Introduction
Things are moving along quite nicely at CerebralAudio lately. And this week we have updates on:
- The latest Cousin Silas release,
- The Into The Rift Anthology,
- The CerebralAudio YouTube Channel and SoundShiva catalog,
- CerebralAudio website improvements,
- A few other notable items.
Latest Release: Cousin Silas: The Sky Road
Yup, the latest CerebralAudio release from Cousin Silas is available: The Sky Road. Released on May 30th, The Sky Road is an expansive release that takes the listener on a floating, dark, sparsely instrumented sound voyage into the unknown. This release is already getting positive feedback from reviewers, like Kai Nobuko of Yeah I Know It Sucks. And, this past week the tracks The Sky Road, Things Change, and Storm Force made it into the Top Ten Ambient tracks on HearThis.at.
In addition to the normal FLAC, OggVorbis and MP3 releases available from CerebralAudio, I've added a new format with this release: video. You can download an H264 encoded version of this release along with any of the audio-only versions of this release. Get your copy today from the improved CerebralAudio website.
Improved CerebralAudio Website
I was asked recently why I had started CerebralAudio on my own website, instead of hosting it on BandCamp or one of the alternate available platforms. I explained that there were several reasons that I didn't use one of the alternatives (however, I won't bored you with that long winded explanation). During the conversation, I did recognize that there were several items that needed improvement on the site. Well, since that conversation I have addressed several of them:
First: All items are now 100 percent Name Your Price. The default amount is $0.00 USD, but you can donate any amount you would like. Please remember the donations go to the artist.
Second: we now have Bitcoin and Litecoin payment methods available. When you go to check out you will be offered the opportunity to pay in USD or Bitcoin/Litecoin.
Third the shopping cart layout has been fixed. When you add an item to the cart it is displayed in a much more readable format than before. And, the shopping cart will display on all pages. As well as being on the top and bottom of the index of releases.
Finally: I've cleaned up a few miscellaneous items, turned off a few things that were not formatting correctly, and disabled a couple of items that simply just didn't work. The overall result is the layout is a lot cleaner, and it should be a bit easier to navigate through the release pages.
Check out the improved CerebralAudio Website today!
New: YouTube and Soundshiva
You might have guessed with the addition of video download with the latest Cousin Silas release, there might have been a bigger reason for it. And, you would be correct: CerebralAudio now has a YouTube channel! Currently the YouTube channel has videos for all of the CerebralAudio releases. These videos are arranged into playlists so you can listen to the whole release from start to finish, or select specific tracks to add to your own playlists.
Now, while it is cool having all of the CerebralAudio music available to stream from YouTube, there are further plans for the channel. I am working on adding exclusive new material that will be available only through the YouTube channel in the future. More information on that as the plans start coming together (which I am working on now).
Subscribe to the CerebralAudio YouTube Channel to get automatic updates when new content is uploaded.
Also, in addition to all of the CerebralAudio releases being available on YouTube, you can now find all the releases on Soundshiva. Alls of the releases are available to download in FLAC, Ogg and MP3 formats. You can listen to them, and leave comments on the releases on this site. The downloads are exactly the same as the versions available through the CerebralAudio website.
Into The Rift Anthology
The submissions for Into The Rift are still being accepted. Currently we have sixteen submissions for the anthology, totaling close to two hours of audio. Works range from ambient to IDM to audio collage and many other styles. (In fact, I believe at this point that there are no two tracks that are in the same style). I am extremely excited by the submissions as I believe they really showcase precisely the diversity CerebralAudio seeks to achieve,
If you, or someone you know, are planning to submit a work for Into The Rift, the deadline is rapidly approaching. Please get in touch with us soon.
In Closing
There are a lot of little things that have been going on, or will be coming up soon in addition to all the major items I've talked about above. One example is the changed to the Twitter streams. Someone pointed out to me recently that it was a bit confusing knowing which was which (mostly due to a conflict between the channel handles and the channel titles). This has been resolved, the channels are now labelled:
And, of course, on Facebook this confusion should not have occurred as the pages are more clearly labelled:
But while I was taking the time to clean up the names on the Twitter streams, I took the time to clean up the logos and artwork and make it consistent across the sites.
Of course, ello just has the one account for now.
Another item that I dropped a hint about while I was cleaning up some of the profiles: CerebralMix will be coming back "soon". How soon? I don't know yet, let's say that part of it's return is going to be worked on along side the new content for the CerebralAudio YouTube channel. That's probably the biggest hint I can give at this time. There is one more thing I will hint at: be ready to see some new articles on The CerebralRift itself, possibly some reviews, but hopefully some additional content that will be more essay / commentary and possibly even a tutorial or two.
So, that will wrap things up for this newsletter. Check out the Cousin Silas release and the improved CerebralAudio website, check out and subscribe to the YouTube channel for new content. And, we are getting close to the final call for submissions for Into The Rift, so if you or anyone you know is interested, get in contact with us today!
