Song3 Posted To SoundCloud

Another post, and another new track – Song3 the 8th track from the album – Make Music has been posted to SoundCloud and is available for you to listen to below:

You might be wondering why Song3 is called Song3 instead of Song8..after all, it is the eigth song on the album. This is because the origin of Song3 is a group of three songs that I wrote for what was going to be a band with a few friends. The band died out, but I ended up liking Song3. By that point, it was pretty much how I knew the track, so I thought there was no point in renaming it. And that is how Song3 got its name.

That’s all for now. Hope to post another track later this month!

New Tracks Released From Make Music

Welcome to the first post of the year for A Rising Force – we’ve got new tracks for you! It’s been a while since the last update and we wanted to let you know the status of the album – Make Music. We’re still in production, but in the meantime, we wanted to release four of the new tracks that are finished.

These are the four tracks that we referenced in the previous post – Tour, Bright Eyed, Anyway… and Pickmeup; they were all mixed at the end of last year. While Tour, Bright-Eyed, and Pickmeup are mostly cleaned up and polished versions of the existing songs, Anyway… has evolved quite a bit since the last time I shared it. There is now a viola/violin string section that comes in about a minute into the song and adds a lot more depth. Please let us know how you like the new version in comments on SoundCloud!

Make Music - New Tracks on SoundCloud

Listen to the all the tracks on the album Make Music on A Rising Force – SoundCloud

While only a little less than half the tracks have been posted, the album is now more than halfway finished being mixed and more tracks will be posted in the coming weeks. The total number of complete tracks for the album is now up to five of thirteen. The next tracks that will be posted are Song3 and For All The Days My Muse Called In Sick. Both tracks have final recordings and just need to be mixed and mastered.

Please make sure to like, comment, and share A Rising Force Music with your friends to help us reach new people.  Do you have a favorite track on the album?  Let us now by liking it on SoundCloud! We hope you enjoy the new tracks and can’t wait to post the rest of the album!

Four More Tracks Finished And Ready For Mastering

In the studio again today, but this time working on mixing down songs instead of recording in order to get tracks finished.  The process of making an album involves many different parts and today the focus was on mixing down the first four tracks of Make Music.  The goal in mixing down the tracks is to balance and shape the sound of each of the instruments for that track.  This can be a painstaking process because the smallest changes can make a big impact.  It also becomes challenging when you’ve heard the same song 50 times with countless different versions.  They all start to sound the same!

Mixing Pickmeup - Tracks Finished

Mixing the track Pickmeup and getting it ready for mastering.

One of the other challenging aspects to mixing is that when the tracks finished and you listen to a mix down of your work, it can sound different depending on what type of sound system you play it on.  I try to listen to my mixes on at least four different systems (studio reference speakers, headphones, my car, normal stereo system, laptop speakers, etc.).  By listening to the track on different systems, you can hear how the song performs and see if you need to make any adjustments.  Ideally, you don’t have to do much, but it is a perpetual learning process when you are creating sounds.

Thankfully, the mixing process for Make Music has been spread out over a large period of time.  The finished tracks that were worked on over the last week are: Tour, Bright Eyed, Anyway…, and Pickmeup.  These songs were at a stage where they just needed a little more work to finish up.  The final mixes are sounding really great and will only get better after they come back from being mastered.  It is nice to have these tracks finished finally.

Now that tracks 2 through 5 are complete, the focus is back on recording and getting the next four songs ready.  Those are: Mission Accomplished!?, For All The Days My Muse Called In Sick, Song3, and Despair.  Back to the studio to keep working!

Opener Released – First Song Off Make Music By A Rising Force Is Now Available On iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, And More!

On Thursday 8/9/2012, Opener was submitted through TuneCore to a wide variety of music distribution platforms.  I’m pleased to say today that Opener has been released globally and is available now on iTunes, Amazon MP3, Rhapsody, and slew of other music outlets.  The links for the song on iTunes and Amazon are below:

Opener on iTunes

Opener on iTunes – http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/opener-single/id552396679

Opener on iTunes - http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/opener-single/id552396679

Opener on Amazon MP3

Opener on Amazon MP3 – http://www.amazon.com/Opener/dp/B008W9ERMI/ref=sr_shvl_album_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1344820682&sr=301-3

Opener on Amazon MP3 - http://www.amazon.com/Opener/dp/B008W9ERMI/ref=sr_shvl_album_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1344820682&sr=301-3

The song is also available for streaming directly on the A Rising Force – SoundCloud band page and the new TuneCore artist info page.  Please share links with everyone and anyone you think might be interested!  The exposure helps greatly and we appreciate all the support that our fans give us by telling their friends about the band.

With Opener released, the focus is now back to finishing the rest of the tracks on the album and readying them for a late 2012 release.  Over the next week, I will be submitting the next four tracks for mastering and working on preparing the following four to be mastered.

In addition to the release of Opener, there has been an Internet Radio campaign through Jango running for the band.  This campaign is a test of the platform to see how well it works to reach new fans.  So far, the results have been very positive and the band has been able to connect with new people from all over the world.

Finally, the website for the label of the band – Make Music Productions – has finally launched.  Make Music Productions is where you’ll find not only the latest music from A Rising Force, but also eclectic releases from other new artists that are still in development.  There will be more information about the future artists on the blog on the label site.  Check it out for the latest information.

Final Mastered Copy Of Opener Has Been Received – Next Up iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody Using TuneCore

Today I checked my email to find a link to the final mastered copy of Opener, the first track on the upcoming album Make Music.  I can say that I’m very pleased with the job that was done – it is way better than anything I could do.  I used TuneCore mastering services which are handled by Universal Music Group.

The whole process of submitting the track was very cool because it uses the same interface that they use internally for processing their tracks.  Despite my initial delay in getting them the instructions for mastering the track, they were able to get it done even faster than I expected.  I plan on using them to finish up the mastering on the remaining twelve tracks once I finish producing them.

Now that the track is complete, I have to finish up some album art and get it submitted to iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, and all the other digital music distribution outlets.  TuneCore makes it easy to submit to all of them at once and provides a single credit for $14.99.  Assuming you think you can sell at least 20 copies – you should be able to make back your money.  The next post will be when the track is finally ready!

Over 100 Followers for A Rising Force on SoundCloud

A Rising Force reached a milestone a little while back – there are now over one hundred followers (103 at the time of this writing) of A Rising Force on SoundCloud.  In just under three months, with only the demo tracks, we’ve been able to raise awareness of the band to more people than we could possibly reach in any other way.  Thank you to all of the supporters!  We look forward to releasing more music and reaching even more people – if you’re a fan, please help spread the word to your friends.

There was a slight delay in the mastering process for Opener due to some poor instruction following, but the track is finally in progress and should be completed sometime next week.  Once the band signs off on the final approval, the track will be submitted to iTunes, ideally in time for an early September release.  When there is a more concrete date for the release, it will be posted here.

Complete Make Music Demo Tracks Posted to SoundCloud

All thirteen demo tracks for the upcoming release – Make Music – have been posted to the A Rising Force SoundCloud Page.  Included with this release are all of the original recordings and work-in-progress demoes that were done throughout the recording process.  Each track is dated to give an idea of how the songs came together over time.  Some tracks were written in a very short span of a few weeks, while others developed over many years.  I’ve included written commentary for each track that discusses the differences from the previous takes and the goals for that particular version.

In addition to the content that has be posted to SoundCloud, I’ve also updated the A Rising Force website with production notes and music plugins:

Make Music – Lyrics and Production Notes
Pickmeup – Production Notes Page

With the release of the complete Make Music demo tracks, I’ve finished posting all of the back log of music that I’ve created during the production of Make Music.  From here on out, the focus will be on releasing the songs in a commercially available release format via iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, Pandora, Spotify, and other leading music distribution services.

There is much more to come later this week – big news regarding the first official release.  Stay tuned!

Instrumental Tracks And Capital G – Nine Inch Nails [To Stand For Something Remix] Posted To SoundCloud

Quick update this afternoon. I’ve been updating my SoundCloud page with some more older instrumental tracks and remixes. No new tracks from Make Music (the next is Mission Accomplished!? which is coming later this week). The tracks I’ve added are:

Make Music Video Track Reviews For First Five Tracks

Lots to talk about tonight!  I’ve posted the first batch of content for the video section, adding track reviews for Opener, Tour, Bright Eyed, Anyway…, and Pickmeup.  With the videos comes the launch of the A Rising Force YouTube channel.  The first five videos have been posted to the Make Music – Track Reviews playlist.

The other thing I’ve done is launch the Facebook and Twitter accounts for the band.  You can follow our tweets @ARisingForce or look us up on the A Rising Force page.  There are also buttons at the top right side of the home page to follow our twitter feed or like our page.  Please share them with your friends!

Finally, I’ve finished up the links in the gear section – so you can check out all the pieces of equipment that were used in the production of the album.  There are also a new set of links on the righthand side of the page to companies that make cool and useful things like computers, music/video editing software, blogging tools, music/video sharing, etc.  I hope you find them helpful.

Next post will be an update to add more demos from the album to our SoundCloud.  Speaking of SoundCloud, I’ve updated the account recently so you can now download any of the tracks that are on the band page.  More to come this weekend…