If my career as a ceegar chomping record mogul has taught me about myself, it's you suck at releasing stuff. Releasing stuff is scary. It means it's out there… it means criticism… it means possible rejection… possibly glory (well, in the early days there was some of that, honest!)… I love having something to release, but it terrifies me to release it. And once it's released, I'm a bit scared of publicising it. What if someone doesn't like it? What if they see through me like a cheap Amiga Mod? I'm lacking that killer instinct to say to the world here's my stuff, and it's the best thing ever since sliced bread, and even then sliced bread would have to get up pretty damn early in the morning to beat madfiddler in the middle of Spellbound. It's even scarier when people say something you hope they'd never say, and scarier still when you actually like them!! So, we've established. Releasing stuff is scary. Here's the process my tracks or CDs have often gone through: Hardly there: a proof of concept. You can hear what it's going to turn into in your head, but no one else will be able to. You don't bother even playing it to people. Shameful Your track is full of placeholders and none of them are releasable. You would be ashamed if anyone heard this, because you know people would think you suck. First beta test You know it's got flaws, but you're hoping the people will go oooh, it's great, it's the best thing since Instant Remedy. What they actually say is what's that whining sound. You're disappointed, but you were kind of expecting it. The second beta You're all excited about it. You couldn't have believed when you started that you could add so much stuff since the first beta. But you're afraid that you've lost the feel of the first beta, and afraid that people will still think it sucks. You send it to a few more people than the first beta, and receive about 100 conflicting opinions, most of which are either stuff you already knew about, or completely worthless. You wouldn't be too ashamed if it got out, but you know there's flaws you need to fix. You're desperately hoping no one mentions them, since they're difficult! Release candidate You know it hasn't got any mastering on it, but you're pretty sure that it's a good thing. You send it to even more people, and inexplicably no one comments. That's either very good or very bad. Very good if they've got no criticisms, and very bad if they just don't know where to start and are embarrassed to look you in the eye ever again. First flawed release You're about to release it in about five seconds, and then a beta tester from the first beta test points out a flaw so blindingly obvious that (a) you're amazed no one's spotted it before, and (b) you feel like throwing yourself off tall buildings. Emergency Release You fix the first flawed release, but you use the wrong mastering preset and need to do it all again. the actual release It's probably still got loads of things wrong, and you'll be ashamed of it in a year or so, but for now you're fed up of the damn thing. The release You fix the bugs a year later, but then no one's interested any more because they're all used to the bugged version. The mutated release You're fed up with the old version since you've come on as a musician since then. You do a mutated version which is musically a lot cooler. No one notices! 😊 Anyway, that got a bit more personal than I thought it would, but hey, this is my editorial, and hardly anyone notices that either 😊 Cya, fans of boredom and Honorabili (hey, I thought I'd test if he's reading this - hi H, if you're reading).

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