REFRACTIONS - Released to Backers + Backer-Exclusive Content
Hi everyone!
Refractions is here!
Have you ever felt lost, broken, or rejected? Our latest album reaches back into the past to find old, forgotten, and "broken" songs to pol...
1
0
6
The Black Piper
about 1 month ago
REFRACTIONS: Tomorrow!
Hi everyone!
Exciting news regarding ....
Refractions Mastering is complete, and we are putting some finishing touches on a (digital) companion booklet we'll be sending out ...
0
0
0
The Black Piper
3 months ago
REFRACTIONS: Off to Mastering
Hi everyone,
REFRACTIONS NEWS
Guess what??? FINALLY after more than a year of preparation, Refractions is now off to the mastering engineer! Oh my, we are SO STOKED!
The att...
0
0
1
The Black Piper
4 months ago
REFRACTIONS - Progress/Timeline Update
Hi everyone,
Just dropping in to let you know that we've posted a new update, re: Refractions here. I realized that the last update only allowed comments from backers of the Ta...
0
0
0
The Black Piper
5 months ago
REFRACTIONS - Progress/Timeline
Hello everyone,
I just realized that we've updated the Tales of the Black Piper campaign with news regarding the Refractions album, but we haven't posted anything to this campa...
2
0
0
The Black Piper
about 1 year ago
THE BLACK PRISM - CDs are in!
Hello all,
I hope all is well!
Great news! CDs are in!
We're preparing the packages (signing CDs, etc) as we speak. These will all be going out in the next couple of da...
Have you ever felt lost, broken, or rejected? Our latest album reaches back into the past to find old, forgotten, and "broken" songs to polish them up and make them "beautiful". The work spans over a decade of effort.
After more than a year of polishing and updating, this "small" project has grown into something massive, with efforts from more than 80 people (it may be closer to 100) world-wide, and it includes the incomparable talents of such performers as:
Judy Kang (resident cellist for Celine Dion) Stroma FilmWorks (New Zealand orchestra comprised of performers from prestigious groups such as the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra) Olivia Foa'i (singer on Disney's Moana) ... and many others
REFRACTIONS cover
Backer-Exclusive Content
Because this album is meant to show you our rough edges, we have included a special look-behind-the-curtain. As an additional download for Refractions backers only, we are sending you Refractions Origins, a collection of the "original" tracks from which Refractions was born - the broken tracks (as many of them as we are able to share.) Some of these are snippets; many are unmixed reference tracks sent to creative directors during the process.
For those who haven't pledged for a copy of Refractions, but would like to, we've re-opened the "pre-order" store. Simply head to the campaign page (https://talesoftheblackpiper.com), click "Pre-Order Now!", find Refractions in the list, add to cart, and place your order.
Refractions Wider Release
We don't have a date yet for a wider release of Refractions. We are currently targeting May 2024, but we have a few things to work out first before fully committing to a date.
We also don't yet have any details on which, if any, platforms we will release it on. We will have it available for sale (at a higher price) on our website - at which point the "pre-order store" will be closed again. but beyond that stay tuned for updates.
Digital Downloads(important info for backers!)
Refractions has been broken up into several zip files. If you have ordered Refractions, you should get an email that directs you how to access your content and how to open the multipart zip files provided. (There are 5 zip files for the Refractions WAV format and 3 zip files for RefractionsOrigins.)
If you cannot find the instructions or have any trouble with the downloads - let us know!
As always, let us know if you have any comments or questions or just want to share some love!
All the best, Michael & The Team @ The Black Piper
Refractions Mastering is complete, and we are putting some finishing touches on a (digital) companion booklet we'll be sending out to Refractions backers along with the music.
I know that this "little" project has taken more than a year to complete, but I didn't realize just how big it was until I saw the credits sheet. I mean, by big-budget Hollywood standards, it's not quite blockbuster size, but it's still pretty big! We've counted over 80 people who've been involved!
Also, take a look at all these featured performers 😍!
REFRACTIONS Credits
Some great folks on there! Like:
Judy Kang (who has served as Celine Dion's resident cellist)
Sandy Cameron (who has done some great work for Danny Elfman)
the Stroma FilmWorks orchestra in New Zealand (which is made up of people from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra - which recorded music for such films as Lord of the Rings), and many others!
We are waiting on a few assets to come in to plug them into the companion booklet before finalizing it, so it may end up being Wednesday before we send things out, but if everything comes in today as promised and we can get everything proofed, you should have it tomorrow, Tuesday, 26 March!
Yay!
As always, let us know if you have any comments or questions.
Guess what??? FINALLY after more than a year of preparation, Refractions is now off to the mastering engineer! Oh my, we are SO STOKED!
What a year+ of effort looks like in spreadsheet form
The attentive reader will notice that there are some blank checkmarks above. That's because the mastering engineer will also be mixing those tracks.
You'll also notice that there are 25 total tracks. Yeah, we kind of snuck a few in there we didn't originally plan on. Sorry about that....
Timeline
The mastering engineer will be looking things over today and giving me an estimate on timeline, but it really isn't that much farther to go!! I might guess 2 weeks, but he does work fast. We'll let you know, though.
Notes
Whew - I just have to say - this album has taken so much more effort than we thought it would. A lot of sleep sacrificed, but, you know, I think it's so worth it in the end for the art. (We hope you'll agree once we get this thing into your hands!)
Now, just have to settle on a cover...
Streaming
One note about streaming: once the music and cover are done, we'll send the tracks out to all those who paid for Refractions (which you'll recall was an add-on to the campaign.) We are looking to put the album up on streaming platforms and put it up for sale, but that might not happen for a few months. So, those who helped fund this album will get to enjoy it for a few months before the public release.
We hope you'll all be ready to help us hype it when it drops!!
Ramping Up On the Next Thing
#excited!
With all of that completed, we can now focus our attentions on our next project, Tales of The Black Piper,while we await the mastering engineer. Tales, for those who haven't been following that news, is essentially complete, with regards to the stories. We'll be heading into writing music for it full-steam!
Well, that's it for now. We'll keep you updated with more soon!
All the best, Michael & The Team @ The Black Piper
Just dropping in to let you know that we've posted a new update, re: Refractionshere. I realized that the last update only allowed comments from backers of the Tales project, so I've rectified that in this update, in case you are interested in commenting.
In short, we had some slowdowns due to sicknesses in December, but we've made significant progress and are nearing the end!
Thank you all for your patience as we wrap up what we feel is a meaningful project.
All the best, Michael & The Team @ The Black Piper
I just realized that we've updated the Tales of the Black Piper campaign with news regarding the Refractions album, but we haven't posted anything to this campaign. I sincerely apologize! Let me rectify that.
Rather than reiterating everything here, since I know there are folks who are subscribed to both campaigns, I'll just post a link for everyone else or who may not have seen it yet:
We're preparing the packages (signing CDs, etc) as we speak. These will all be going out in the next couple of days.
Due to a massive spike in costs, the liner notes on the physical albums is very simple. So, we'll be sending out (through BackerKit) a digital liner notes. Keep an eye out for both the CD and the PDF.
Tales of The Black Piper CAMPAIGN
In one of our recent updates, we put out a call for authors, and we've been getting a good response! The campaign launches in just over a week, and we're currently at 64% funded. So, be excited!
We'll be sending out a few messages this week preparing you for what's to come - highlighting rewards and other good things. So, keep an eye out for that.
And if you're an author and would like a link to the page early to get familiarized and get your pledge in, let me know!
All the best, Michael & The Team @ The Black Piper.
I hope you're all well! I have a few bits of exciting news for you!
The Black Prism - Digital Release
Before I jump into the CDs and Tales, I want to mention that The Black Prism | Lightbringer Album 1 has released today! If any of you feel so inclined, we'd love for you to go have a listen on your favorite platform to help the album gain visibility, and leave the album an honest review! That would be extremely appreciated!
The Black Prism - CDs
Great news! I just received word today that the CDs have been completed by the manufacturer and are now being shipped. We should have them next week, and we will get to work signing and shipping them out to you as soon as we get them!
So, keep an eye on your mailbox!
Tales of The Black Piper - Early Access for Writers
And for more exciting news: we have finished the campaign page for Tales of The Black Piper, and we are giving it some finishing touches. While we're planning on launching publicly in March, BackerKit is allowing us to open up early access to the campaign to writers. We want to make sure that you are able to check out the campaign and secure your position, and we also want to give you time to prepare your friends, family, fans, and acquaintances for the big day.
For those who are interested and/or planning to join as a writer - please send me a message, either via email or social media (Facebook messenger via The Black Piper, Discord DM, etc.), and I'll get you access!
I hope all is well with you. We have a few updates for you.
Refractions
Thank you to everyone who took part in the survey from last time. The response was overwhelmingly in favor of...
20 tracks!
A few people marked 18 and a few marked 16. Then again, a few other people elected to use the freeform response to let us know that 40 was an acceptable number.
So, with 86.84% of you interested in 20+ tracks, it looks like that's what we're doing! (Well, the 20 part. Not sure on the "+", yet.) This means we're likely looking at delivery sometime around June.
Physical Black Prism CDs
Everything with regards to the album and liner notes has all been approved by the Weeks team. This means that physical Black Prism CDs are now being manufactured. The manufacturer (Discmakers) gave us the following info:
Estimated Arrival Date: Feb 10 - 20 (in our warehouse)
We'll keep you updated both of any changes and of when the albums arrive.
Status of All the Things (in one spot)
OK, so just to see everything at a glance (and because I'm visual), here is the list of where we are with everything:
The Black Prism digital copy: ✓ delivered The Black Prism physical copy: arriving in the warehouse Feb 10 - Feb 20, 2023 The Black Prism wider release: see below Reflections digital copy: ✓ delivered, mostly* Refractions digital copy: estimated June 2023 The Black Prism artwork: estimated end of February 2023 (though we may send this out in two parts, with part 1 sooner) Tales of The Black Piper: campaign prep is in full swing. More info soon!
* Refractions: we do have a bonus track we'll be sending out in the next little bit. One additional backer/patron granted us permission to include it, so keep an eye out for that.
The Black Prism wider release: We just signed a distribution deal with Symphonic as our distributor, which is something that we're excited about for a few reasons:
The first is that they actively promote their catalogues. This is something we haven't done a whole lot of - leaving this mostly up to word of mouth. (We've focused most of our resources on the work, and haven't been able to promote as much as we'd love to.) This is why it's incredible that we currently have 24k+ monthly listeners on Spotify! Still, what would things look like if we had active promotion? Definitely a question we want to get answered.
Second, and much more importantly (though you may or may not find it interesting), Symphonic has a revenue sharing model that will allow us to easily "split share" with our composers and other parties. This will make the capturing of funds, royalty distribution, and reporting 100% automatic for our collaborators. With all that we have to tackle, both on this and upcoming projects, the more automation we can take advantage of, the better! And also, if things with Symphonic work well on this release, we'll likely be looking to move our other releases over, so we can take advantage of what they have to offer.
So, anyway, what does all this "wider release" stuff mean for our fans? Well, simply put, it means that The Black Prism will be showing up on Spotify, Apple Music, and everywhere else very soon - both for streaming and purchase. My guess is that we should start seeing it on a few platforms sometime in February. So, be ready to share with everyone you know!
We're also debating a wider Reflections/Refractions release, though we haven't had much feedback on Reflections yet, so we're still noodling on whether to roll out as well.
Well, I wanted to keep that brief, but... that's all for now.
As always, thank you for everything, and let us know of any thoughts or questions or comments you might have!
All the best, Michael & The Team @ The Black Piper
I hope you are all doing well and that you had great holidays!
I wanted to send you a quick update, now that we're back in the swing of things over here.
The Black Prism - Physical CDs
We are working with Brent's team to finalize the liner notes. We just received some direction from them today on our previous version of the notes, and we should have a new version back to them for review tonight or tomorrow.
Once we get their approval on that, we'll send all the materials to the manufacturer, and from there it should be just a couple of weeks before we are sending them out to you.
Refractions
This album is coming along, and we're really excited about where it's headed. There will be some energetic, fun, moving, and a few epic tracks on this album. Given the nature of the project, it's going to be a rather eclectic collection, with things like heist music, electronic, gypsy, and quirky piano jazz just to name a few.
It's a bit more intensive to prepare than Reflections was, as Reflections had a lot of the legwork already done. As we're digging into the material, we're finding that so many of the Refractions tracks need some serious updating/overhaul.
Here's our current state: Finalized Tracks: 4 (with 1 more in the final stages) Tracks to Arrange: 2, possibly 3 (or more, see below) Tracks to Mix: this depends (see below)
Refractions - Timing
So, the question about total tracks and how many we have left to arrange/mix is an interesting one.
When we put together our potential track list for this, we had a lot of songs. Some of that was easy to whittle down - some songs are tied up in rights, some were songs whose original files we don't have access to anymore, and some songs would only be redeemable with a lot of rework (far more than the songs that made the list.)
But even after that, we still have enough tracks to put together 2 or 3 volumes of 12 to 20 tracks each. The trick here is that so many of the tracks need so much love. So, the question about total tracks comes down to: would you rather wait longer and receive more tracks, or get a nice 12-track album sooner (possibly as soon as the end of the month)?
If I were to estimate, this is what I think the delivery timing would look like, given where we are and what we are looking at:
8-track album: next week 12-track album: January/February 2023 16-track album: March 2023 18-track album: April/May 2023 (these two additional tracks will take a little bit, as they are full-blown rework/arrangements.) 20-track album: June 2023 (same story for these two, with one of them needing some extra recording.)
Here's where you come in. We could make a decision. (Well, it's tough, because I love a lot of these tracks, and if it were up to me, I'd be happy to spend the rest of the year polishing and getting you a 40-track album....) But your opinion is important to us. Would you rather get fewer tracks sooner, more tracks later, or some kind of in-between?
Were you all able to receive your copy of Reflections (those who ordered it)? If not, let us know! Also, we'd love to hear what you think of the album and the stories that went with each song.
Tales of The Black Piper
We have a few active queries out to some potential veteran authors with a few promising options we are really hoping work out. (I'm itching to tell you all about it!) Waiting for final answer (and contracts) will potentially place the campaign in March, but it will be worth it if we can secure their participation. In the meantime, we are making good progress on the preparation, and we are extremely excited to get started!
Well, I think that's everything! Looking forward to any thoughts, questions, and feedback you all have about all the above, and I hope you have a lovely week!
All the best, Michael & The Team @ The Black Piper
I hope you are all well, and Happy Holidays for those who are celebrating this week.
I thought it was time for a few updates / status check-in on The Black Prism, Reflections, Refractions, and Tales of The Black Piper.
The Black Prism
Digital Delivery As most of you are aware, we sent out the digital album earlier this month. It was a pretty fast turnaround, but our team sure put their hearts into making it happen - and we truly hope that you're happy with the final product.
If you haven't received your copy, please let me know ASAP, and we'll get things taken care of.
If you have, we'd love to hear what you think of the music on this one! Each project is unique, and while the feedback we've received so far has been positive, we'd love to hear where we landed, what you loved, and where there is room for improvement.
Physical CDs We've wrapped up the design for the booklets on these, and are putting together PDFs to send to Brent's team for review. Once we get the thumbs up from them, we'll send the designs, together with the album, to the manufacturer for CD duplication. If all goes well here, we will be on track to send out the physical CDs in January!
Artwork The artwork for the wallpapers is nearly prepped. We'll send this out to you soon. We have some artwork for the bookmarks, and are working with our illustrator on the remaining pieces. We don't have a solid ETA on this one yet, but we'll make sure to keep you apprised.
Reflections / Refractions
While the music has been written for these two albums, there is a fair bit of work to go into the preparation side on them, including mix improvements. We're currently looking at releasing them in mid-January-ish, though I'll certainly be giving sneak peaks on our Discord from time to time as we work through the list.
Tales of The Black Piper Anthology
Many of you have reached out to me with much anticipation for Tales, and I'm pleased to let you know that campaign prep is well underway. Our intro video is in post production right now, and the page content is being built out, timelines are being worked through, and we're taking lessons we learned from the first BackerKit and making the process as simple and smooth as possible, while making a product that will be as exciting as possible.
After discussion among the team, and considering the holiday season and schedules, we are looking at a possible January campaign - so make sure you have it marked on your calendars, and keep an eye out for the pre-sign-up!
We are looking forward to some great things in the coming months.
Happy Holidays, again, and as always, thank you for everything! Let us know in the comments if you have any questions or to share your excitement.
All the best, Michael & The Team @ The Black Piper
This music is flippin' awesome. Now I feel like I need to go back and re-read the series 😁
Favorite song: "The Green Wight", second favorite is "Let's Go Kill Us a King"
