The most recent piece I’ve been working on over at Kieron.net took on a life of its own at the weekend, with the introduction of a new bass groove.

I tweeted a link today and ended up in a twitter dialogue with eminent mastering wizard @pure_tone. Anyway, long story short is that he, like my young lad who has too many hours experience to ignore, both drew the same (pretty instant) conclusion:

Here was a piece which lent itself to gaming.

Hadn’t occurred to me at all, but as soon as I listened again, presto. It’s also very easy for me to develop along those lines since each section is clearly discernible and self-contained. It needs “beefing up” and tweaking to fit the purpose, but I should be able to develop this into half a dozen completely interchangeable loops of eight and sixteen bars.

To celebrate, I’ve opened an account at Audio Jungle and hope to get the first set of files uploaded there by the end of the week.

Jonathan Scary has a new direction.

Tags: Audio Jungle, gaming, Music

One of my Twitter friends and a great source of inspiration (on many levels) is the prolific and highly talented @ambienteer, aka James Fahy.

James’ goal to produce a new piece each day has me in awe and I often stop by his site when he tweets that another new tune is up. His Twitter timing is flawless, with delicate pieces so frequently providing a port in the storm of a busy day.

On 30 March, James posted Grey Space, a track which really caught my imagination. I could immediately hear all sorts of instruments – an “unplugged” treatment with acoustic guitars, a french horn or trombone and maybe a fretless bass to accompany the drifting piano.

James’ original allows the timing to float more than my arrangement (constrained somewhat by the drums) but I’ve tried to retain some of his freedom by letting the piano amble along behind the beat. I wanted to capture the apparent spontaneity of the original piano part – as if somebody was tinkering in a music shop.

OK, enough of the introductions. Hope you like it – though as ever this may not be the final mix!

Tags: acoustic guitar, ambienteer, bass, brush kit, crystal, cubase, drums, fretless, grey space, james fahy, mixdown, Music, piano, rosewood guitar, steel guitar, synth pad

I think I’ve taken this one as far as I can now. Spent some time Friday night and Saturday working on a couple of extra layers – the offbeat muted guitar and an additional distorted guitar. I’ve also replaced one of the drum tracks with BFD2. Oh, and it has a name now – “Crush”.

Ready for mastering?

Tags: bass, BFD2, crystal, cubase, drums, fxpansion, HALionOne, LinPlug, mixdown, percs, synth, synth pad

Still need to mix a little and then master (overall level too low).

I’m oscillating wildly between love and hate for this one, but here you go – latest scribblings in Cubase.

This uses a couple of bass instruments from “Orca” (free from FXpansion) – Closing and Deepening. Many thanks to @rozz3r for the nudge to download Orca. I’m also using Green Oak’s Crystal (Phased to Meet You and Trouble), LinPlug’s FreeAlpha along with the usual HALionOne suspects, Prologue and Groove Agent ONE drums from Cubase 5.0.

I think this piece really lifts with the drum ‘n’ bass rhythm change at 2′20″, but ask me later today and I’ll tell you I can’t stand that section!

As ever, would really love any feedback!

Tags: bass, crystal, cubase, drums, fxpansion, HALionOne, LinPlug, percs, synth, synth pad

The sound clip appended to the post “Sound Sketchpad” has taken a whole new direction. In fact, although the current Cubase project began life with the bass and drum tracks from that tune, I don’t think even they have survived!

I’m not going to upload anything yet as it’s still a long way to go, but I’m happy with the path it seems to be leading me down. Quite an odd chord progression, but underneath it is an infectious (I hope) bass line. I’m really enjoying working on this one and, rather than rush to finish, I’m going to let it marinade for a while and see how tasty it sounds (which reminds me of the old schoolyard jibe: “Don’t look at me in that tone of voice!”).

Anyway, just checking in to say I haven’t stopped composing. Just trying to be a little more patient.

I tweeted last night about the exciting possibilities which are occasionally created from a few random notes. Previewing some sounds from a free VST plug-in “Crystal” from Green Oak, I dropped a handful of notes on an instrument track in Cubase just to hear how the plug-in sounded. I let two bars loop a couple of times and was hooked.

The six notes in question form the “lead” part which uses a slightly modified AtmoEPiano instrument from Crystal.

There’s still work to do on the arrangement, levels and particularly with EQ on some of the instruments (notably those in the lower frequency ranges).

Tags: AtmoEPiano, bass, crystal, cubase, drums, green oak, KVR, synth pad

Final piece for the Disarray EP is now in its preliminary mix phase. I’m uploading it to the blog, but will return tomorrow with rested ears to check levels and EQ, particularly as I’ve been mixing this with headphones (albeit Beyerdynamic DT100s). Clearly, this is pre-mastered.

With Juice, I’m trying to create a kind of retro funk groove complete with high brass stabs and wah wah FX on one or two of the instruments. The addition of the crowd was inspired by Gutterpump. The cheers and general mayhem is actually a recording from a volleyball match.

I wanted this track to contrast with the other three on the EP, whilst using several of the same instruments which ship with Cubase. My intention, having learned at least the fundamentals of recording and mixing with Cubase (out of the box) is to depart from this kind of music and begin on my quest to produce something much edgier. I need new sounds, FSU plug-ins and – to quote Maxi Jazz – “a fresh direction”.

Let’s see how I fare with that!

Update 26/03/09: Mastered version uploaded

Tags: bass, beyerdynamic, brass, cubase, disarray, drums, funk, guitar, Juice, percussion, synth, synth pad

Between reading and writing emails and various other day to day activities, I’m installing 55GB (yes, you read that correctly) of audio samples and the BFD workstation from fxpansion. I’m really excited about creating loops with this program. The demos on the fxpansion website are truly unbelievable and the interface – from the screenshots and YouTube videos I’ve seen looks brilliant.

One thing I should aim to do is drag the Roland TD7 out of the attic and start playing some of the drum parts, rather than using the grid editor in Cubase to compose my loops (I still prefer this method to using the Axiom 49 from M-Audio for drums, though I do use the midi controller for bass and lead parts).

Tags: BFD2, cubase, drums, fxpansion

Made a lot of progress with the instrumentation for the latest piece, but posting this from the iPhone (in bed!) so not going to upload any audio today.

Having completed all the parts, I think the challenge with this piece will be the arrangement and I also want to put some little breaks in. It’s a much “funkier” style than the other three from Disarray, but the bass line’s had it’s hooks in me for the best part of a month so it’s nice to progress it into something.

Hopefully tomorrow will be as productive as today, though I’ve got the usual Kids’ Taxi firm to manage and a long run to squeeze in.

Tags: bass, drums, guitars, percussion, synth

Think the wah wah may not have created quite the retro feel that I was after, so it’s been removed. I’ve also switched the bass line to a Voyager Synth and removed the tambourine to keep some space in the drums. Still not progressing with this (nothing came together at all last night so gave up and went to bed!). I’m hoping – time permitting – to move this one on significantly over the weekend.

Can’t help liking the way the drums and bass line work together, but after a couple of weeks dipping into it now and again, it’s not taken me anywhere so far.

Guitar? Brass? Piano? Who knows?

Tags: drums, stabs, voyager bass