#92keys

[92keyshq]

We are in the final month now of production for our Christmas album! A lot of the songs have gone through their initial round of mixing and they sound so freaking good. Chloe's violin playing is taking 92 Keys to a high industry level which is exciting. We haven't got an exact release date but the idea is somewhere within the 3rd or 4th week of October. This is why we have to submit to our distributor by Sept 6, because they need six weeks to work with us on putting together a playlist marketing package for the various DSPs. I know that probably feels early for a Christmas release but I've looked at quite a few other major artists with Universal and Sony and the bulk of them aim for that time period for their Christmas projects. The thinking is to maximize the time for promotion of the new music, because as soon as January hits, streams/sales will plummet, obviously. So having two full months to hit the ground hard on marketing can pay off rather than releasing during Thanksgiving and only getting about 3-4 weeks. Today my 9th Zen Piano album released, Zen Piano: Majestic. And I just registered my 140th song with the publisher, it's a lot of fun watching that catalog grow. The annoying thing with music publishing is it takes forevvver for things to get processed with all global societies and then to actually start getting reports from the endless list of reporting companies. For example, on May 3, 2018 I registered one of the first songs we did with 92 Keys, Little Star, and I am just barely starting to get various regional statements but only like 4 territories so far...and there are 226 territories total. It's like at least 2 years from the time you register the song to when you start getting complete reports. Crazy. I wish it was faster. Anyways, back to work! #violin #piano #92keys #violinist #pianist #christmas #album #musicvideo https://www.instagram.com/p/B0oM4nyALbH/?igshid=3090qz984e1n

[92keyshq]

Hooray, 92 Keys finally has a profile picture to use on all music streaming services that actually represents that this is a duo group, not just some yahoo with a red piano, lol. We took this pic right before filming a very powerful and dramatic arrangement of Oh Come Emmanuel that I can't wait for everyone to see. Now what we need is a completed Christmas album. The most important part. We finished the bulk of recording a few weeks ago in Utah. Chloé gets the fun of finishing a few more songs in Dallas later next month after her 2nd year of producing the Chloé Trevor Music Academy (@chloetrevor_musicacademy), starting soon! @mickelsenmusic is hard at work finishing comps of all the recordings so that our mixer Michael Greene can make these songs really come to life. Then it's off to mastering with a goal of hitting our submission date of Sept. 6. Coming up fast. It's crazy how early things have to be finished and submitted for a Christmas release. Side note: Mike worked on the sound engineering for one of my favorite games ever, Guild Wars 2. :o So that's poetic for me heh. The sound design in that game is really incredible. Meanwhile, I (Trevor) am back in Boise living the dream and working on backend stuff so that this album can be launched as smoothly as possible. What even is backend stuff? I dunno. It's just stuff, I guess. Also, my Zen Piano albums continue to release every month on the 1st. Next one coming up is Zen Piano: Majestic, out on August 1. It's completely different from 92 Keys music, it's background piano music that people use to study, sleep and whatnot. But if you ever have the need for it, just look up Trevor Loucks on any platform and you'll be golden. Or go here: https://92keys.io/zen-piano Hope everyone is having a great summer. Went camping this last weekend and boy was it nice to go off-grid. Doing it again next month, too, but this one will be a full on backpacking trip. Should honestly probably go every weekend to maintain balance. I love the outdoors and I live in one of the best states in the country for people like that. #violin #piano #christmas #92keys #album https://www.instagram.com/p/B0D8o35gbek/?igshid=1tns26w56if8g

[92keyshq]

Day 6: Final day. 🙂 One of my favorite things in life is being around people who are productive, efficient, and know what they are doing. Essentially, experts. Everyone at Funk Studios, the sound engineers, Shane, Chloé, the session players, the orchestra manager, they all easily fit that description so it’s a strong high to come off of. Now we kind of go back underground to work on the mixing and prepping the project for a Christmas season launch. I imagine at some point later this summer we will decide on a release date. But time to go back to Boise now. Booooo. Oh well, we are already planning the next round of this so it’s time to start writing again. That’s a different kind of fun, just a lot more lonely since it has to be done alone and away from people. Tonight I get to go to @jenniferthomas623’s concert though! Just hanging around SLC until it starts this evening. One more thing, we need to get Shane a 92 Keys shirt lol. #violin #piano #92keys (Funk Studios Utah) https://www.instagram.com/p/BzL5E_qgtL_/?igshid=o8q52s69rme8

[92keyshq]

View this post on Instagram

Day 5: I had so much fun watching the orchestra record today and @mickelsenmusic conducting. The amount of layering going into each song is really amazing. This video only shows part of the string layering, later in the afternoon we recorded the brass and woodwind parts. Percussion elements will be sampled in later as well. Then there is the piano (woo!) to add in and of course the solo violin of @chloetrevor_violin - add it all up and I'm a happy camper. :D Even just the raw sound was great, once it goes through mixing and mastering I won't even know how to describe. #violin #piano #92keys (Funk Studios Utah) https://www.instagram.com/p/BzKUShNgRQV/?igshid=tha24hcl4h6

[92keyshq]

Day 4: Monday is no longer a terrible day, at least not this week. Back at the studio today, Chloe's endurance is quite impressive with nearly 20 hours of practice and recording in the last two days. The performances sounded amazing from my perspective sitting behind producer Shane and the sound engineer. It's a lot of fun watching the experts work. Tomorrow is orchestra day! We got the pros coming in to lay down string and brass sections. Apparently, I'm told when you hire pros like these musicians, the amount of time it takes to track sections is incredibly fast and we will potentially be finishing three songs per hour with the orchestra. :o Crazy. Should have some interesting video clips tomorrow night. #violin #piano #92keys #christmas #album #nametbdsomeoneplzsendhelp (Funk Studios Utah) https://www.instagram.com/p/BzHwQWXArp4/?igshid=1u1gzqkernvj8

[92keyshq]

Day 3: There’s something on the floor. No production work today so here are more pics from yesterday haha. We took A TON of photos in front of the white wall in the hopes that one of them will be suitable as the album cover for this Christmas album. I absolutely love the minimalist feel to it. We'll have to do the social media voting thing like we did last year for Spring of Fire to help settle the right style/pose/design that will be final product. Album covers are so brutally important to get right as the product is distributed by @awal to dozens and dozens of DSPs and other commercial licensing services they work with. Makes all the difference for someone to see it in a split second and decide to hop in for a 5 second audio test drive. But I think we got some good ones! Thanks to @alexa_design_photo for coming out to get those high-quality images. Looking forward to seeing them. Tomorrow we will be back to recording at the studio, primarily working on the bulk of @mickelsenmusic arrangements on the album. We got a epic arrangement of Carol of the Bells on the docket which I'm personally looking forward to the most. And some other songs that would fit perfectly on a Hallmark Christmas movie. I want to put in the leg work to get one of these synced for their 2020 movie lineup, that would be cool. :D #violin #piano #92keys #christmas #album https://www.instagram.com/p/BzFB-rAAtmz/?igshid=17c263s484n0d

[92keyshq]

Day 2: Unreal lighting. These music videos we filmed today are going to a new level for us. Just sad it will still be awhile before they can release for Christmas season. 😟 #violin #piano #92keys #christmas #album (Studio Elevn) https://www.instagram.com/p/BzDDIL9AQiD/?igshid=z5wcxhchpdu4

[92keyshq]

Day 1: Spying on Chloe in the tracking booth. 🔍 First day of our Christmas album production was a success! Chloe landed to Utah on time, my car didn’t die driving down from Boise and Shane got us moving with the first round of recording. The bulk of recording will be next week but was nice to get through a warm-up phase today. This weekend we will film two music vids for the album. So many high energy and dramatic songs on this project, my favorite kind, very excited to hear the rest of Chloe’s violin tracking. And the orchestra on Tuesday! #violin #piano #92keys #album #studio #recording #christmas (Funk Studios Utah) https://www.instagram.com/p/By_93N_AJPU/?igshid=149kixkf7hi9n