Vinyl record for "The Long Goodbye" by Rocket Miner

PLEASE READ: Important updates on your shipping
about 7 years ago – Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 04:12:19 PM

Hello everybody!

Today I have a few informations to share with you all regarding the shipping of your rewards!

First of all, the factory informed me the records have entered the production queue, so they should be ready in about 3 weeks, fingers crossed! If this schedule is respected, then we're going to be quite ahead of our programmed schedule of shipping by the end of May!

Regarding shipping instead, I'll be sending out the surveys very soon, and together with those you'll have the chance to see and authorise the payment of your shipping fees and, as a bonus, to add more items from our catalog to your order with a special 20% discount for all the backers. The shipping fees mostly move by 500 grams to 500 grams so chances are you'll have plenty of space in your package to add something else without increasing your fees.

I don't want this to be more complicated than it is already so I've divided it by zone of destination, so you can just jump to the paragraph of the delivery zone that is relevant to you.

ITALY - FIRENZE and AREZZO: you can choose to pick up your record by hand at our offices, so shipping fees will be zero. If this is your case, when in Backerkit use COOK ISLANDS as your destination country! This way the system will count all your shipping fees as zero.

USA - CHICAGO AREA: you can choose to pick your reward up by hand, meeting directly with the band. If this is your case, choose CHRISTMAS ISLANDS when in Backerkit as your destination country! The system will then charge you for the bulk shipping fees from EU to the US only, which should amount to about 5€ (to be confirmed - see the paragraph below) for most of the orders. If you increase the weight of your order you will also see a slight increase to your shipping fees. 

USA - REST OF THE COUNTRY: in order to save you money for shipping, we're going to bulk ship all the packages directed to the US together in a single box, and then ship them individually to you using domestic USPS. Especially when using Media Mail, this has reduced the shipping costs down to about 50%! But we've seen more records sold to the EU (and less to the US) than what we anticipated, so there will be a slight increase in shipping expenses to the US because, since there are less orders to be put together in a single box, the cost of this shipment can be spread over less people. For example, the shipping estimate table says 1LP + 1 Shirt would cost around 14€/16$, but the real shipping fees will actually be closer to 17,50€/20$. The numbers might yet change a little bit because I don't have all the addresses yet. Anyway should this be an issue for you please get in touch with me at [email protected] and we'll sort it out. 

USA - REST OF THE COUNTRY - MEDIA MAIL: If your order only contains records or CDs - so NO shirts - we'll ship your order via USPS Media Mail, which is a service that delivers media packages at a very reduced cost. Since Backerkit shipping calculator can't obviously know what is or isn't included into a Media Mail package, when you'll fill your survey you'll see a standard shipping fee, probably around 15-17€. Fear not, because I will manually update all the orders as soon as I receive them in order to fix the shipping fees to the correct Media Mail values, before we run your cards and we collect your shipping payment! If you still see any discrepancy, or if you'd like to ask anything, please get in touch with me at [email protected]. 

REST OF THE WORLD: REST OF ITALY, CANADA, EUROPE, OCEANIA, ASIA, AFRICA, SOUTH AMERICA, ETC.: please fill in the survey normally and you will see your correct shipping fees! Your package will be sent out via the Italian National Post Service (and GLS Courier for ITALY). If you got questions, please get in touch with me at [email protected].

This should cover everything regarding shipping! Thank you for your attention,

/Matteo, Rocket Miner and Shunu Records.

We can finally unveil the new cover!
about 7 years ago – Wed, Mar 06, 2019 at 08:14:46 AM

Hello everybody! This update will be very short but very important: we're finished with the new graphics for the vinyl!

The album art will go seamlessly from the front of the record all the way to the back, it's an incredibly amazing picture taken by Eduard Moldoveanu: you can find more of his works here.

We're all super happy and proud of this new artwork, it's been very difficult replacing the old cover but we think we really found a worthy successor. 

Alright let's just cut to the point, Ladies and Gentlemen, here is the new The Long Goodbye artwork!

We'd really love to hear from you guys what you think about it,  please let us hear your feedback down here in the comments! 

How to choose the correct size for your shirt
about 7 years ago – Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 05:32:52 PM

Hello everybody!

While we're impatiently waiting to share with you the new cover, I wanted to take the chance to give you informations on how to choose the correct size for your shirt.

Here's the table for the sizes of both UNISEX and GIRLIE shirts. 

Please note that all the sizes are in centimeters.

By following the chart,  you can for example see that the UNISEX S shirt has a chest width (A) of 46cm, a length (B) of 71cm and a shoulder length (from the center to the sleeve, C) of 40cm.

You're absolutely welcome to comment this update, or write to me at [email protected] or on our facebook messenger at facebook.com/shunurecords if you have further questions or if you need any kind of help with choosing the right shirt for you! :)

Of album arts, deceptive files and missing persons
about 7 years ago – Tue, Feb 19, 2019 at 10:16:16 PM

Today I want to update all of you on the status of the works on the album art.

We began preparing the graphics for the vinyl last week. We already had the high-resolution file for the cover (i.e. a very detailed photo file, fit for printing on paper) but since we never had to print it out before since we skipped the CD edition in favor of the vinyl, we never explored this file in depth except that we knew it was there. But what we discovered while preparing the test-print just last week was unsettling: the supposed high-resolution file was in fact an upscaled version of a low-resolution source. 

In simpler words: we had a photo the size of a postage stamp, that was stretched up to the size of a poster. All the technical numbers we usually check when receiving the material for a new release were there: it was high-DPI (it had a high number of dots/pixels per inch) and the dimensions were correct, but all the finer details inside the photo were missing, which was something we could only discover when we actually started to zoom in on the photo while we prepared it for the print, and not before.

Having an issue with a source file can happen, and usually it’s not the end of the world because since the file gets passed from hand to hand, from email to email it creates copies of itself... A.K.A backups. 

So the first thing we’ve done was to double-check if someone in the band had the real high-resolution file hidden in someone’s hard drive or email client - but there wasn’t any. The next step was to contact directly the artist who took the original shot... but it turns out the band received this photograph 6 years ago back in 2013, and in the meantime the artist moved on and changed her contacts and social media profiles. We didn’t know much about her since she was an Internet contact, so we spent a good part of the week trying to track her down, using all our detective skills to find her.

After a week of investigation, we could finally find her today but the answer she gave us was the worst of the possible scenarios: she told us the photo was way older that we thought; in fact the picture was taken around 2005 when she was only 19, and the high-resolution files were long lost. If only this wasn’t such a dreaded situation, it’d have been interesting to appreciate the long path this photo has taken.

So, we are left without a source file or any backup of any sort.

While we were searching, we also tried to restore the file we had. RadiciMusic Records, our head-label, have a designer who also works as a vinyl cover restorer: clients send him old and scruffy records from anywhere between the 40s to the 80s, and he digitally restores them for reprinting. So he worked on the file, but even though he gave his best, the lack of detail was still too much. 

I know, the detectives in CSI can enhance any blurry pixelated image up to the reflection in the victim’s eye, but in reality dealing with the loss of information is a one way road: you can discard excessive details, but once you do it, you can’t go back. By comparison, it’s much easier to restore a scratched cover from a high-resolution scan than to “enhance” a low resolution file.

We tried to print his restored version anyway hoping that the ink could smooth out the image, but the results were less than impressive. Here’s a photo I’ve taken, putting two of our previous CD covers on the side for reference. You can zoom in and compare the shrub in the middle of the print to the fine details on the two other covers. The effect you get when you pick that print up is not very pleasant: it’s pixelated, grainy and blurred. 

Tonight we sat down with the band and talked about what to do. We at Shunu always strive for quality, and our premises for this Kickstarter were absolutely the same as for our previous works: if you’ve ever bought one of our productions you’ve had the chance to appreciate our selection of fine papers, of detailed and lively prints, of the focus on details. We want to create items that can be collected and loved so, with a heavy heart, we decided not to go through with the print of this album art. Printing a cover like this would have meant doing something we wouldn’t have believed into, it would have meant settling for mediocrity rather than striving for beauty.

So we started looking elsewhere for a new, alternative cover for the LP. Call it a special edition artwork if you want.

I know replacing this cover will not be easy. I personally grew very fond of it, it’s a special and masterfully crafted piece of photographic art, and it fits perfectly with the mood of the album. We were all looking forward to see it printed and to hang it on our walls, but I hope you can all understand me when I say we don’t want this release to be flawed.

I’ll keep you updated in the next few days on how the search for a proper cover continues, but I want to be clear on something: it won’t be anything less than beautiful. 

Last, but not least, let me reassure you: the impact this search for a new artwork have on our deadlines is right now close to zero. We had already budgeted several catastrophic delays in our schedule, plus we might have already spotted a potential alternative cover. Of course anything can happen, but if this was the case I would keep you updated just as I’m doing right now.

Thank you all for your patience and understanding!

/Matteo, Shunu and Rocket Miner.

We did it - 100% funded!!
about 7 years ago – Sat, Feb 16, 2019 at 10:03:52 AM

 We made it! Thank you everybody! Time to pop the champagne! 🍾

Although the Kickstarter is not over yet, we got 4 more days to go so please make sure to let your friends know about it - this is the very last chance to get this record at this price. So if you're thinking about it make sure to pledge and secure your copy now!

Let me also explain a bit about Backerkit now, and what will happen after the Kickstarter ends.

First of all, your credit cards have not been run yet! This means nothing has been charged and your money is still there. Kickstarter will charge your cards soon after the end of the project, so I'd say presumably between Wednesday and Friday. I can't stress this enough: make sure your cards have funds available before Wednesday, otherwise Kickstarter will try to charge your card, retry a couple of times and then mark your pledge as failed. 

Anyway, in case something happens and your pledge gets marked as failed, you will still have the chance to recover it via Backerkit later on. In any case just reach for me at [email protected] and we'll work it out together.

In the weeks following the end of this project, you will receive via email a link to the survey from Backerkit: it's a tool where you will be asked your shipping informations, t-shirt size and model, etc. Please answer thoroughly as we will use these informations to ship your rewards. If you're planning to move in the next few months you'll have the chance to update your shipping address via Backerkit until we're very close to the shipping date. 

Together with the survey, you will also get your shipping costs (more on this later) and the access to some add-ons you can add to your package. These add-ons come with a special 20% discount from their retail price as a small way to say thank you to all you backers once more!

Regarding shipping costs, I will get more in depth in another update during next week, but I can tell you right now that you will see in Backerkit your predicted shipping costs, both for your rewards and for the optional add-ons you might choose to grab. If you're in the US and only ordered music media (LP, CD) then your shipping fees will be wrong because the system can't calculate the price for Media Mail. I will be monitoring all the surveys and correct the shipping costs manually to reflect the true reduced costs for Media Mail. If you have any question, or if you believe your shipping costs are still wrong, please get in contact with me to the email I wrote above or contact me via Facebook Messenger at www.facebook.com/shunurecords.

All the shipping costs and add-ons will be charged later closer to the shipping date to give a chance to everybody to correct their shipping address in case they move, but I will write an update when we will get closer to this date to give you notice of when this will happen.

Alright, this is all for today, now if you'll excuse me they're waiting for me to celebrate! :)

/Matteo, Rocket Miner and Shunu Records.