Epic Fail - I am now on Facebook

Yes, if you are a person that knows me you can now "Write On My Wall", send me pictures of cats as "gifts" and other horrors.

I have a belief and it is this - people have one, single card that they can play in terms of massive social dysfunction. And I mean by this, things that it is possible for the person to change - I'm not, of course, talking about anything involuntary or immutable - your friends must deal with those things.

You can refuse have a phone, you can only wear green clothes, you can only eat rice, you can refuse to go to the cinema. But you only have one card. Playing more makes you directly annoying; and you must have extremely positive qualities in other areas which balance this out.

My card is, and has been for a long time, not being able to drive. Most people who know me put up with it, some people who know me well very graciously and kindly help me out with it on a regular basis, for which I am currently and always shall be grateful.

Not being on Facebook was turning into a social disability, because people started REFUSING to try contacting me by other means.

I have been told about people becoming UPSET because they have been refused "friendship". If I refuse you friendship, do not become upset - I may be operating an obscure procedure of internal reasoning which is nothing to do with you. I will assume the same in return.

I await incoming inanity. I punctuated this post weirdly and I apologise.

Free Soundcloud invites from Future Music

Go and get them!

Epic Chords 2 is Done!

Just had a session polishing off Epic Chords Vol 2 for DMS - I will let you know when you can pick it up.

In other news, there has been a bit of interest in my Binster remix - hoping to hear back about that one soon.

Binster - Steve's Lament (nervous_testpilot remix)

So, it's finally done! Check it out at Tha Binst's site.

Imaginary Cities (Out Soon)

I'm really happy to announce that Imaginary Cities has been signed by Future State Records and will most likely be released in November.

This will be the first trance track I've produced and engineered myself to be released as a single - I'm excited about it and I hope my experience with the label will continue to be as great as it's been to date. They're extremely good with feedback and communication, and it's cool to having something coming out with them.

Final Stages Part 3

Open hi-hats - too dull

How?? I was just chopping out a bit of 8-9k to get rid of some of that abrasiveness, then I A/B'd with a bunch of other stuff and found that I'd sucked the life out of them. I have this problem a lot.

Pads too loud - lead too quiet

This was just idiocy on my part. Fixed.

Fills really terrible

Simplified some fills in the busier part of the track to make them sound less...flailing.

Onto mixdown number 3. The reason I keep mixing down like this is so that I lock the track and stop tweaking for a bit, then I run it through L3 in a "mastering" set I can use it to compare with other things.

I always have to go through this process at the moment - hopefully I'll eventually internalise some of this stuff and tracks will start coming out better first time around.

Final Stages Part 2

Of course, Ableton's obviously not above things like bringing back The World's Most Annoying Auto-filter Bug (suddenly causing a sample to distort at the start of any track with auto-filter on it - happens to me quite a lot but I've never found anything on the forums about it) and also playing a really really really loud ride cymbal I forgot I had in the track thoroughout. It appears there's some bug with Simpler that causes sounds with a long release time to cut off almost as soon as they were triggered - this meant that I'd completely stopped noticing the ride.

I laughed at my terrible choice of ride sample then deleted it - no ride in this track.

Another mild point of interest - this is the first track I've ever done in this genre without snare-roll builds. They're out of fashion anyway, but I thought I'd try messing around with white-noise swooshes and highpass filters instead - that's what all the kids are doing these days. Ah, the next track I do will probably have those in, in any case.

I don't really enjoy this final stage of mixing that much - it's mostly a big pain in the bum. When I've worked with Pete, he tends to save this tweaking for the next day. It's good to rest your ears, but I haven't done all that much else today and I really need to get this track in the can so I can do more Mode 7 work in the evenings.

I tried installing Ableton on this laptop earlier and it sucks hard - I think it's probably down to the audio driver though. If I buy a cheapo portable audio interface which is ASIO compatible, I'll be able to make a judgement then. Could try ASIO4ALL I suppose, but I really can't be bothered right now.

Final Stages

I'm just making my first test mixdown of my remix of Binster's Steve's Lament.

Thanks to the wonders of my new laptop I can actually blog while my behemoth computer renders 70-odd tracks of jiggery-pokery into a single, solid slab of WAV.

I usually make a few different mixes and A/B them against other things I like. Today, I'm going to be testing with Washed Away by Rain by Miikka Leinonen, This is That by Gareth Emery and Angel Falls by Lange.

I picked these three because they're all different, although I dearly wish I could get hold of unmastered copies - trying to factor out the effect that limiters have is a bit difficult sometimes. A lot of digital limiters, like Waves L2, really seem to accentuate high-end brightness, so I tend to assume that the mixes of these tracks will be slightly duller.

Emery's mixes are always very harsh-sounding to me, but then so is a lot of trance, and it's a bit hard to get away from that if you're pushing everything hard. I do object to some of the crazy screeching in Martin Roth's really hard-limited material though, for example.

Lange tracks are a bit softer - Angel Falls is an odd one because it sounds like there's some side-chaining going on with the main chord / riff sound. Every time that "dung-dung-dung" sound comes in, the level of everything else drops - could just be a limiting artefact but I doubt it.

Leinonen is a contrast again - Washed Away by Rain is a track that made me start wanting to write trance again seriously. I first listened to it on the Gareth Emery podcast walking up a hill in Cambridge (fittingly, in the rain) and it managed that great-song trick of seeming to capture my mood. I was suprised when I bought it recently that it sounds quite a lot quieter than a lot of other tracks, even Leinonen's own Shadow Hearts, so maybe it's a conscious attempt to buck the over-limiting trend.

Anyway, the machine is ready for me now, so I will be back later.

Binster Remix and Computers

Well, the percentage chance of finishing that remix tonight just went way downhill because of how long it took to get a bus out of Oxford. Never mind.

I just got an Advent 4211 and it's performing admirably so far. I'm hoping that it'll allow me to keep up with my blogging a bit more.

PC World's Collect In Store option (reserve online, go to your local store to pick it up) is something which, on the face of it, seems to be a stress-saving exercise. But take that simple activity and then multiply the stress factor by the behaviour of a few PC World Oxford staff members and you'll wish you'd just had the stupid thing sent to your house, forcing you to contend with that other bastion of personal inconvenience: delivery men. Anyway, we got there in the end.

Koblo - make and share the fun!

Michael Logue just dropped me a line to tell me about Koblo- it's a music-sharing community based around the Koblo Studio open source DAW.

Personally, I'm not ready to jump into a whole new world of sharing as I'm still exploring SoundCloud, but do check it out if you're interested

Yeahhh! Get up! Don't be VIBIN' YEAHHH....

So, I'm trying to buy a sample CD or download pack comprised entirely of high quality vocal samples.

You might think that would be a relatively simple procedure; welcome to Wrong Town.

I'm really after stuff that would be useful for modern trance and progressive, so I'm well aware that the classic old Zero G output ("Ooh baby, yeah! In my car! Yeah! Bouncin'!") simply won't cut it.

My first instinct was to go for an ethnic or Celtic vocal collection: I'm getting a massive load of pleasure out of Quantum Leap RA at the moment, so I thought about plumping for Voices of Passion.

My problem here, is that this product has probably got the most negative reviews of any recent East West library. The crux seems to be the lack of interactivity - it's just a glorified sample CD with a big hefty front-end. This is not too much an issue for me, though - I just want some nicely recorded phrases and "ahhss" to lob in as FX or colour. It's £280 from DV247 which is just on the cusp of what I'd consider to be a sensible amount (especially taking into consideration that one might purchase an Asus EEE for a very similar number of coins.)

This dilemma got me thinking - I could really just use a straight-up-and-down sample CD without any ROMpler pretensions for this task. Off I toddle to Time and Space where I'm suddenly presented with an array of options.

And that's when lighting strikes really close to my house and I decide to turn off my computer and hide in the cupboard.

Back now. So here we have the following things:

Vengeance Vocal Essentials
Over 1500 awesome club vocals from the Underground

[Now, I'd trust Mr Manuel Schleis when it came to a nice whumpy kick drum with a little clicky top end on it, but expressive vocal performances? Hmm. But let's check out the demo:

"Chicka-chicka {whump} {munchy-munchy} Keep-eep movin' {really terrifying fake-electro advert-music} {nice proggy bit with some inaudible vocals} {"Vengeance," says the lightly-retarded child} {sort of appalling Girls Aloud bit} {that endlessly-overused "what you think that we think is cool" sample} {some sort of stupid booty house bit} {really great bassline bit - should nick that} {Public Enemy "BASS" sample - I can't bring myself to buy anything that has that sample on it} {stupid minimal bit - minimal, please leave me alone} BAM bee bey bo bop {some really obviously copyright movie sample} Entoobe stump man entoobe stum man, entoobe stump man; any-ha ha- hum hump hump; erk erk erk..." (There's more, believe me.)

I must admit that I'm tempted, but it's totally swayed me from my original course. I want ethereal floaty tones not someone ordering me to "jack" or a mumbling German robot fumbling its way through a restaurant menu.

Next.

Soundscan Vol 18 - Funky Vocals (V2)
Melodies, phrases and soulful wails

[Dear god, no.]

Soundscan Vol 28 - Acoustic & Synth Choirs
Childrens, male, female and synth choir patches

[Meh, bought Symphonic Choirs about a month ago. Damn you, Word Builder, and all your progeny.]

Ultimate Vocals Vol 1
More than 350 vocal fragments and 20 entire composed songs

[Hmm, could be a possibility.]

"aaahhhh-Connected prezents...one hour offf ther best vwocals (OOOHOHHOHOWOHOO) bites (I'VE GOT THAT FEELING) and songs to use."

[Songs to use? Huh? The only time I can remember using a song is when I used Hi Aaron by Venetian Snares and Speedranch as a tool for playing at high volume in order to disrupt the perpetual flow of Can't Get You Out of My Head by Kylie which seemed to emanate unendingly from the room adjacent to mine in the second year of university.

Anyway, the rest of this is horrifying Deutshestechnohousebeatsja. Despite the fact that my occasional employers at Computer Music called this a "brilliantly convenient disc", I'm not sure I need a European lady informing me that the "world is longer than before". I thought flat-earth-theory had departed from the continent along with local currencies, but that's clearly not the case. Also, seventy quid is too much just for brilliant convenience: ASDA has brilliant convenience, but it's still packed full of grey-tracksuit-bottom-wearing, lurching human failure.

Dance Ultra Voice
500MB of various vocals & vocal FX-samples

[I'm starting to wane now, but let's give this a go.]

More Euro-stompen from Das Haus von Mutekki. It's a bit....rubbish really. I mean, I suppose you could make pretty decent hardcore out of this, which is the only attraction.

Oh, if you're bored, listen to this demo for the man I like to call "sexy Danish Bono" who appears around 1:36.

So I leave Time and Space (or should that be Time + Space? The "and" is so much less 1994, so I can totally see why they eschew it) for the time being, because I get distracted by the bright shininess of this "MASSIVE FOUR CD-ROM SET" which also seems to be from 1994.

Spectrasonics Symphony of Voices looks totally awesome, but (you're not going to believe this) it's only in Akai or Roland format. Yes, that's right, Akai or Roland format. Suddenly we all go spiralling back to the land of SCSI cables, single-digit RAM and waiting for things to load. Oh, oh pass me that PATCH CABLE MOTHER IT'S TIME TO USE ANOTHER SYNTHESIZER FROM THE SYNTH ROOM. Honestly - you'd think someone could take the five hours it would need to convert this into WAV just to make a new product...but no. You really can't buy this CD as audio or WAV. The mind boggles.

If anyone out there knows where I might come by a vocal sample CD which...

1.) Isn't complete tut.
2.) Could not possibly be described as "funky".
3.) Isn't a giant bloated ROMpler.
4.) Has good Celtic and or Eastern vocals on it.

...do give me a shout.

As a side note, I'm currently checking out DMS's strikingly-named "Wolsfraektroes Music World Loops" as it promises vocals. I'm always scared of the term "World Music"; it just makes me think of Damon Albarn side-projects and Peter Gabriel resting his hand on the head of an African child. Don't get me wrong, there's some great things which have been lobbed into the patronising maw of World in the past (see Baaba Maal), but in general...wow. Drumming ensembles, just hush now.

SoundCloud 2

Yep, I'm definitely loving SoundCloud - it's been really good checking out new tracks from people and also "following" other artists as they drop their new releases. I will definitely be using it to add clips of tracks in the future, but for now you can check out the whole of my as-yet-unsigned prog trance track Remember if you find me on there.

Soundcloud

I just got a Soundcloud beta invite from Rich and I've been playing around with uploading tracks from Isometric Dancefloor, my free net release of video game-inspired lo-fi trance. The whole thing will be on there eventually for you to download.

Soundcloud is a service which makes sharing and commenting on music very easy - it does this by having a very simple interface which facilitates fast uploading and sending of tracks. One feature I really like is the ability to tag different sections of tracks with comments: the track is displayed as a waveform - simply click the part of the tune you want to tag and add an inane comment.

I'd recommend checking it out if you're musically inclined and you can snag an invite from someone.