Recording
The album was originally recorded between January and April 2013 at Energy Plant in Chico, California. This was Scott’s first outing at a recording studio. I should probably mention that Scott is blind and lost his sight early in life. The only real challenge that this brought was in keeping his position in front of the microphones consistent between takes. The initial scope of the project was to record and mix the songs in their current state so that Scott had a product to preserve, promote, and sell his music. There were moments where songs were rewritten and rerecorded since it was the first time that Scott had been able to critique his work.
Mixing and Production
I started the principal mixing not too long after we had passed the halfway mark and quickly found it hard to resist adding production elements to some of the songs. The first song that I did this with was “Blank Brick Wall” where I added string elements that added to the tone and theme of the songs. From there on I started recording bass guitar for some of the others songs.
In July 2013 I moved to the UK in order to apply for my US work visa, a process that placed a significant dampener on this project’s progress. Work resumed in early 2014 after I had settled in and acquired new equipment and mixing setup. Prior to that I had a chance to try out a couple of ideas that I approached Scott with. The most prominent example is the additional production on “Listen”.
The middle of the Summer saw the first round of mixes approved and set a date for final payment and delivery in August. The album would be summed to stereo and mastered at Energy Plant by Matt Franklin. During this time I had just completed mixing a large batch of Energy Plant’s Artist Recitals. These are small acoustic performances that are held at the studio. My experiences with mixing these album were definitely something I wanted to reflect back on to this album.
The first week of September saw the final changes to the album being completer. This was mainly a few small level edits and adding the ambient atmosphere sounds to the first and last tracks. I should note that by this point I had developed a reliable work flow for a telecommute form of sound engineering from the work I did with Furlough Fridays on their EP and album. All that was left was to upload the album to Energy Plant’s server for mastering
Album Name and Art Work
It was time to ask Scott the inevitable question. What do you plan on naming this album? I was glad when Scott immediately replied with “Cryptfiend”. The name fits if you’re familiar with the album’s lyrical content. The next consideration to be made was what the album cover should look like. The answer to that question will come soon enough. Cryptfiend will be available via Bandcamp on October 30th 2014.