Twelve Memories

Here is a track that I am proud of. I recorded this piece a couple of years ago before I started blogging, and several people have insisted it's their favorite, so I though I would give it some new exposure here. The twelve-string guitar parts, mellotron strings and flutes, and harpsichord sounds are all from IK Multimedia's Sonic Synth 2. I don't remember what else I used (not much I don't think).

The guitar part was somewhat inspired by the Styx song "Crystal Ball", which I was was playing around with when I came up with this riff.

I promise I wasn't trying to sound like Yanni with the key and tempo change, but I fear that perhaps I did!

Click on the play button below to hear "Twelve Memories"...



here is a direct link to the mp3 for non-shockwave environments

Industrial Waste

This is not something I'm proud of, but in the interest of full disclosure, here is a "track" that I literally through together in about an hour, made of ENTIRELY of DrRex loops, a few reDrum patterns, and a simple EZDrummer track.

In Reason 4.0, I first put together nine different synthesizer loops from Analog Monsters 3, the Quadrasynth Story, and Virology Refills. Then I constructed the drum loops in the reDrum device using a combinator patch from the PhatMath Refill (this amazing refill using NOTHING but Subtractors).

Next I rewired Reason into Reaper 2.4 and bounced down the audio onto a single track. Then I loaded up EZDrummer's Drumkit from Hell and laid down a simple pattern over the 2nd half of the track. Then I bounced the whole thing down, and here you go.

The reason I say I'm not proud of it is that I never TOUCHED the keyboard (the musical one with the little black-and-while things) to create this. Didn't play a single note. Nada. Zilcho.

Musician? Programmer? Technician? DJ? I dunno, you decide.



here is a direct link to the mp3 for non-shockwave environments

Organic Lifecycle

This is a rather "organic" sounding new age / ambient piece that I produced using only Propellerhead's Reason 4.0. As I have said before, this is one very amazing piece of software, as evidenced by it's massive popularity. In professional circles, it gets a bit of bad rap for it's "sound quality", but I think this track is evidence that you can get a very powerful final product out of Reason without a whole lot of effort. Granted, I do usually export the WAV from Reason, and then "master" it using another VST plugin in Sonar or Tracktion, but that takes all of 5 minutes to do!

The piano sound was produced with Sonic Flavours Home Piano Premium Refill, and some of the other synths were from their Mystic Dream Pads series. These french guys sure know how to produce some incredible sounds!

The fretless bass sound is from Sonic Reality's Triple Bass Refill, and the drums are from their Monster Drums Refill.

There is just one other synth sound in there from Pink Noise Studios Analog Monsters 3 Refill. I just obtained this one recently, and boy has it kept me up late a few nights! Hundreds of incredible old-school analog synth sounds to expand the mind.

Hope you enjoy this track...click on the play icon below to hear "Organic Lifecycle":