Now that the album is done, we will be focusing on getting it into as many ears as possible, so if you like it, tell somebody! We’ll be doing some advertising but we’re relying on word of mouth to get this out there.

We’re also still hoping to have at least one track up on the Rock Band Network in the near future (hopefully by the time the store actually launches) so I’ll be working hard on that.

It’s been a long 2 and a half years, but it was worth it!

Why are we bothering with a physical release, you might ask? Mostly because it will feel good to be able to hold something in our hands to prove the 3 years if work were worth it, but also so we’ve got something we can hand around and hopefully build up some interest via word of mouth. Plus it’ll just be awesome to see the great artwork from Miles in print!

So, stay tuned because containment failure is imminent, and don’t forget to keep an eye on our Twitter and Facebook feeds for day to day updates!

You can download below in 320kbps MP3 or use the player to stream it directly.

Hopefully this will get you revved up for the release of the full album, which we will be working hard over the coming weeks to complete. In the meantime, enjoy the song and please pass it along to your friends!

Download:
Doll In The Dust (11.5MB 320kbps MP3)

We also put together a short video with a little bit of background information about Doll In The Dust,  plus the first look at how the song will play in Rock Band!

We start the final mixing this week: Trevor and I will have a listen to what Rob has done thus far, and then we will all decide on changes and additions that need to be made, like backing vocals and effects.

However, keep an eye on this page over the first few days of the new year, as we hope to have a special sneak preview ready to go! Once that is up we will also be trying to drive a bit more traffic through the site to get some anticipation for the album happening, and you may have noticed I’ve made a few design changes to the site to prepare for that. Most notably, I’ve moved the social networking links right up to the top of the page, so make sure to click them and tell all your friends that Containment Failure is imminent!

I’ve had another busy week working away on ‘Containment Failure’. This week I was working through the all-important vocal takes and lead guitar tracks. This firstly involved carefully cross-editing all the chosen vocal takes to make one complete seamless vocal track. Although somewhat tedious I managed to complete this in one day, enabling me to move onto the actual vocal processing. Choosing how, how much and whether or not to even manipulate vocal tracks is known as a bit of a black art to audio engineers and producers. The human voice has a very large dynamic range (volume) and the subtleties of speech and singing fall under the heaviest scrutiny by the human ear. With these sorts of things in mind I proceeded carefully through the vocal performances making the slight adjustments for level, depth and tone that I felt best represent the record. This process took a couple of days to complete and today I was able to move onto the lead guitar tracks. Luckily not too much work was needed here, just some very slight noise reduction and some minor EQ to add a bit of warmth.

With the completion of these tasks the pre-mixing job is very near finished. All that remains is to work through the extra ”misc” guitar parts and to prepare some reverb and atmospheric tracks to add depth and body to the album. I’ll be tackling most of this next week and then hopefully not too long after the lads will be joining me for the FINAL MIXING job !!!!

…Containment integrity is reaching critical, Cascade failure is imminent.

Rob.

I’ve been working very hard on the mix over this past week and things are really starting to take shape. I’ve completed most of the track cleanup and initial processing for the rhythm section. Firstly I focused on the drum kit where the foundation of the rhythm sound comes from. I dedicated a fair amount of attention to the kick drum in particular, though it’s a very solid sound on it’s own I knew it would need a bit of effort to get it to play nicely in the mix. I spent a full three days tweaking the drums, fattening the kick, adding a little shimmer to some cymbals and rounding-out the toms.

After that I turned my attention towards the bass, adjusting the tone and dynamics for definition and a good solid low-end. The bass didn’t give me too much trouble and I was able to move on to my guitar tracks later that evening. I’ve just now completed a couple of full days work on the rhythm guitars and performed a few test runs of the whole rhythm section playing together. I’m confident and happy to say that we are well on track towards final mixing, though more work lies ahead as I soon turn my focus to the all important (and often most troublesome) main vocal tracks.

Stay tuned for more updates on the mixing and the impending release of ‘Containment Failure’ !!!!

Homebrew vintage goodness

So now I can at last begin the various pre-mixing tasks required for the album. Firstly this involves some track clean-up for noise and levels, followed by capturing some natural reverb for some of the tracks which will help to bring the songs to life.

Stay tuned for more…

So now lets take a look at the official progress of the much anticipated forthcoming Kurodust album ‘Containment Failure’. Vocal tracking (including backup vocals) has been completed and we have handpicked and edited all the favorable takes. It was quite a process in the end but we all certainly had many laughs along the way (mostly from playing-back Ben’s more “entertaining” vocal mistakes made during tracking).

The guys left the house on the final day of vocal tracking at about 2pm. In anticipation of the work to come I went up the street, had a coffee and relaxed for about an hour. With my thoughts all gathered correctly I returned home to begin the task of converting the vocal tracking studio into the mixing studio. About 10 hours later it was starting to come together, but I still had a long way to go.

…there was chaos everywhere…

…I almost fell asleep in a mess of wires and connectors…

By the end of that day most of the stuff was ‘in’, but nothing was properly connected yet. I spent a lot of time during this last week setting everything up ready for the mixing sessions. I’ll be spending some more time this coming week tracking some final guitar parts.. and then on the weekend we’re all off to the beach to drink and have fun.

Confidence is high though, and despite the lengthy wait for ‘Containment Failure’ we are most certainly on the final stretch. Stay tuned for more…
Rob

Although we are definitely focused on finishing the album itself, getting our songs on to the Rock Band Network could be a huge publicity boost for Kurodust, and may end up being the main way we get exposure to new fans, seeing as we don’t really have the capability to go out playing gigs. So, we’re going to try to get 3 tracks up on the network as soon as we can, and we’ll all be working hard over the next month or so to make that happen. Depending on timing and how well the mixing process goes, the tracks might be up on the network before the rest of the album is done, so it’ll be a bit of a sneak peek!

Tonight we’re all heading over to Rob’s to get some backing and ambient vocals done, and that process should finish up on Saturday, at which point Rob can pull apart his recording studio and build his mixing studio for the final push to release! This is a time consuming step, however, so we definitely still have some time to go.

Starting the track 'Tonight Party Tonight'

In the midst of rocking out

On Saturday we completed the selection process for the last of the 10 vocal based songs, but with the 11th song being something of a ”Jazz Oddyssey” we haven’t recorded any vocal based performances for it (yet).  Once we finished the selection process, Ben jumped back into the recording booth and started warming up for some secondary / backing vocal takes (harmonies, different melodies and the like).  For each song, Ben would record two takes, then I had my chance to jump into the recording booth and lay down some of my wacky ideas.  Once Ben and Rob had stopped laughing their collective arses off, we would either continue to the next song or Ben would get another idea or two from something I did and record another take.  By the end of Saturday, we had attempted to do backing vocals on at least 4 tracks.  Only a couple more sessions, and we can start on the “Jazz Oddyssey”

Til next time, this is Trev signing off.

PS. The 11th song isn’t really a “Jazz Oddyssey”, but what we have in store is pretty cool.