Lots of things have been going on and admittedly we have been a bit lazy about keeping the blog up to date, opting to use Facebook and, to a lesser extent, Twitter. Those things are great but they are still like drinking through a fire-hose. So I thought it was time for consolidation and cohesion with an update on all things Victim Cache.
First up, Kickstarter! Currently we are waiting for Aardvark Record Mastering to cut a reference lacquer and send that to us so we can give it a good listen before moving forward with the final record master and electroplating. Most other things are waiting on this, but we can go ahead and work on the label design while this is going on. Aardvark’s turn-around time can be two weeks or so to cut a lacquer. It may be a bit longer for us since we are having them master from our high quality digital masters and that requires an extra step. The wait will be worth it, though! I would much rather they take their time and produce the best master they can!
Though we are incredibly excited about our 7″ single, we have been working hard towards live shows. It is hard to put a timetable on things since there is still much to do, but we do have a set-list put together for our first round of shows and are hard at work with both original songs (that will appear on our next album) and covers. The idea is to start doing shows while we work on our next album and, in fact, we will be playing most (if not all) of the album live before we make a studio version. We wanted to do this for a few reasons.
For one, we received a huge amount of feedback that our fans want live shows. We do too! For two, it is a way for us to get used to playing the songs well. Our next album will involve a fair bit of open mic recording and playing the songs well means we can focus more on mic setup and mixing than having to keep doing takes. We also think it will make the results sound a lot more fluid.
We still want to give folks an opportunity to have a copy of our music so to appease though that prefer albums over shows, we plan to offer up recordings of all our shows to our fans. The catch? We will only offer those recordings to the folks that showed up. We will probably end up taking a really good show and turning it into a live album for everyone since we know not everyone (in fact a big majority of our fans) cannot make it in person. So what will it sound like? Well, that is something we are keeping secret until we finish at least one of our songs. We did agree that if our Kickstarter project had funded that we would release a song off our new album, and we will plan on doing that.
As far as the logistics go when it comes to small shows, we are mostly there with some odds and ends. One thing we don’t want to rely on is a computer. Right now software (Ableton Live) is being used for MIDI sync, MIDI routing, effect processing, and recording. The MIDI stuff we want to move out to an MBSEQ which will also handle patch changes for the synths that need it. Live will still handle our send effects but those effects can be controlled via MBSEQ at least for the near future. If Live crashes, the show can still go on. The plan is to house the MBSEQ, as well as rackmount versions of our synths and GameBoy interfaces, in a live rack of sorts. Right now, we have a ton of small modules (some without even an enclosure) that we have to carry around and that’s not going to work out well for lives shows. As a result, the live rack is something we’re focusing around when it comes to hardware that we need.
This is a bit from left-field but for recording, we want to eventually record at least the mixdown to tape. The reel to reel kind. Why? It sounds good! But it also means that, if we ever release that show on an analog medium (such as a record), we can say it was recorded 100% on vinyl. How awesome would that be!? Apart from that, there are some other nice to haves that we won’t have at the onset (such as wireless monitors – those things are expensive) but we can likely get by for a while with what we have.
So when will we have our first show? The most hopeful estimate is 3 months, but I suspect it will be at least 6 or more in practice. But we will see! We are getting close to finalizing the songs for our first set-list which means we can start working on some of the odds and ends and other show content. After that it is a matter of getting some of the hardware we need and we will be good to go! Know of a venue that might like to have us? Do let us know!
So there you go! That is a whirlwind update over the last few months of Victim Cache. Sorry for the delay in keeping things updated! It just means we have been busy hammering things out! We can’t wait for our 7″ and live shows and I assume neither can our fans! For the moment, though, thanks for your patience while we work on things! If you want to help support us, don’t forget you can buy the digital version of our last album, Chipsurf Pipeline, on our Bandcamp as well as all the usual suspects (iTunes, Spotify, etc.).
If you read this whole thing I can only assume you’re a pretty hardcore fan. So thanks for that and supporting us!