website back up, downloads still up!

So, yeah... go listen! And let me know what you think...
J

Icarus
Since 3 Days Ago

website down, downloads up!

Well, the web-server seems to be playing up, annoyingly just as I was in the middle of updating the site...

In the meantime however, point your browsers at our new downloads page for some agreeable soundwaves.
J

Finished!

Well, kind of...

The mixing is complete.

The album had been uploaded to Tunecore, soon to be put up on the iTunes music store.

The artwork has been uploaded to the CD pressing people and deemed to meet their specs (they even liked it enough to ask if they could keep a few copies to use as samples), and the master CD is about to be put in the post.

The website will be undergoing a bit of rebuilding in the next few days to enable me to sell downloads directly from it.

Expect a couple of web singles to be up for your listening pleasure within the next week.

And a couple of weeks after that Also, He Made the Stars... will be unleashed on the unsuspecting world...

Exciting times!
J

A note about artwork and nice people.

Had a very pleasing experience the other day. I'm busy designing the artwork for the forthcoming new album. I have a reasonable back-catalogue of interesting photos and suchlike which I can use, but for one of the pages I felt I wanted a picture of some stars. Obviously, I can't really take any decent pics without some crazy telescope arrangement, so I had a look around the web for some pics, and came across this site.

To cut a long story short, while the guy usually sells his pictures, he kindly decided to let me use one for free for this short run of CDs, and provided me with a hi-res version for printing. So thanks for being generous to a complete stranger. Check out his pics, they're amazing.

J

Progress...

A quick progress report:

• The forthcoming album now has a title - all shall be revealed soon...
• Recording is getting there - a couple of songs have just a few more vocal parts and hopefully a little bit of sax to do. The tracks (likely 14 of them) are now laid out in order and the links between them sorted out. They are a mixture of new material and existing favourites. Then it's just final mixing and mastering...
• I'm beginning to put the artwork together, along with taking quotes for CD pressing, and deciding whether or not to put it up on the likes of iTunes.
• A preview track or two should be up in the next few weeks. Look forward to you hearing them!

J

CDs for donations

As you may have seen from the website already, I've decided to adopt a "sale for donation" model for distributing Puzzle.

This means that YOU get to choose the price for your CD - any donation accepted. So if you haven't got your copy of Puzzle yet, head on over to the releases page and order your copy. I'll even post it for you :o)

J

New website is live!

DLDown's website has now been updated - head on over to www.dldown.co.uk and explore. Let me know what you think!

(if you find any bits that don't work, let me know at band@dldown.co.uk)

J

A slightly frustrating day...

Well, I was quite up for a little more recording, but today the background noise near our flat has been crazy. I mean, there's usually a little traffic noise, but nothing that causes any bother on the mics or guitar pick-up. Today, we've had:

• Big lorries reversing up the street with those big-lorry-reversing noises.


• Lots and lots of fire engines.


• Helicopters. Not sure if it's a swarm, or just one very persistent one.


• Someone in the old brewery opposite shooting seagulls (or possibly just using a bird-scarer).


• Said seagulls complaining about being shot at (or possibly just being scared).

And all that without the usual banishing of the clock into the kitchen. So I didn't really try.

On the other hand, I have managed to get a fair bit more of the revamped website done (hence the change in theme on here, which gives things away a bit...). Coming soon...

J

Activities

DLDown is slowly getting back into doing some recording. Firstly, this involves getting to grips with the many shiny knobs of Logic Express, then working out how best to go about recording each track.

Usually it's best to get a basic guitar or keyboard track laid down for the whole song, normally with a metronome or temporary drum beat to keep the timing predictable. (A live take with a little ebb and flow in the tempo can add some nice expression to a performance, but it's then incredibly difficult to go back and multi-track other layers over the top.)

This is often the hardest step, and the most crucial to get right, as all the other parts making up rest of the song will then hang on this. I'm having a go at doing this for a re-run of Lilies & Sparrows and new song Left to My Own Devices (live version at The Art of Joy show, here). They're progressing, but slowly.

My other project at the moment is to update the DLDown website. I wrote the previous one fairly quickly in a WYSIWYG editor, which produces a usable page, but horrible source code which is a nightmare to edit. I'm having fun writing the new one from scratch, and brushing up on my html and css programming into the bargain.

Not having paid employment for a while has its benefits :o)
J

Jo has no job...

... and thus finally has time to make some music! Sweeeet!
J