The Sound Of Silence

We know things have been quiet around here for the past few weeks, and we feel like we owe an explanation. Here’s what’s been happening:

Right after the Gotham Rocks showcase Brian got a new computer for the studio for a few reasons, most importantly to be able to run the newest version of the recording program Pro Tools. It has been a very rocky transition, to say the least. He’s been spending all his time trying to get the kinks worked out, which is the primary reason things have been so dead over here.

The first nightmare happened with the live recordings we did at the Gotham Rocks show. We tried to do a multi-track recording of our whole set, but the hard drive couldn’t keep up with how much information was being sent to it, so we only got the middle three songs. Those three songs sounded great though, so we thought we could still use them somehow. While Brian was setting up the new computer he was mixing the live songs straight from the external hard drive that we used to record the show, so there wasn’t another copy of it saved anywhere.

Once Brian finished getting the new computer ready, he went to save a backup copy of the live recordings over to it, but he copied the wrong folder, which wound up erasing the live recordings from the show instead of saving a second copy. He tried for days to recover the deleted files, and found everything except Shane’s guitar, but unfortunately that file seems to be lost forever. Luckily he burned rough mixes of two songs onto a CD to show the rest of the band before the files got deleted, and we still have the CD, so we can release those mixes if we want. They won’t be as good as the final mixes Brian had before the files disappeared, but they still sound pretty damn good for live recordings.

After sorting through the live recording disaster, Brian went to get the video from the show edited and posted to YouTube. Then he found out the new version of iMovie, which came with the new computer, is completely different than the version he used to have. Besides having a completely different workflow, which took a few days to learn and get used to, it also processes files a lot differently.

We use your run-of-the-mill miniDV camera to record our shows, like most people use for making home videos, but the new iMovie changed how it processes DV footage and the results look much worse than they used to. It took a while to figure out how to navigate around this issue and arrive at a final video that doesn’t look terrible. There are still a few things we’re going to try to improve the quality of the videos, but at least we now have something that’s good enough to post.

In the middle of the new computer disaster, Brian was interviewed by Dr. T from iLike2Rock.net. We were offered a featured spot on their site because of our performance at the Gotham Rocks show, and we were asked to do an interview so that they could put together a podcast featuring the band. We are this week’s "Band Of The Week," and a podcast including two songs from Standing Over Shadows and the full interview with Brian is up on their site. You can also use the direct link to download the mp3 for the podcast.

Now that all of this stuff has been sorted out we’re going to go back to posting regular updates again. Sorry for the down time!

August '09 Metal iMix

The Metal iMix for August '09 is here! This month features songs by most of the bands that are playing our Gotham Rocks Showcase on August 8th.

We figured this was the perfect way for you to get to know some of the other bands that we're going to be sharing the stage with at Crash Mansion in a week. We also threw The Dirty Pearls in there because they got us our last show at Crash, and also because without Tommy's help we never would have gotten this one. We put their song "Icarus (Hollywood la la la)" on there as a token of our appreciation for all the help we've gotten from the Pearls. Thanks guys!

Here are the songs for August!