Hello everyone,

If you celebrated any recent holidays, we hope you had a great holiday!

It's been a bit since our last update. We've been working steadily, and we have a few updates for you.


Life Stuff

Before the fun updates, we just wanted to share that there has been some major life stuff that has impeded the progress on the Refractions album. One such thing is that I (Michael) had family move in with us due to a crisis. I won't go into details, but things have been stabilizing.

There have also been a few other things with family and friends, but thankfully things are generally in a good place now.

Additionally, one of our singers (who is important to one of the tracks) contracted a bad case of Covid, and she's had a long and hard several-month recovery. Thankfully, she's about out of the woods and ready to record.

Despite all of that, we have been making significant progress, and there is some very positive news to share as well below!

Things continue to move along well with Tales. All alpha/beta reading is complete, and Jane (our wonderful Editor in Chief) has taken multiple passes with each story. Most of the stories are now awaiting proofing as their final step before heading onto the scoring (music composition) part of the process.

We do have a few stragglers, but in general, we're excited with where everything is, and we feel like we've ended up with some pretty great stories!

This whole project has been a bit of a new process for all of us, but especially the authors, and they've all done really well going through the rounds. Jane had this to say:
 

Also, I just want to say that everyone has been so lovely to work with - from the authors to Jane to the alpha/beta readers! And Jane has been amazing, heading up the efforts and helping the authors get their stories through the process.

We really can't wait to share these fun, adventurous, meaningful, and in some cases hilarious stories with you!
 

General Status

This album has been a lot more work than anticipated. Almost on par with creating an album from the ground up. In addition, we've hit a number of unexpected difficulties, from corrupted working files to several tracks that needed major overhauls (both of which should probably be expected on older projects). We also had software updates that have been disasters, which caused us to lose work on two of the tracks. (But don't worry! We've managed to piece things back together from older backups.)

With that said--and despite the setbacks--at a high level, things are getting very close. We are almost ready to go into the mix stage (a few tracks are being mixed right now, and most of the remaining tracks are awaiting recording - more on that below). Most pieces have already gone through an initial pre-mix process. In fact, we only have 2 tracks that still need some light compositional updates, but other than those being recorded, everything else is on the last lap.


Recording Opportunities, Oh My!

One thing on the positive side has been a series of recordings that we hadn't initially planned on. They've slowed down the completion of the album, but they have been raising the quality significantly!

First, we worked with an old friend from high school (and her daughter) for vocals on a number of the tracks. Their involvement was late breaking but extremely welcome, and we're happy to report that it's complete (except for a small pickup of a 3 note countermelody and a backup vocal.) This was slower going, because, while they're both great singers, this was their first time in a professional environment, and extra time was needed to help guide them through the process. (Though once they got the hang of it, you almost couldn't tell that they weren't professional studio musicians.)

Another (huge!) thing that came up in terms of recording opportunities...
An engineer friend who works with the NZSO (New Zealand Symphony Orchestra) reached out. He also works with a smaller group who contracts out for film, etc, many of whose members come from the NZSO. They happened to have a time slot open for half an hour of strings. We weren't planning on recording anything for this album with a larger group, but we worked things out with them such that the cost/benefit lined up very well.

Well, it took an almost-all-nighter followed by an actual all-nighter to prep the materials for them (it was a fast turnaround), but they are speedy and accurate players, so they were able to record two of the songs on the album for us! And, we have to tell you: their playing was gorgeous! I may or may not have cried. They nailed each piece in just two takes. We are so looking forward to releasing these tracks!

We still have a few vocals left to record and possibly some winds. (Some of this was planned, but we've discovered that all of it is needed.)


Track Overview

In case you're interested, here's the overall breakdown on the status:

(Note: mastering is a process that will happen for all tracks all at once. They can't be pushed through individually.)

Also note that most of the tracks that are in the recording phase are generally ready for mixing (not much to prep), so once recorded, they'll go straight into mixing, and the two in "Light Compositional Updates" will be ready for mix once that's done as well. So, all-in-all, pending the recordings (a few of which still need to be scheduled), everything is extremely close to being mixed/mastered - which is the homestretch!


Status of Individual Tracks

Updated Timeline

Recording should wrap in the next week to two weeks (except maybe the New York/Kathmandu vocalists). Mix would normally take a week to two weeks, but we're hoping the initial mix pass and prep makes that go faster.

With all that in mind, we'll be pushing hard to get this to you before Christmas. We're extremely excited about the album, and the praise we are receiving from the soloists has been extremely positive. 


That's all for now! We'll be going heads-down again to see how quickly we can wrap this one up!

All the best,
Michael & The Team @ The Black Piper