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!

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!