Well, the challenge is over and done.  And I think that, for the amount of time I spent on this puppy (as well as the health issues I risked from lack of sleep, coming down to the wire), and given the equipment I limited myself to working with, I did pretty damn good.  I'm sure most of you posting in this space feel the same about your product as well.   It's hard enough for professionals to put together a quality-sounding CD in 29 days time, let alone some of us amateurs!

Anyway, if anyone cares, my plans for the CD:

1. I was going to send all my files to Discmakers for a short run production, as well as to take advantage of their $50 web promotion deal this morning.  But after another listen to the CD, and after considering how I TRULY want to present myself to whatever is left of the record industry, as well as whatever representation of Joe Public happens across the CD online (or, hopefully, offline), I've decided that I'll need to do some more tweaking of the arrangements, and definitely resing a couple of tracks (such as Requiem for My Singlehood).    Now that time is no longer an issue, I'm figuring another 10 days of work on this thing should be no big deal. 

2. When I initially rendered the backing tracks from the sequencer on my PDA into .wav files, I did the Phono Out from the PDA's headphone jack into the line in of my Zoom H4 recorder.  As a result, most of the tracks sounded really, really, bassy.   The level of EQ I had to apply to them just about drove me batty.    I think I bitched in here about how the Griff Sequencer's Render to Audio function was too damn slow.   Anyway, I ran the function last night...it didn't seem all THAT slow.  I think it depends on the complexity of the arrangement programmed into the software.  In any case, the two .wav files I rendered directly from Griff sounded WAY better than the phono out/line in thing I did.  So I'll be redoing the tracks that incorporated those. 

3. I sent my CD to the RPM Challenge (BOTH times) without any official coverwork.   I burned an approxomation of an album cover onto one of the copies I sent them, but it's far from final.  So I'll need time to work on that.

4. Must...shoot...video! (March 7th? YIKES!)

5. The CD I sent to the RPM Challenge folks had 9 songs/39 minutes of music on it.   I may add another song for the "commerical" release (in fact, I've got another one I started brewing yesterday called "Mythical Haters", based on this affirmation video some guy put up on YouTube the  other day about dealing with online trolls - very funny!).  

6. As a result, unlike many others you've seen around here, I probably won't have a full album download or an online "CD release party" until probably around mid-March.  In the meantime, if you feel you "HAVE TO HAVE IT" (LOL!!!), you may either see what I've got cookin' on my profile here, or download my preliminary mixes and demos from the project on my music blog.  Either way, it's all good.

In the interim, I'm taking a short break from this thing: do some traveling, work on the Band C collaboration.

Oh...and shoot the video!  EGADS! 

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