Festival Club on Sunday evening, and I’m playing in the Legends Suite.

I’d been hoping to have the record ready and out there before the Jazz gig, but various things always seem to crop up to add to the delay. But that’s really helped and added to the whole learning process. These last 6 months have been one big learning curve for me, and comparing the demos I was doing at home before going into the studio with the finished album I have now is mindblowing to me at times. But I wanted to be able to start sharing some of it with people, so here’s a track called “Helen” which you can listen to and download for free via Bandcamp. I hope you enjoy it, and spread it around. The full album will be available in November, all things going to my now re-adjusted plan:

A little piano track, mastering and some gigs.

fund:it, the crowdfunding service I used to raise cash for my album recording has been going now for over 6 months, and they’ve released a video about what was achieved over their first 6 months. They asked me if I had any music that they might be able to use for the video, and as it happens I had recorded one of my piano instrumental pieces on the last day of the piano & vocal tracking in the studio recording sessions. I’d an hour or two to spare and ended up knocking out a live version of “I Wish You Were Here” as well as the piano instrumental piece.

The song has ended up on the tracklisting for the album, and the instrumental is planned as a bonus track for the digital version of the record going out to those people who funded my project. But, now you can hear an edit of that track used in the video about Fund:it’s first 6 months, which they have entered into the “Better Together” competition in the hope of winning some money towards helping to develop and improve the service they provide. Please click on the link and consider voting for their entry, which will help enable other creative projects happen through the use of crowdfunding.

Here’s the video:

I’m heading off to get the record mastered later this week, having gotten to the point where I have final mixes that I’m happy with, and a record that I’m quite proud of. The artwork is still being developed with print artist Grace Mitchell, and I’m excited to see the work she has been doing all coming together to result in the final packaging for the record. We are planning to hand print and make the packaging for a limited number of the records, and everyone who bought the cd through fund:it will be getting one of those copies. I’m looking forward to having a finished product and I really hope that people who hear the record like it as much as I do.

Later this month, I also have a little gig on the 24th at the “Song Cycle” showcase night Upstairs in Whelan’s in Dublin, and the Cork Jazz Festival on the 30th. So, if you are knocking around either city around those days, drop in and you’ll get to hear some of the songs from the record before it is out, as well as some of the material I’ve held over for the next one, and newer songs I’ve been writing more recently.