# The Mice Will Play... - Site: Analog Industries - Author: Chris Randall - Date: 2010-04-09 - URL: https://analogindustries.com/2010/04/the-mice-will-play/ I've got over half of the Micronaut e.p. (which is called _Resistor_, by the way) mixed and in the bag now. After reading all the comments and ideas in the previous thread, I've decided to do the following: 1\. Bandcamp full EP. I'm going to put this up for any amount, from $0.00 to whatever floats your boat. The Bandcamp release may have value-added content as well, but at the very least it will have everything that Bandcamp allows in the way of artwork and liner notes. 2\. Tunecore full spread. I'll also put the EP in Tunecore to all the services. Pricing will, of course, vary. 3\. Video. Two of the songs have videos, and these will go in my accounts in Vimeo and YouTube as added promotional materials. 4\. PR. I'm going to have press done by one of the services that does such things; naturally I'll post about that experience here. We've done this in the past with various Positron releases, to mixed results. If anyone has any insight in to the various services that do this, I'd love to hear about it. So that's the current plan, anyhow. The Bandcamp release will be available as soon as I'm done, essentially, so a few days. I'll also put everything in Soundcloud as non-download, but I'll use the Bandcamp widget for playback here, for obvious reasons. ## Comments (10) **joe** (2010-04-09): Resistor? You mean Eurydome right? **boobs** (2010-04-09): i've talked to various press/promo/PR companies over the years and they all want $1500 up front plus a 3 month guarantee @$1500 a month. i have friends who have had mixed results w/same kind of services but none at reasonable rates. i'm guessing you have a different scenario in mind? you're plan sounds good though. youtube/vimeo 'videos', even just a picture of the record cover over the length of the song, seems a good way to promo stuff. people seem to track youtube channels just for music these days. **thehipcola** (2010-04-09): 2nd'd on the YT channel idea... I've recently been surprised by a few people whom I've discovered who use YT all the time to listen to music. Judging by views, this is a fairly popular way to take in tunez. **puffer** (2010-04-09): I seem to recall you said a while ago that you were going to master your next release yourself; am I imaging this or is this something you're going to do? Right now this is the main thing that's holding me up from 'releasing' my stuff. I am, also, planning on handing off the technical aspect to bandcamp so no longer have to worry about building/hosting a storefront, or simply put up download links and hope someone, anyone listens. So, I have several 'albums', with album art and what I guess could pass for final mixes, but I feel that mastering myself is, as that TapeOp ad says, like bringing my sister to the prom. You know, I'm a self-taught mixer in a (very) non-pro studio; I'm sure I could benefit from someone who knows what they're doing. But, am I just using this as another excuse or is it worth holding out from. Buy Ozone and be done with it; if I 'hit it big' release the 'remastered' version? I'd be interested in hearing how the brain-trust here approaches mastering, by and large. You, Chris, obviously have a ton of studio experience; can you parlay this into mastering your own releases, or do you still turn your final mixes over to a trained professional? How about any other folks. I'm especially interested in this group because it seems like a good sampling of primarily electronic-oriented musicians. **Chris Randall** (2010-04-09): I've been mastering my own releases, for better or worse, since 1998 or so, as well as many others (a couple dozen on the WTII label). I don't particularly like to master, but it's in my skill set. I'd vastly prefer to have Brian Gardner master everything I do, but Brian, for reasons passing understanding, won't work for a pittance. I spent the portion of my career where I was bankrolled by Wax Trax! and TVT paying close attention to the work methods of the extremely expensive producers, engineers, and mastering engineers that the label hired for my projects, in the theory that I would one day be a producer myself. Obviously, I've parlayed that rather expensive education in to another field entirely, designing plug-ins. In any event, if you can afford it, I strongly recommend a professional mastering job, especially if you're not "trained" in any way, but are entirely self-taught. But that said, there's one thing about the music business I know, and that's that the people that appreciate quality recordings are a very small minority. The vast majority just wants to hear a good song. As long as the song is there, it'll survive anything you try to do to it. -CR **bongo_x** (2010-04-10): Interesting that you mention that Mr. Randall. Even though I work as an engineer I'm always saying the song is the thing that matters, no one cares about the rest. But I fear I may overstate the case sometimes. For instance; There are many examples of artists, usually do to some evil inflicted on them, having to re-record their old hits. And even though the technology has made that easier and cheaper, most, if not all of the time I think it's just not that good. The "magic" part is gone. Not because they can't play it or sing it either. There really seems to be some magic in great recordings, for instance; I saw an app to let you download Flash video, and one of the selling points was "rip just the audio file from YouTube". That's right, not only are people listening to their music there, they want to download that audio and listen to it. But the fact is that even on YouTube an awesome recording sounds better, no matter what was done to it, than a shitty one. That doesn't make sense to me, but a lot of things don't. If you're not a pro engineer you can still make a great recording. Amateurs bowl perfect games and make hole-in-ones all the time. But a good mastering engineer is almost always going to make you sound better, hopefully add some magic, and you get all the credit. There are some pretty good guys out there who aren't that expensive at all, and a lot of shitty ones. You HAVE to shop around and get some recommendations. See how I tied all of that together? Sort of? bb **synthetic** (2010-04-10): I guess if you're only releasing MP3, then mastering subtleties are largely moot. Sigh. I want a high-res download option. **Chris Randall** (2010-04-10): Bandcamp allows virtually any resolution and format you'd like. I put up the 44.1/24 AIFF, and it renders out a 320K MP3, a FLAC, or you can get the raw file. Is that high-res enough for you? That said, we always make the FLAC files available. Last time I mentioned that I thought FLAC was retarded, a bunch of people got all up in my grill like their pussy was inflamed or something, so I won't say that I think FLAC is retarded ever again, even though it is. But, for reasons known only to them, some people (again, of the raging mangina faction) prefer that ridiculous format, so I make 'em. In this case, however, Bandcamp seems willing to do the hard work. -CR (P.S.: If you're planning on jumping in at this point and posting a well-written and thorough defense of FLAC, please don't. The people that give a fuck already know whatever it is you're about to type, and the rest of us really don't care. At all.) **D' MacKinnon** (2010-04-10): I've never understood the desire for FLAC. You you want portability use .mp3. If you want high quality use .wav **beauty pill** (2010-04-10): I don't really know what Bandcamp is. I guess I need to do some research.