Moving forward: Enter 2017! (Patreon)

So, as you can tell, I'm unfortunately not going to be able to get Star Dream up before the year is over. The Sonic medley took me a lot longer to finish than I had anticipated which only left me with a few days to work on Star Dream. I've managed to get some done on it, but definitely not enough to get it up tomorrow. xD

That said, Star Dream will now instead be the 2017 opener, making Sonic Fan Medley 2 the official 2016 finale. I think this is a fine set up either way, so I'm not too torn up about it.

Aside from that, here's some things to look forward to the first part of the year:

Patreon Album

Finishing the first Patreon Album is my number one priority heading into 2017. My plan is to work on each song for atleast a couple of hours each day in January, hopefully having the album complete by bearly to mid February.  Since I won't need videos for these songs immediately after I'm done with them (the plan was to make the album available to Patrons atleast a month early), this shouldn't be too hard of a task. I already have drums recorded for most of them.

I mentioned in an update post some time ago, I decided to release this album at the end of a month all at once in a 2 week event (a new song every weekday or something like that), so that will be when I work on the videos. If the album comes out in February, that means the videos will be up at the end of March. I encourage everybody to make sure their monthly limits are set for this so I don't completely blow up your bank account, as that's not what I want to do, haha. I'll keep posting reminders as the time draws nearer.

I'm also considering giving this album a different name (initially 'Power to the Patrons' but I think we can think up something much cooler), but for now I'll just be referring to it as 'Patreon Album'. :P

Acoustic Short Channel

Mentioned in several update posts recently, this will be a very simple channel for the acoustic short  loops we've been making here on Patreon. I will also be featuring the occasional full acoustic song, which by the way the poll for the first of these  is still going on if you haven't voted yet.

The short loops themselves won't have live footage as that would take time for me to make that I'd rather spend on GaMetal material, so they'll instead feature fan art. The full songs, however, will usually have live footage.

And with this coming up, along with the holiday season finally being over, I do plan on getting caught up on Acoustic Short requests ASAP. 

I don't plan to charge here on Patreon for the full acoustic songs. For now we're keeping it GaMetal-only. :)

GaMetal VI

In the same vein as GaMetal V, I'll be releasing a pay-what-you-want compilation album of all the 2016 songs on BandCamp. The sound change this year wasn't too drastic (save for maybe Strike the Earth! and Dream Chaser), but I will be remastering every song before Hopes and Dreams to the current 2016 sound we have now.

I have two options with this: release it super early (like, mid-Janury), or wait till around May or so like we did last year. The thing is, I don't want this album release to clash with the Patreon Album release, I want to make sure there's at least a couple of months in between. I'll base it around how much time I have left between working on new songs, the Patreon album, and finishing up acoustic shorts.

I'm also planning to put some money into advertising this album on social media platforms. I feel 2016 was definitely the best year yet and I think it could be a great way to get some new people interested in GaMetal.

2017 Channel/Patreon Goals

I mentioned this on my last Youtube live-stream, but my goal for 2017 is simple: double everything. The Youtube subscriber count is nearing 45,000 (and should be there by tomorrow), so I want to double it to at least 90,000. 100,000 would be even better!

The Patreon campaign is at 680. I want to double it to 1360-1400. Maybe then I can get out of crippling millenial debt. xD

It might seem like big numbers, but we did double the subscriber count and way more than double the Patreon amount, and now that I'm able to devote all of my work time into music (thanks to you all!) I believe we can make it happen.

That's all for now, once more I want to thank you all for giving me the opportunity to work on music full time. It's been a dream come true and I still can't express how thankful I am for every one of you.

I really do mean it when I say you all are the greatest. Let's have a kickass new year!