Last month I anticipated a big drop in sales, “perhaps by as much as half.” I hate to admit it, but I told me so! May income totaled $315, versus $883 in April. Subtracting out sales from the EP, t-shirts, and download-only exclusives leaves $212 in actual album sales. My latest, The Thought Chapter, sold the best, with a few Depeche Mode tribute sales. The rest were scraps from single track downloads and streams. Something Beautiful, my costly all-acoustic album, didn’t earn a penny. I don’t know that I’ll ever break even on that one!

It’s actually not quite as bad as it looks. I was just shy of the $100 threshold for a CD Baby payment. Perhaps June sales will be slightly better, but if not, I may just start reporting quarterly rather than monthly figures!

That brings the total of physical CDs I’ve sold or otherwise parted with to 5,310. For more details, see my running tally of profit/loss figures for each album.

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I am pleased to announce that the next Color Theory album will be released on August 4, 2010.

Allow me to anticipate your questions:

Do you have a title? No.

How many songs have you completed? None.

Have you even started yet? No.

Have you ever made an album in one year? No.

Then why do you think you can do it now? Because I’ve got a very strong incentive.

As a prize for winning a Lennon Award in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, I received a certificate for 1,000 CDs in digipaks from Disc Makers, which expires on June 30, 2010. I consider that a hard deadline!

You can bet I’ll keep you updated on my progress, every step of the way. I’d like to produce some “studio sessions” videos, but if you want the blow-by-blow details, I suggest you follow me on Twitter and/or add me as a friend on Facebook. Hopefully you’ve already subscribed to either the RSS feed or e-mail updates for colortheory.com.

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The Mosh Pit at thesixtyone.com was a success! After five and a half hours, we finally reached 5,000 listeners. Thanks to everyone who made it happen!

Electro Freaks put together a free compilation in honor of the event, which you can download in a variety of formats, from mp3 to FLAC, here. It’s full of great electronic/dance music, and features my song “Behind the Rhine.”

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thesixtyone is quite simply my favorite music site, both as a listener and and artist. Billing itself as “a music adventure,” t61 is like a massively multiplayer game, complete with reputation points, levels, quests, and achievements. You’ll find Color Theory here. I’m a member of Electro Freaks, a passionate group of electronic/dance fans responsible for organizing TheSixtyOne Mosh Pit on June 1. They’ve assembled a free compilation to promote the event, featuring my Color Theory song “Behind the Rhine.” Hope to see you there!

There’s lots more info and advice on t61 in my latest Passive Promotion article: What artists should know about thesixtyone

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I toyed with the idea of remixing “Peace” for the Depeche Mode Remix Contest, but never quite got around to it. Still, I managed to make a contribution to my friend Doug’s remix. He brightened up the chord progression, but Martin’s backing vocals no longer fit, so he asked me to record two harmony parts. It’s subtle, but you can hear me singing along with Dave Gahan in every chorus. Please take a listen, or better yet, vote for it here.

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I‘m a big fan of eMusic. In fact, I buy most of my music through them, paying $24.99 per quarter to download 100 songs. After months of delays and processing errors, they’ve finally posted my new album, The Thought Chapter. You can check it out, hear clips from every song, and rate it (please) here.

Hmm… so I buy songs at 25 cents each, yet last quarter artists received 30 cents per song purchased. I like that math!

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I updated the you section of the site with a few new videos and images. Take a look!

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Casm just wrapped up a wonderfully dark remix of “Our Shadow” from The Thought Chapter.

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You can download it for free as a fan exclusive (more info here).

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I‘m still playing around with Ableton Live, specifically with an FM synth called Operator. I finished a a tutorial that walked me through the creation of a pulsing pad. Then, just for kicks, I added a, uh… kick. And then a bass. And then I compressed the pulsing pad and bass by sidechaining the compressor to the kick. A hint of 3/8 delay on the pad, and the result is this pumpy mass, which would’ve been considerably more tedious to set up in Cubase. It’s certainly not the basis for a song, but because it’s so easy to do these sorts of things in Live, don’t be surprised to hear similar textures from me.

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