Locked Grooves, Rectangles, Saline solution.

Hey Everyone! 

Just wanted to let you know we've been at work here finalizing the EPs to be sent out to the pressing plant.  

It's that last 2% of the project and yes, it usually takes the most time.  Everything from checking bass phase issues on the masters, to looking for typos in the art work. 

This week we are at the cue sheet stage for the EPs.

This is where I have to finalize the sequencing of which tracks will be on what side of which EP.  

So you guessed it!  It's been a lot of data entry and spreadsheets in the studio today!  Apologies for the low res picture of the screen, which I'm realizing you're also now looking at through a screen...

When you send your vinyl off for production, you need to specify the start/end times of each track and also make any notes about special cutting instructions for their engineer, like where to put in locked grooves. 

A locked groove, for those of you who don't know, is when they turn off the motor on the cutter head so it will cut one cycle on the record as a perfect circle.  The groove is then "locked" and will play continuously forever.  All records have locked grooves of silence at the end of each side.  But you can also make locked grooves with audio in them!

It's funny after many many many months of working on this music that it all ends up being these little rectangles on a computer.  LOL.  Below you can see all the tracks for all 4 EPs in one session.  I put them here so I can figure out the correct time for the cue bands.  

There are also some bonus scratch sounds and special short audio tracks to be used with the Creatures of the Late Afternoon board game. 

For the scratch sounds I've sequenced the to start on the bar at 133.333 bpm.  This means each sound will start at the beginning of exactly one rotation of the record. 

I've also lined up the Dig Time and Staring Contest tracks for the game to also start on the bar.  That way, when you have the record, you can just draw a line or put a little sticker to label the start point and it will be easier to cue and scratch in!

133.3333 is the magic number!

Here you can how I've planned the cue gaps for the EPs.  Usually about 3 or 4 rotations of a record.  It's a comfortable amount of time between the audio tracks and hopefully will be easily visible enough for people to cue while they're playing the board game.   

At the end of Side B of each EP there'll be a Staring Contest drone that will stay in an audio locked groove. Mainly because having staring contests to old-timey radio play style drone loops is a fun and ridiculous way to spend time with your friends after quarantine! 

So anyway...  Hopefully all of these little rectangles will soon grow to be a screen-free experience in the form of analog squares and circles... taking their intended shape as  artwork sleeves, vinyl records and board games!  Can't wait for you all to hear/play them!   

Doh! Corinne just reminded me I'm late with updating the store coupon code for this month. So.... The June coupon code is "PrepareToStare" and is open to all patron tiers for the rest of the month!  Go have a mosey around the shop if you need to get a bizarre gift for someone! 

Take care everyone!  and thank you all for being here!

E