Blog News Archive

You knew it wouldn’t be that easy.

So, the plan is to record 15 songs. We’ve finished recording drums for 13 of them. The last two need a bit more “finishing up” than we thought, so we decided to move on to recording bass. In the meantime, we’ll work on the unrecorded songs on our own time instead of trying to figure things out in the studio. There’s plenty of work to do with the 13 song we have, so things will keep moving forward. Unfortunately for the studio journal that means we can’t quite call the drums completed yet.

If you’ve been watching the live stream, we commend you on your patience and willingness to endure less than stellar audio and video quality. We’re working on a new streaming method that should improve things a bit. During the last drum session I thought I had it set up right, but I heard from a bunch of people after the fact that it wasn’t working. Apologies for the non-functioning stream that night. The good news is that we just uploaded a full take of one of the songs we recorded last week. It was “filmed” with a better-than-webcam-quality camera so you can actually see (and hear) what’s going on.

Gods and Profits (Full Length Drum Take)

And in his free time, Mike put together this video and set it free on the information superhighway. Surf on over and check it out. (Or just click play)

Things have been kinda quiet around here studio-journal-wise. A few of our vacations happened to be scheduled right around the same time so we haven’t back in the studio except for a day last week where Rob and I did some drum comping. That’s where we go through all the takes of each song and put together a final master take with the best parts from all the takes.

In the studio comping drums

The good news is we’ll be back in the studio starting tonight and every night thereafter until Wednesday night, at which point we will hopefully be done recording drum tracks. We’ll be streaming live again at Ustream.TV. If you donated $25 or more you should have received an email with instructions on how to view the live stream. If you didn’t get an email about this, please let us know.

To put that in a format that’s a little easier to read, here’s the schedule for this week:

• Monday, August 17 @ 7pm ’til ???
• Tuesday, August 18 @ 7pm ’til ???
• Wednesday, August 19 @ 7pm ’til ???

Even if you didn’t donate at the $25 level, we still have some cool stuff that everyone can check out including a video that Mike put together of the drum sessions so far (DV quality, not from the stream footage) and the recorded versions of past streams.

Here’s Mike’s video:

And here’s the latest recording we have from the live stream. More can be found on our Ustream videos page.

While we were recording drums, Jay set up some cameras and did some really cool time lapse videos of us.

More videos at Sinch TV »

On Saturday June 27 we officially started tracking for our new album.

Equipment was loaded in. A web cam was set up. Drums were tuned and miked. Guitar amps were put into isolation booths so as to not record guitars through the drum mics as that would be counterproductive and would have rendered the drum tracks somewhat useless. With guitar and bass sounds safely being piped through our headphones (so we can all hear what’s going on) we warmed up a bit and started recording.

I didn’t keep exact track of what order we recorded songs in or on what days, but I do know we started with a song that, as of right now, is called Gods and Profits. Or Gods and Prophets. Honestly I hadn’t really thought about it until I had to actually spell it. The first song is always a little weird because I’m still settling into the studio, getting used to the sound in the headphones and the click track (although we had been practicing with a click for a while before going in). But I got through it (obviously) and started banging shit out.

Over that weekend and a few follow up sessions on weekday evenings we got the drums for 11 songs recorded. These are all working titles, and some of them are obviously going to be changed.

• Gods and Profits
• Targets on the Range
• Cause and Effect
• Thizzle
• Over-medication
• One Part Deal
• Easier Said Than Done
• Instructions How to Die
• Pancake Day
• One More Time
• Speaking in Code

Because of some scheduling issues we had to end this session without getting drums for all 15 new songs. Basically that means we had to take down the kit and move all our stuff out of the tracking room, so we’ll have to set it all up again later to get the rest of the songs done. In the meantime, we’re gonna start recording bass for the 10 we do have.

We’ll be coming back in sometime in August for Drum Session #2. The songs we still need are Novelty, Pullest of Tubes, Greenlight, Shine and we may revisit Gods and Profits since it was the first song I did and my playing got better over the course of the session.

Again, we can’t thank everyone enough for helping to make this possible. We’re so excited to be finally getting some stuff recorded and really happy with what we’ve got so far. This is only the beginning.

More photos from the studio »

We can finally confirm the date we’ll start recording the new album: Saturday, June 27

As usual, we’ll be recording the drums first. We’re hoping to get all the drums tracked in the first two days, which is about how long it it took on Clearing the Channel. A good chunk of the first day will be spent setting up, micing the kit and getting the sounds we want. It’s a riveting process that I’m sure you won’t want to miss.

And if you’re one of the lucky fans who donated $25 or more, you’ll have access to a live stream from the studio all weekend long. You’ll be getting an email sometime before that weekend with details on how to access the live stream. And if you’re not one of the lucky ones who donated enough to get access, there’s still plenty of time to get on that list. Just head over to the donations page for more info on how to get involved.

Our first full length album, The Strychnine, is finally available again on CD. But not for very long.

Update (6/16/09): We sold out of these CDs last weekend. Apologies to anyone who didn’t get an order in before they were gone. There’s always the digital version.

We originally only printed 1000 copies and honestly we thought it was out of print a while ago. Then we found a stack of unopened discs somewhere deep in the Sinch archives, where even the bravest of men rarely go.

We’ve now made these available in our online store for the entirely reasonable price of $12.99. That’s a little more than what you might be used to paying for a CD these days, but consider this: We only have 15 copies left. And the last time we found a stack of these we sold them for $18.95 so this is kind of a steal.

And if you’re on our mailing list, you’ll be getting an email about this very soon (like tomorrow) with a secret code that will give you $3.00 off, bringing the price down to $9.99. An incredible deal if we do say so ourselves.

If you’re not on the mailing list, get on it. You might still have a chance to grab that code before they sell out.

Since we launched the Help Us Get the New Album Made project earlier this year, we’ve gotten some questions about how the whole thing works and I thought the answers were probably worth posting here, so everyone can see them.

Date: 2/28/09
From: Mike N

I’ve been a since I saw you guys live in West Palm, FL in 2003(?).

I really like the chip-in idea for the new album. How much more do you need?

Mike,

Ok, so we kind of answered this a couple weeks ago. The new target amount we’re going for is $20,000. Maybe we’re shooting too high but I really don’t think so. We have thousands of fans around the world and we’ve gotten past $5,000 with less than 100 donations. I think the real issue we’re facing is getting in touch with all those fans, especially ones who haven’t been visiting the site and aren’t on our mailing list.

It probably goes without saying, but if you know someone like that please send them our way!

Date: 3/6/09
From: Xavier

Hi,

I can made a “gold level” from Spain? i wish i can get all the pluses of this level.

Many Thanks,

Xavi.

P.D. Your music is a part of our lives,

Xavi,

You can absolutely donate at the Gold level from Spain. Or pretty much anywhere else for that matter.

As long as you can send money with PayPal, you can get involved. Even if you don’t have a credit card you can make a payment directly from your bank account with an eCheck. And if all you have is cash… well, I have to wonder what line of work you’re in. But id that’s really the case, let us know and we can probably figure something out.

Date: 3/25/09
Name: Martin J

Hi!

I am a great fan of yours living in Sweden.. I have donated 30 dollars recently and Im planning to donate yet another 100 dollars next month.. I really wish you all luck with the new album and I cant wait until I get to hear the new material.

However, I want to buy some CDs from your official store, as another way of supporting you.

However, Im planning on buying a package-deal. And Only the big one is good enough for the big fans. But I am wondering a few things..

First up, and maybe most important – Can you ship the CDs to Sweden? And also, if I donate another 100 dollar, you wrote that I might get a CD and a T-shirt when its released, Is it possible to send that package to Sweden as well?

And my last question.. I like to have a CD in my hand, and not a digital version. However, there are no info telling if the big package available at your store is Digital or physical.
So my question is – If I buy “The BIG Package – 18.99″ Containing The Strychnine, Diatribe, Project: Bluebird EP and Subdivisions EP… Are those albums sent in physical version to my adress, or is Downloading from your server the only option?

Thank you very much for your help and I wish you all of luck with your future albums.. Keep up the good work and continue make great music!

Best regards // Martin

Martin,

Thanks for emailing us!

I guess I should make it more clear but the package deals in our store are all for the download (mp3) versions. There are links to buy physical CDs in the store, but they aren’t a part of the deals. We actually only have a few more copies of The Strychnine that we’ll be making available soon (it’s currently out of stock), but Diatribe and Project: Bluebird are totally out of print and the Subdivisions EP was never even released on CD. So the downloads are really the only way to get that stuff anyway.

I’m sending the rest of our Strychnine CDs into CDBaby this week. If you want to be notified when they’re available, you can sign up here:

http://www.cdbaby.com/sinch1

As far as the new album goes, yes you can donate at the $100 level and we’ll ship the stuff to Sweden! No problem!

Date: 4/9/09
From: Branden

ok let me get this straight..if i donate 10$ to you ill get a cd tshirt and youll play a local show or accustic at my house even tho i live in Cali ?dude ive loved sinch for years now i found a 3 song E.p in Rasputin records in san leandro Ca for 25cents it happened to have bitmap on it and a unreleased song bitmap became eveything to me [redacted: very personal info] after hearing bitmap 3 days later i was so glad i was alive long enough to have heard it that song changed my life and still has the power to do so as do alot of other sinch songs i dont hear them i feel them ..so if all this is legit shoot me an email and ill send you support funds for the new album ..

peace and thank you for what you have created its saved and changed a life..

Always

Branden

Brendan,

First of all, we’re really glad to hear that our music helped you through a tough time in your life. We’ve all been at those points and for a lot of people (including me) it’s things like music that help the most.

To your original question, unfortunately no, we won’t send you a CD and do an acoustic show at your house if you send us $10. The good news is we have a bunch of cool stuff (including a CD) that can be had in exchange for a donation to the Sinch Needs Some New Shoes (And a New Album) Fund.

We played around with the idea of having one of the rewards be a show at the donors house, but it would be for a lot more than $10. And because the cost of doing the show would vary so much depending on where the person lived, we’d have to make it so much that it would cover any possible case (like doing the show in Australia as opposed to somewhere near where we live) so we kind of scrapped that idea.

But seriously if anyone is interested in making a pretty major donation we can probably make something like this work. You can even invite people, charge them at the door and keep all the money. So potentially you could end up making some (or all) of the donation back. It’s a win for everybody. You really can’t afford not to. Get in touch with any reasonable offer and the details and we’ll see what we can do.

Date: 4/10/09
From: Wallace

I was wondering if, for example, I donated $50 today and $50 in a week. Would I then be eligale for the gold level or would i be double silver?

Wallace,

You can donate multiple times and your donation level will be calculated by your total amount donated. In this case you would be at the Gold level after donating the second time.

First things first: We have pushed back the end date (it was May 5, 2009) from our donation project and added a target amount ($20,000).

We’ve received emails from a lot of people suggesting that we add a target amount, even if it ends up being more than we actually need. Realistically we could spend any amount of money, but I think we’ve come up with a number that (if reached) would allow us to get a great quality recording and still have enough left over to do something really cool and unique with the CD packaging and other rewards that everyone’s getting for donating.

I originally just picked a date that was months in the future, but May 5 had no particular significance. It was really just a random date. We do plan on starting the actual recording soon and can easily get started with the amount that people have pledged already.

It’s been pushed back to Dec 31 only because they force you to choose a date. I guess you can’t let a ChipIn campaign go on indefinitely, not that we would want to anyway.

We’re all really excited to start recording and are incredibly grateful to everyone who’s donated so far. It’s really going to allow us to focus on the music rather than having to worry about where we’re gonna get money from every time we want to use some studio time.

Thanks so much from all of us.

(If anyone has any questions about this please let us know. We already have a few questions we’re gonna answer here on the blog very soon, but feel free get in touch with more. I know it’s a little weird to change the parameters of this thing after people have already donated so we definitely want to know if anyone has concerns about that.)

If the site looks a little strange right now, almost like you’re back in 1993, it’s because we’re participating in CSS Naked Day.

On March 31, we introduced an experimental new home page design here on Sinch.net. After rigorous testing we’ve come to the conclusion that it is simply too awesome for us to keep using it. We’ve returned to the old design for now. Back to the drawing board I guess.

If you missed it, you can still get the full experience here. Be warned: it’s quite possibly the most awesome thing you will ever see.