The steam train that is the launch of our forthcoming album continues to chug on its musical tracks. Ugh, what a terrible metaphor, sorry to start a post like that. But yes, we are so very nearly there. All the album artwork and the master went to the duplcation company yesterday and in 10 working days we should have 500 jewel cased CDs and 500 packaged CDs ready to go to various record labels, blogs and magazines and so on. As you can see, we also have a poster for the album launch. Hopefully, if you live in Bristol, you will see one of these around somewhere as I have been putting them up all day. What fun I had. The poster gives a large clue to the album artwork although it is not what the final cover will look like. That will remain under wraps for the time being. Anyone that does live in Bristol should recognise the location and the lovely pink poster behind me.
We had the largest moment of indecision so far yesterday when, at the very last minute, the repro company asked if we wanted the CDs individually cellophane wrapped. Now personally I hate the plastic wrap around CDs that you often get in record stores. First of all, it doesn't allow you to have a nose around the CD and the inlay before you purchase and secondly, it's a complete pain in the arse to get in to. I still haven't found a sensible way of doing it without a scalpel blade. However, our resident designer (Michael, our guitarist) was convinced that having wrapping would present a professional image to our share holders. So I polled 4 share holders (the 4 people who I knew would be available on email at the time) and the two that regularly buy CDs said no and the other two said they couldn't care less. All that time I was thinking from an image point of view. Then it dawned on me that the plastic required to wrap 500 CD cases is actually quite a lot. I do so hate wasting plastic, this is why we have a whole cupboard full of plastic containers waiting to be taken to the recycling. So, in the end, I made the executive decision not to have plastic wrapping. I do apologise if that impairs your listening experience but please be mindful of the fact that it was purely an environmental decision.
One quick word on something I'm building a bit of a passion for lately. It has come to my attention that a lot of people, when they receive the CD, are likely to burn it to MP3s then put the CD away and never (or rarely) get it out again. Well I hope they burn it before they do that anyway. I would therefore like to request that those that do this, burn it in as high quality as the space on their mp3 players will allow. If you use itunes this means going to Edit>Preferences>Import Settings then selecting MP3 Encoder from the drop down list and then, ideally, use Custom and encode it at 320kbs. I challenge people to encode at this rate then use the standard 128kbs rate and compare the two. You will be astounded, I guarantee it. In this age of making music more instantaneous and accessible, it is very important that we do not compromise on quality as a result.
Now please excuse me while I watch the end of Captain Corelli's Mandolin (spoiler alert, ze Germans just killed all the Italians, ouch) and finish my glass of Merlot in preparation for my 13 mile run tomorrow. It's hard being a rock star.
Arrivederci
Stephen
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