The end of the year is approaching, winter is upon us. In my case, January doesn't just mean a new year, it also means the release of the new Dynamis! Album, "The Paradox of Commons". For the next 27 days, I will document (to the best of my ability) the final stages of this album all the way until it's release. Will we get it done by before years end? SPOILER ALERT: probably not, but here's to trying!
A quick synopsis. The recording process really began in January 2012, when we decided to just focus on writing songs for the album as a band. This started with making basic demos, practicing, and really laying out the blueprint for how we were going to accomplish all this. Fast forward to May 2013. After most of the writing was done, and somewhat finalized, it was time to start recording. Drums first, then guitars, followed by bass and vocals. Sounds straight forward right? No. Now, throw in some scheduling conflicts, a handful of business trips, oh and don't forget vacations, and it made coordinating free time quite difficult. But all that aside, here we are, at the end of the road. We made it. Everything is recorded and ready for the next step of this seemingly endless process; mixing and mastering.
The time in between sessions I've spent meticulously working on things, all in preparation for this final step. Trimming audio, compression, presets, balancing, sub-groups, FX, reverb, all the necessary bits and pieces that glue everything together.
So where to start? How about the track lineup:
- Gozer
- The Gozerian
- Ubiquitous Gaze
- Anti-Life Equation
- Enticing the Tyrant
- Palaver
- Revolutionary Debris
- Wanderlust
- Black Box
- Venn Diagram
- Skullduggery
- Tragedy of the Commons
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Last night Anthony, Ferdi and I went through every song making sure nothing was missing and really listening to everything as a whole. The goal now is to get all the tracks to sound the same - volumes, tone, compression, EQ, etc., AND sound good. Like (internet) radio good. The interesting thing about this album is we play in 2 different tunings, and while that might not sound that unique, it makes things a bit more difficult on the engineering end for keeping continuity between guitar and bass tones. In an Indie or Alternative album, this might not be an issue, but usually Metal records have a very cohesive sound throughout an album, and I've been hyper aware of this the entire time. I think I have a good starting point for everything so far and the mixes that were auditioned last night were pretty close to being final, but mixing can be a bit like a video game; everything is easy in the beginning, but the closer you get to the end, the harder it gets. So to continue with my video game analogy, it's time for the final boss.
Tomorrow's goal? Updated drums, with some audio samples to boot.
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