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1) Please download all songs. 2) Please respect the listed song order when burning CDs. 3) When sharing, please do NOT exchange these songs/CDs for money.

How it all came about:
In the fall of 2004, Erik announced he was moving to California to follow a dream and attend film school. Within an hour, it was decided that a "Best of" recording of No Turning Back and Bluefire must be made. As proud as we all were of our past recordings, we were never really happy with them. This was to be our statement, our moment. Every piece of recording experience we had was thrown at this project, and we had no idea at the time what the end result would be. With our eyes closed and fingers crossed, we jumped. In just under a month, all of the music was recorded and Erik moved very soon afterwards.

Chris and Scott then spent the next month and a half tracking the vocals and a couple of small guitar additions. When that was finished, they both decided to take a break. Scott focused on wedding-related activities while Chris got together with a friend of his to begin work on what would later become Spendthrift Sai. He also took some time to help Scott work on some original wedding songs. The rest of the year was a blur for Scott as he headed off to newlywed land, leaving Chris to work on the mixing on his own.

About a year later, the master tapes and Chris' demo mixes were handed over to Scott to see if he could make anything useful out of them. Listening to the demo mixes only a few times to get an idea of which direction Chris was headed in, Scott spent the next few months importing the master recordings and working on the final mixes.

Once Scott and Chris were both satisfied with the mixes, they discussed the packaging. Chris' goal was to use 2-disc Amaray DVD cases. He had a rough idea for what he wanted on the cover and the insert. Once he spent about 30 seconds sketching out his doodles, he tasked Scott with making it all happen.

The plan was to release Die Blutsbrüder in full color print, silk-screened discs, etc. Then it was realized that there was no capital to fund such an idea. It was finally agreed that all of the songs would be downloadable from this website, uncompressed, along with the files for the cover and insert.

The recording process:
We set up, as usual, in the Basement-O-Blues, adjacent to (the newly-built) Rainbird Studios. Erik's drums were miked and run into a Peavey 12-channel mixer, then run stereo into a compressor/noise gate/multi-function gadget, and then finally into two tracks on a Yamaha MT8X recorder (analog tape). Chris' guitar was run into his amp head/cabinet inside an Abertok Model 2 isolation chamber in a separate room. The cabinet mic was then run into one track of the MT8X. Scott's bass went from the head, directly to one track of the MT8X, no mic.

Chris and Scott remained in the control room while Erik remained isolated in the adjacent room. Each song was rehearsed as many times as needed, until everyone was comfortable with it or one or more member felt better putting it off until the next session. When everyone was ready, the tape rolled and recording began.

All instrument recording was done "live." That is, we all played our respective parts at the same time. No click tracks were used. No one laid down their part after someone else finished theirs. Communication was by way of a talk-back channel. The output of the MT8X was routed to a headphone distribution amp, allowing each member to set their own independant mix volume during recording.

Each take was replayed for all to critique. If a major gaff occurred, another take would be recorded immediately, either on a later part of the tape or on an entirely new tape, to preserve quality. If only a minor issue popped up and did not detract from the overall take, it was kept, put aside, and the next song would be rehearsed.

After the initial recording process was finished and Erik had moved, Chris and Scott focused on finishing off the rest. A vocal booth was set up and the mic was run through the same gadget used for the drums. From there, it was run into a track on the MT8X. Scott ran the tape while Chris sang. After each take, both would listen to the playback, critique, and either keep it or try again (same process as recording the music). Finally, Scott & Chris switched roles to record the backing vocals for "Angry," "Carpe Diem," "My Last Breath," and "Take Me Home."

Finally, a few overdubs were required. On "Take Me Home," the heavy guitar near the end of the song is what was recorded throughout the song during the sessions. The acoustic guitar, always intended, was added later. The second guitar part at the beginning of "Old" was also added at this time.

Mixing:
Chris made the first attempts at mixing everything on his computer. After nearly a year, he felt the mix in his head was not coming through the way he intended. He offered Scott the opportunity to take over. At SEPtic Sounds, each track output from the MT8X was run into the corresponding input of an M-Audio Delta 1010LT card. Each track was then imported into Logic Express at 48k/24bit.

Several more months of long nights were spent tweaking each channel of each song, trying to get the whole to sound even better than just the sum of its parts. Every effort was made to respect the source material as much as possible. Other than fade ins/outs, the dynamics of the songs are as they were recorded (except for choice sections of a couple of the songs). No normalizing or compression was used during mixing. All effect plug-ins used were either built-in or free downloads.

Midway through the mix process, an update to LE was released, allowing for delay compensation and full automation of every plug-in parameter. The overall job became much easier and more efficient. In fact, it is only because of this update that "Old" turned out as well as it did. The tape had a bad spot that went undetected during the initial playback during recording. Now, it was able to be dealt with the right way during mixing.

All mixing was done through headphones. Periodically, CD's were burned to test on many stereos, speakers, and cars and many small tweaks were made to compensate for any issues that presented themselves. For the best results, play loud though a pair of good phones!

Packaging:
Chris and Scott got together near the end of mixing and discussed the cover and insert layout. As the original idea was to release Die Blutsbrüder in a double DVD case, much more canvas was made available than any previous Bluefire or No Turning Back release. Chris made a quick sketch of his initial idea and put Scott in charge of making it a reality. The main goal was to avoid the "digital-ness" of the Bluefire covers. Chris always wanted an industrial look to it (he had been planning for this since before Erik moved). He found a scrap piece of diamond plate at work and welded the title and disc numbers on it (after hours, of course). He took several pictures of his work of art and handed them over to Scott.

When Scott loaded the pictures, panic struck. The umlaut was over the wrong "U" and Chris said "can't you just erase it?" Several hours later, it was in the right place and looks like it was there all along. After a few weeks, several versions of the initial layout were submitted to Chris and Erik via email. Erik sent back revised versions that Chris preferred. These changes were implemented one at a time over the course of several days until everyone was happy with the results.

The insert was much easier. After a few days of work, the mock up was submitted and no changes needed to be made. One side features the two Bluefire logos and the No Turning Back logo that were part of the original cover design. The other side features a collage of band photos, several of which were buried in the archives and have never been seen before.

Conclusion:
We hope you like what we have to offer here. This has been a labor of love, nearly two years in the making. We ask only that each song be downloaded and that the exact track order listed above be honored. Feel free to share these songs with others, whether that be burning copies for your friends or providing them via file-sharing services (Kazaa; Limewire; BitTorrent; etc.). We also request that you do NOT ask for any money in exchange.

Keep the fires burning and don't ever look back!