Ok, so, I haven't done anything with the blog for three years now. But that is mostly because I pretty much figured nobody was reading it. :p
You can see videos of my 2014 offerings so far: Starlight and Follow me... Also worth mentioning is of course last year's Spaceflight 3, which took a heck of an effort to put out. There's even more to hear and see if you're so inclined on my YouTube and/or my SoundCloud account.
Certainly things have been changing. I picked up a job at the local library, started volunteering at the local community center to help teach computers to people, and switched to Linux. I've put my gaming on pause since the beginning of 2014 to try and see what I can accomplish. So far- a lot, but I miss playing games, sooner or later I will return to it.
All of these life changes are the result of this book. Yes I realize it is just supposed to be a kids fantasy book about dragons. But to me, it is so much more. The story came at just the right time I suppose to cause a lot of introspection. I truly envy the character Clay.
Still using SkaleTracker for now, I've even gotten it fully functional in Linux. I really need to find a new tracker to use, I'm hitting the limits of what Skale can do. Maybe I'll try Renoise again, but last time I checked it out, it couldn't even do what Skale does now.
Monday, April 28, 2014
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Momentary peace
I've been distracted by World of Warcraft lately, when this happens everything else gets put on hold- including my music. Anyhow, this past week I've been watching a friend's house while he was away, and since my WoW account had run out I sat down and finished up a module.
I started it about 1 year ago, and the last part was completed this past week. It has some problems I know: it switches themes and styles way too much, and it leans on the VST fx as well. Some parts of it though are my very best work I've done to date. Maybe someone will enjoy it as I do.
I've uploaded the SKM files for my recent releases: Outer Perspective, Remnants, Dawn To Dusk. I haven't done very much to clean these files up, but feel free to d/l them if you want.
There is a bug I have discovered within Skale: the VST fx processing speed is *not* system independent. This is most notable with the delay FX- the faster the machine, the higher the delay needs to be set so if you d/l any of the SKM you will have to tweak it to make it sound right for your machine.
I started it about 1 year ago, and the last part was completed this past week. It has some problems I know: it switches themes and styles way too much, and it leans on the VST fx as well. Some parts of it though are my very best work I've done to date. Maybe someone will enjoy it as I do.
I've uploaded the SKM files for my recent releases: Outer Perspective, Remnants, Dawn To Dusk. I haven't done very much to clean these files up, but feel free to d/l them if you want.
There is a bug I have discovered within Skale: the VST fx processing speed is *not* system independent. This is most notable with the delay FX- the faster the machine, the higher the delay needs to be set so if you d/l any of the SKM you will have to tweak it to make it sound right for your machine.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
A big release
This past weekend I released some more new music onto YouTube. You can watch them here and here.
The first song is a remix of a fairly simple tune from SNES RPG 'Chrono Trigger'- the Derelict Factory. At that stage in the game you enter into a factory in the future which has basically run wild.
The remix module has the most technically advanced special effects that I have done thus far. The bass is run through a pair of 'thruzero' (phase shift) effects set to the absolute left and right pan positions. I found this effect by accident: when the phase amount and duration are set very small, it makes an effect which sounds like a combination of stereo-phasing and vibrato. The second advanced effect is the strings, which use a fixed rising frequency line combined with fluctuating the filter quantity to make the "fluttery" sort of sound. I will release the SKM file for this module shortly so you can download it.
I'm fairly certain that most people are going to find Outer Perspective boring- it isn't dance or party music, it doesn't even have any drums, and its fairly long. What it does do, however, is take you on a trip somewhere...out there. Its the sort of music that gets people like me excited and puts everyone else to sleep. About half my current collection of music from other artists also falls into this category (such as Optical Image, Ian Boddy, and Craig Padilla).
Outer Perspective is a fairly special module in that:
-It is the first module that I discovered instrument filters. These things are amazing built-in tools that really let you shape a sound in all sorts of interesting ways.
-It is the longest composition I have ever written (spanning 20 minutes total play time).
-It was edited, little by little, over a period of several years to become what it is. I have 5 backup copies of the module taken throughout its development life-cycle.
Everything I did after this song (which is SA260) is based on things that I learned in it- it really changed the way I compose, and I think shows what sort of features SkaleTracker added over previous generation trackers. If I do end up releasing a CD, Outer Perspective would probably be the title track of it.
The first song is a remix of a fairly simple tune from SNES RPG 'Chrono Trigger'- the Derelict Factory. At that stage in the game you enter into a factory in the future which has basically run wild.
The remix module has the most technically advanced special effects that I have done thus far. The bass is run through a pair of 'thruzero' (phase shift) effects set to the absolute left and right pan positions. I found this effect by accident: when the phase amount and duration are set very small, it makes an effect which sounds like a combination of stereo-phasing and vibrato. The second advanced effect is the strings, which use a fixed rising frequency line combined with fluctuating the filter quantity to make the "fluttery" sort of sound. I will release the SKM file for this module shortly so you can download it.
I'm fairly certain that most people are going to find Outer Perspective boring- it isn't dance or party music, it doesn't even have any drums, and its fairly long. What it does do, however, is take you on a trip somewhere...out there. Its the sort of music that gets people like me excited and puts everyone else to sleep. About half my current collection of music from other artists also falls into this category (such as Optical Image, Ian Boddy, and Craig Padilla).
Outer Perspective is a fairly special module in that:
-It is the first module that I discovered instrument filters. These things are amazing built-in tools that really let you shape a sound in all sorts of interesting ways.
-It is the longest composition I have ever written (spanning 20 minutes total play time).
-It was edited, little by little, over a period of several years to become what it is. I have 5 backup copies of the module taken throughout its development life-cycle.
Everything I did after this song (which is SA260) is based on things that I learned in it- it really changed the way I compose, and I think shows what sort of features SkaleTracker added over previous generation trackers. If I do end up releasing a CD, Outer Perspective would probably be the title track of it.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Skale is back? WTF? Oh and here's a song!
After so many years of silence, something weird happened over at Skale.org: somebody resurrected SkaleTracker and made a flash version. Did I just say a _flash_ version of SkaleTracker? Yep, I kid you not! I discovered this whilst looking for the link to a song on modarchive. Speaking of which...
Almost exactly 8 years ago I wrote a song called Space Flight. I've now written a new song with a similar feel, and for the first time I've uploaded it to YouTube. I don't usually write demostyle tunes anymore, but I think this one shows off just what Skale improved upon so long ago.
Trying to get a screen capture video onto YouTube is a nightmare. Camstudio will not record audio, and it will not use any codecs other than the ones it is installed with (oh sure it *lists* them, and then goes "You want me to use that...thing? Forget it. Error.") Furthermore, Sony Vegas will not read the output files of all but one of the codecs available, and then when it does the video runs slower than the audio so they run out of sync. Rendering the final output is a roll of the dice: sometimes I get no sound (WMV), sometimes the video quality is so bad you see nothing more than a blur (AVI), sometimes the video flickers madly for no reason (also AVI), sometimes the output file is 2+ gigs per minute of video (MP2), sometimes YouTube can't read the file either (MP4), and sometimes you upload some random format nobody has ever heard of and get good results (M2T). For a project that should have taken maybe an hour at most, this was a frustrating all-day project. ARGH!!!!!
/rant
Anyways, if you liked the song and want to play around with it in SkaleTracker, you can download it here. Don't forget to get the effects pack which you can find elsewhere on this page or it will not work.
Almost exactly 8 years ago I wrote a song called Space Flight. I've now written a new song with a similar feel, and for the first time I've uploaded it to YouTube. I don't usually write demostyle tunes anymore, but I think this one shows off just what Skale improved upon so long ago.
Trying to get a screen capture video onto YouTube is a nightmare. Camstudio will not record audio, and it will not use any codecs other than the ones it is installed with (oh sure it *lists* them, and then goes "You want me to use that...thing? Forget it. Error.") Furthermore, Sony Vegas will not read the output files of all but one of the codecs available, and then when it does the video runs slower than the audio so they run out of sync. Rendering the final output is a roll of the dice: sometimes I get no sound (WMV), sometimes the video quality is so bad you see nothing more than a blur (AVI), sometimes the video flickers madly for no reason (also AVI), sometimes the output file is 2+ gigs per minute of video (MP2), sometimes YouTube can't read the file either (MP4), and sometimes you upload some random format nobody has ever heard of and get good results (M2T). For a project that should have taken maybe an hour at most, this was a frustrating all-day project. ARGH!!!!!
/rant
Anyways, if you liked the song and want to play around with it in SkaleTracker, you can download it here. Don't forget to get the effects pack which you can find elsewhere on this page or it will not work.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Astaroth rewrite
I have completed a Skale rewrite of the first level music from the Amiga game 'Astaroth, the Angel of Death'. However, I have not actually played the game, instead I heard this music from 'Headquarters', a Mechforce unit manager program which borrowed this tune. I believe at one point I heard a demo as well that used this specific tune, and the original tune can even be found on Aminet.
I intend to submit this one to Overclocked Remix. Their naming policy states that I cannot name my submission after the game, and since this tune reminds me more of futuristic Battletech I've decided to name it "Star League".
You can check out the MP3 version here, or if you want to see it you can download the source SKM here. (See blog description for information about SKM files.)
This is just a taste of what is to come, I'm on the verge of two big project releases sometime this year (I hope). I want each project to have somewhere around an hour's worth of music each before I release them.
Enjoy the music, TTFN!
I intend to submit this one to Overclocked Remix. Their naming policy states that I cannot name my submission after the game, and since this tune reminds me more of futuristic Battletech I've decided to name it "Star League".
You can check out the MP3 version here, or if you want to see it you can download the source SKM here. (See blog description for information about SKM files.)
This is just a taste of what is to come, I'm on the verge of two big project releases sometime this year (I hope). I want each project to have somewhere around an hour's worth of music each before I release them.
Enjoy the music, TTFN!
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Beyond Dreams (remix)
In 2009, I did a remix of one of my all-time favorite modules by Sidewinder from way back when in 1994. You can download the MP3 here or check out the SKM if you want.
At the time, no piece of music I had previously done received anywhere near as much polishing as this one; I tried to make it sound as perfect as I could.
At the time, no piece of music I had previously done received anywhere near as much polishing as this one; I tried to make it sound as perfect as I could.
Some of my older work
Here are some of my older releases:
| Name | Genre | Release Date | Download MP3 | Download SKM |
| Drifting | Space | 9/2009 | N/A | Download |
| Rainy Sunday | Jazz | 2/2008 | Download | N/A |
| City of the Ancients | Fantasy | 3/2005 | Download | N/A |
| Jungle Awakening | Fantasy | 6/2005 | Download | N/A |
| Island Daydream | Ambient/Jazz | ?/2004 | Download | N/A |
| Summer Lulliby | Chip | ? | N/A | Download |
| Candyland | Chip | 8/2004 | N/A | Download |
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