Final day of proofing The Dusty Mirror, like proofing a book, this a a day of listening a lot, and ideally every so often here and there. I've, of course, done this for the past few weeks here and there, but now have a final album. I've made only one tiny change today, and then checked everything through headphones.
One big change I've made this year is dramatically less use of headphones. They are good for testing stereo placement - though not essential, we can rationally work out what we want where, once you know how it will sound. They are most useful for picking out the details, clicks, reverb tails, and the bits easily missed with speakers. Of course, everything sounds best through them, so they're best for generally hearing with, but that's why they're less useful for studio monitoring.
After a few checks I have queued the album for digital release, so it's set for release on August 28th. I made a quick 'log' video.
Now I'm ready to move on, but have a lot of video work. I need some sort of video trailer for it and some music videos themselves... there are many possible highlight tracks. 'Since You Kicked Me Out' is one of the most pop-like, or indeed, 'Except for the Hatred'. 'The Arm' lends itself to an easy video but it's somewhat atypical of the other songs. Each song has pros and cons. 'The Fingers of Evil' has, for me, very strong images reminiscent of David Lynch's The Grandmother.
I also need similar videos for Burn of God, and ideally new music videos for some of its tracks. The somewhat Prodigy sounding 'Confession', or the complex God Infinity are the obvious choices. For some reason, it always seems that the best songs need the most complex videos and the simplest videos are for the simple songs that are not really showcases.
And lyric reading videos for any/all tracks. A lot of video work. I'll ideally need to make a film per day, but speed usually compromises quality... which I must avoid.
Onward.
