Author: Astrakan Project

DIY Album

To sell or not to sell ?

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So, yes, things are on their way, which means :

  • all the CDs are now in our hands
  • we’re still waiting for our bank’s authorization to use PayPal so that we can start… well… selling this album !
  • we started to send our album to a couple of journalists that may write reviews about it

The PayPal part is indeed tricky, much more than we would have expected it. As we’re WordPress blog users, technically we shouldn’t be using it for commercial purposes. And technically we won’t really, since in French law, our album is produced by a non profit organisation (called association loi 1901), that we declared to the authorities. The main advantage is that we’re out of the scope of VAT, which makes it makes it more flexible and easy than a company. As long as there’s no financial benefit (and for now we don’t think there would be), we may “sell” some “products” to cover the expenses. Which is… exactly the case.

donate
donate or sell ?

To go back to WordPress and PayPal, they’ll only consider it as a sell. And PayPal “pay” button isn’t compatible with the blog itself. Only a “donation” would be. So… we’re trying to brainstorm and think about something that could easily work… Any idea is welcome…

§ Simone

DIY Album

Album boxes – part 2 ?

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We’re heading to Greece this morning, if you remember, we left half of our brand new albums there, because we thought splitting the boxes would make it easier to enter Turkey. And so far it did. We’ll be there for a couple of days, which will also be an opportunity to relax in this kind of places :

Nea Peramos - Trakia
Nea Peramos – Trakia

We’ll try to find some interesting music, last time we met a very good lyra player. And we’re also preparing a video for the album’s release, we already have a couple of ideas, we need to put them together.

[Simone]

 

DIY Album

In 3-D

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This is what came to my mind this morning, having the CDs on hand makes them real, I’ve seen the graphics on screen for weeks and then… they’re in my hands !

Astrakan Project first album
it is real !

Not all of them, we left a big box in Greece that we’ll get back within a week, but we have enough of them to start promoting. We need some time to prepare the web-site, and open a pay pall account so that anyone will be able to order from… anywhere ! So we’ve thought official release would be on September the 30th, for Full Moon. We’re probably gonna be playing around in Istanbul for the release but for those following us online, here, but also on FaceBook, on YouTube, or on our newsletter we’re thinking about a nice way to lunch the album. And… we have come up with a couple of interesting ideas we’re happy and excited to start sharing with you !

Thank you all, again, Simone & Astrakan Project

DIY Album

At the borders

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If you’re following us on Facebook, you already know we got the CDs from the factory in Germany – we’re really happy, they look great, and it’s a relief, the sound is good, and the visual, oh, well… the colours are really vibrant and shiny, much beter than what we would have expected.

So, we’re on the road to Istanbul, and we had to deal with a couple of unexpected situations regarding custom’ regulations. The sound is not really good, it was really windy this morning, but it should give you an idea of what is going on…

Musicians' Diary

World Music Wednesday: Astrakan Project

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We were very happy to read a review about our music on Incognito’s blog here :

World Music Wednesday: Astrakan Project.

(even if you already know about us, take a few minutes to have a look around this very interesting music blog, there’s quite a couple of unusual and non-main-stream musics to discover there )

Of course, it’s always nice when someone takes time to listen to us, and give feedback. But also, it answered many questions we always wonder about. “Is it a problem if people don’t understand our language ?” “Is our music interesting enough so that it can interest people outside our home country ?” “How do people feel about it ?”

Any thoughts about that ?

DIY Album

We’re heading to Germany !

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For two days now, we’ve been busy finding a new company (remember ?) that could manufacture our Album in Europe, at a decent price. And luckily, we found one in the south of Germany (in English here), everything will be processed at the same place, including cover printing. We got them already a few times on the phone, and it’s really nice for a small release like we are to have such a nice and direct contact.

The funniest part of the story, is that they’ll be able to manufacture it within 10 to 12 days… and that we can claim the album directly at the factory ! Because, by chance, the location happens to be on our way back to Istanbul, which will also save us a little amount of money. And it can be funny experience, isn’t it ?

The other good new then is that we’ll be able to release to album by the 1st of October, much earlier that what we were expecting. But for now… let’s go back the wonderful world of administrative authorisations and paperwork !

DIY Album

Difficult choices

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Yesterday wasn’t our best day. We found out the company we had chosen to press our album was in reality located in China. We only realised it when we asked for the legal info that we have to send to authorities in France (which includes the manufacturing place).

So what ? For many reasons, starting from human rights to social or environmental concerns, we just can’t imagine getting our album made in China. We strongly believe that local production (in our case at least in a close European country) is a way to support our economy, jobs, society… even if it will mean in our case an extra of maybe 10% on the total price.

unemployed 1932 1929
Unemployed – (image source)

So right now… we’re searching again for companies that really do manufacture in Europe. With the best prices possible, of course.

§ Simone

DIY Album

A quick up-date

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Our dead-line to send the album to the factory was August, the 15th… and we’re quite happy as we are realizing we’ll be able to make it on time.

A small tour within what we’ve been busy with lately ? We’re done with anything recording-related, but there’s still some work to be done.

Yann is mainly spending his days mixing and mastering. We bought some (cheap) monitoring speakers, ans luckily our small village in Brittany is far more quite than Istanbul.

home masterizing an album
listening again and again
mastering with Live
mastering with Live

Then we’re regularly making copies to listen to it there and there, in the car, at friends place, on bad and good sound systems – this help us to check out the sound quality, but also to fine-tune arrangements.

album's master
n.3 ? We’re at least at n.5 right now…

While listening, we’re also trying to get the final tracks’ order, and it’s not an easy task. Of course, we do love any of the tunes that we recorded. But we love them for may different reasons. Some of them because of the tune, other might be because of the particular moment we started to play it… Not all these reasons are very “musical” ones. For labelled artists, an artistic director or some professional like that could help or advice. In our case we really need to step back and be as neutral as we can towards our music – but on the other hand we keep control on our work.

which kind of track to open a music album
which will be the first track?

And at the same time, I’m working on the cover, checking the printing margins, colours, contrast, but also the content and spelling. I’m quite happy as all this is also on its way.

editing a music album cover
very colourful, isn’t it?

But as always, fine-tuning may take more time than expected, so… we’re trying to keep focused!