So close, yet so far...

I am waiting... on the final masters for The Queen of Time... and I can't believe how much delay there is between every step of this process. On the bright side, now I know what to expect for the future, and how to better budget and allot time for all the things that need to happen. Making changes on my end of the project (the actual writing, and mixing/production of the songs) causes everything else to take... at least twice as long. Yes, you can technically go back and change things before it's officially released... but realistically those changes ADD UP. And cause huge delays in the project's timeline.

In the grand handing-off that is music production involving multiple engineers, the ability to give the next set of hands a *truly finished* thing is invaluable. Doing absolutely everything you need to do *before* handing off to the next person can save everyone a LOT of time and money. The sooner you realize something needs to be fixed, the better.

That being said, each step actually reveals new things, and that's part of the advantage of working with multiple people. Going blind to your own mix is a common problem in music production, and getting someone else to make changes and listen fresh is really important. Hearing your mix again for the 1st X 1000th time actually allows you to listen fresh, too.

I'm don't regret the path I chose for this album. I think it benefitted a lot from every step that it took to get here. I just wish I (as an artist) were still as excited about the project now as I was 2 years ago when the songs were being written/worked on, daily...

Releasing the thing is going to be difficult for me, too. I've always had a lot of trouble publishing work and declaring it done - but that's a topic for another blog post.

In other news, my adventure to Black Rock City to participated in Burning Man 2023 is less than a month away! It's hard to believe it's actually happening! I've been preoccupied lately with packing and making sure I'm properly prepared for extreme desert heat and dryness. There's a lot to know, and a lot goes in to simply not dying while spending 10 days in the middle of the Nevada desert. My goal was to have the project out well before leaving so I'm not concerned about missing emails and things while I'm away- but that's looking more and more difficult to control at this point 😅