Announcing: Album Tracks

I'm very glad and relieved to say that we're done with the album! After five long months of intense songwriting, recording, editing, mixing and mastering... We've finished the album.

All there is left is having a CD cover and artwork done, taking care of the copyrights, and sending a master CD to be duplicated, hence the actual albums we're going to be selling.

There is no set date on when it would be released, and we have not yet decided how much we will be selling them for. We are handing free 3-song demos out.

You can listen to half of the album on our MySpace page [www.myspace.com/feuband] or our facebook page [just type "Feu" in search box]. There are a couple that can only be found on either profile, so I highly recommend you go check out both.

In the meanwhile, here is the track list of the album, along with a preview or a teaser if there is any, for those who haven't had the chance to see them. 14 tracks, as promised:
P.S. To stop the music, go on the bottom of the page and press pause on the music player

1. On S'en Va [Song title was changed]

2. Believe

3. All That I Can Do
4. Desire
5. Another World
6. Beautiful Lullaby
7. Right Here
8. Poetic Journal
9. Pictures And Goodbyes

10. The Crave

11. In Multi Colors

12. The Last Thought
13. Unstoppable
14. No Worries

Mastering

It's been quite a week in the studio. Squeezing time to record, mix, master the album, and have rehearsal can be a taunting task; yet it never gets tiring.

We're officially days away from sending a master CD to be copyrighted. We're definitely done recording, and pretty much about the same for mixing. All there is left is mastering.

What is mastering?

Let me use an analogy first before getting technical. Let's use cooking for example. Before you cook a meal, you have to buy all the ingredients on the recipe list. [We could compare that step to recording the songs.] Then, you need to cut and prepare each ingredient to make sure there's the right amount of each. [Mixing the songs.] The final step would be putting all those ingredients in the pan and cook everything and make sure they all blend in together to make a delicious meal. That final step would be mastering when it comes to making an album.

In engineering terms, each songs was recorded and mixed in different ways, one by one, with sometimes different instruments and elements, which lead to songs having different levels and sounding different. The purpose of mastering is making the album sound as a whole; to make something consistent from track to track. It also brings up the overall volume of the album, making it as loud as it can be and making it sound better as a whole.

Little did I know this step would be much harder than I thought. I personally feel it's the hardest step of them all. It's a very delicate process that can make it or break. A perfect example would be Metallica's last album, in which the mastering killed the album after the mastering engineer followed the producer's demands.

I'm wasting one CD after another to make sure I don't do that same mistake. I go in the car, play it on the computer, play it on the PS3, ... anything I could get my hands on. You have no idea how much difference there is going from one place to another.

Hopefully, sooner that later, we'll find the perfect balance.

In the meanwhile, we have a gig this Sunday in Eagle Rock. More info later. We also might have another gig in Baldwin Park on the 20th of this month, but that one has yet to be confirmed.

Much love,
Jeremy

"Pictures And Goodbyes" Teaser

We spent most of the day and night today to work on all the songs. We're practically done with a few exceptions.

By Friday, after the band meets up to listen to the whole album, hopefully one last time, and after we approve of what we've heard, we should be officially done with it. Let's cross fingers!

I am not sure how long it will take for an actual CD to come out, since we have to take care of copyrights, CD covers and the duplication of the CD's. Let's hope that won't take too long.

In the meanwhile, I'll leave you with a last teaser. This song is one of our newest song and you get to hear the full version. This might not be the album version quite yet; it all depends on Friday's verdict.

Enjoy!



P.S. Sound is terrible on YouTube... I don't know what to do to improve. The actual CD will make up for it.