All quiet on the southern front...

It's been quiet on here, sorry about that. But stuff is happening. Slowly.
Things have been a bit difficult on the non-music front recently but hopefully they'll be settling down over the next couple of months.
But we've still been practising, sporadically, as a band, and we've got a cracking gig on Friday night (tickets here: https://www.seetickets.com/event/dan-webster-band/the-crescent/1291379?fbclid=IwAR0IoqXk3Q3ICWBY5fE2MAsm74ex1r9Sp_wohyUI2-DgRrKdWJefWEhHgys) and I'm about 90% there on the next solo EP.

Shall I give you a spoiler? Why not, it's going to be called, "The Dead Detectives Club."

Band on a budget - the recording process part 23

Ok, you might reasonably have thought that the last blog would be the end of the series, and it could have been, but this afternoon I made this:

Band on a budget - the recording process part 22

Well, here we are then, the EP:

About 13.5 months from start to finish.
It's been educational...
Not bad for a total budget of £50.

More seriously, I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out but I've had a lot of help along the way, for which I am hugely grateful.

Band on a budget - the recording process part 21

Been quiet from me again recently, mostly because there's not been a great deal to say. Lots of listening and tweaking for the most part but we have added some additional percussion parts to the tracks and also had a listen through to see where there were things we could strip out.
I'm pretty certain a decent producer would do more of the latter but having been so close to this stuff for so long it's hard to have any kind of objectivity.
Anyway, last weekend I spent a few hours mastering the tracks. Mixing and mastering the material isn't a recommended approach but we're a bunch of cheapskates and couldn't afford a proper mastering engineer. So I fired up some reference tracks, massaged some levels, and lo I was happy with the sounds.
Then I listened to them over the week, compared them to some more modern stuff, and lo I was not happy.
Fundamentally the low end wasn't there compared to the reference material (it would have been fine in the 80s!), I'd overdone the brightness slightly, and I also identified some issues in the individual mixes that somehow I'd missed over the last year.
So today I am mastering again. Multi-band compressor acting below 100Hz to give a bit of that modern bass response, reduced the high-shelf EQ by half a dB, and then some mix fixes on specific issues within the tracks.
I'm not going to be sharing any links this time I'm afraid, because hopefully the next time you'll hear these will be as the finished article.

Gigs! Gigs! Get your gigs here!

A number of you have asked about what gigs we've got coming up (no really, literally more than one has asked!), so here's the current plan:

18 August - The Barbican, York. B-Fest, opening the afternoon session. Beer and music, what's not to like? http://www.yorkbarbican.co.uk/whats-on/b-fest-18/

8 September - Norton Indoor Bowling Club, Malton. Malton/Norton Charity Musicfest. Solo set from Drew. Bit of bass work supporting this charity event.

26 September - Can't tell you yet, it's a secret, Central York. Whole band set @6pm. Make it your business to be in town.

TBC - The Mended Drum, Huby. A full evening with The Southern Wild, who could say no? https://www.themendeddrum.com/

2 December - The Winning Post, York. Full band set with Dan Webster. More details nearer the time. http://winningpostyork.co.uk/