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FantasyFinale.mp3
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28 Apr 2005
This is the final track on the CD. It's only 52 seconds long, but presents
an alternate way to end the CD -- rather than letting the beat run to the
end, I can mix into this and end it on a nice, classical-style finale.
Composition Notes
Just basic Korg work here. String sweeps and synth effects.
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FantasySegue3.mp3
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27 Feb 2005
This one goes between Fantasy1 and Fantasy7, and is entitled Aftermath. The
battle was won, but now the task of cleaning up, of dealing with the
destruction, the dead and wounded, now all that must be done. The words
are:
Anyone who speaks of the glory of a victorious battle has never
witnessed the aftermath. The invaders were driven back -- the horde of
ground forces that were sent to finish what the storm began. Our forces
pursued them to the edge of the valley, and then they were gone. With the
dragons' protection we knew we were safe.
But there were no celebrations, no honors to be bestowed just yet. First we
had to rebuild our shattered village and tend to our wounded. I joined the
Healers to assist with my minor Gifts to ease suffering and attend to those
who were injured in the battle.
My heart froze as my gaze fell upon the body of the acolyte -- the one who
had saved me from the storm. If not for him, I would have died there, and
the dragonscrolls would have remained hidden. We would all have fallen to
the horde. In truth he saved us all. But there were too many wounded, and
not everyone would attended to. I approached his side and beckoned for one
of the Healers to join me. My heart pounded with fear as I gazed at his
seemingly lifeless body. And then he stirred. His eyes opened... and
locked onto mine...
Composition Notes
The guitar is, of course, me. The synth is impOscar, which is a really neat
synthesizer package. The steep cutoff it offers generates some really nice
effects when used with high resonance.
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FantasySegue2.mp3
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26 Apr 2005
This track represents the point where the boy finds the Dragonscrolls.
Making his way along a dangerous ledge and approaching them, wary, cautious,
yet thrilled with the spirit of adventure. And of course, terrified :)
Composition Notes
Another segue, needed to go from 120 bpm up toward 140 bpm.
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FantasySegue1.mp3
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25 Apr 2005
This track occurs right after 'Mage Storm' (Fantasy3). It tells the story
of the youth who was caught out in the storm and dragged to safety beneath
the temple by a young acolyte, who went out into the storm again to rescue
someone else. The youth, scared by what was happening and yet yearning to
do something about it, travels through the cellar into the catacombs, where
he gets to fight his way through the dungeons toward his goal. The words
are:
The storm crashed through our village. In its wake was nothing but
devastation. It struck without warning, without remorse, without thought.
It was not an enemy one could fight, but instead a force of nature,
amplified by the hatred of the one who had created it. Those who were
trapped without shelter did not last long. The rest of us could only hide
like frightened animals and wait for it to pass.
I was at that delicate cusp of life, no longer a boy but not yet a man. Not
yet with the wisdom to recognize the ominous clouds that rose through the
valley toward us. When the storm struck I would surely have died if not for
a young acolyte, a boy not much older than I was. He pulled me to safety in
the cellar beneath the temple. Hidden there, experiencing terror like none
I had felt before, I remembered the catacombs beneath the village.
Catacombs filled with dangerous beasts and long-forgotten secrets. A
passageway in the cellar led off into darkness. Filled with the fire of
youth, I set off in search of something, anything, that might invoke the
ancient powers of the dragons to protect us.
Composition Notes
The voice is me, just raised about half a step. Amazing what pitch-shift
does to a voice :) I love the sound effects from the Korg. The thunder
especially is nice.
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FantasyIntro.mp3
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22 Apr 2005
This is the first track from Dragonfire. It's only about a minute long, but
it sets the stage. Big evil dude wants to conquer a bunch of peaceful
furries. Doesn't he suck?
Composition Notes
The voice is me, of course. Transposed about a step and a half downward,
just enough to give it a dark, evil sound. The words are:
The creatures of the tranquil valley had known peace for centuries. Around
the was abundance. There were no threats, no challengers, no predators to
prey upon them. They were perfect. Perfect for what I desired. None among
them had the will to fight against my forces. They would yield rather than
risk themselves. The dragonscrolls had long been forgotten, and with them
the last of the old magics that could challenge my own powers. And thus, it
began...
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Fantasy5.mp3
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2 Apr 2005
This one reminds me of the last part of a quest, right when you walk in and
find the priceless artifact sitting there. Then you run the gauntlet of
traps to get to it, and finally, lo and behold, there it is.
Composition Notes
The guitar work on this track is me, of course. I wrote this one right
after listening to some 80's stuff, and was shooting to get that nice guitar
sound, that warm, rich, 80's overdrive.
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Fantasy6.mp3
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28 Mar 2005
This one just made me think of a 'Dungeon Crawl', especially the first half
of it. To tell the truth, I'm still not fully happy with the second half,
but it at least communicates the point I'm trying to make. It just seems to
lack punch at various places. All in all, though, it still sounds good
enough to use.
Composition Notes
I ended up with this great string-chord effect... and had to back off on it.
It sounded too much like old 70's ELO when I overused it without something
else in the foreground :)
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Fantasy7.mp3
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22 Mar 2005
This is intended to be the last track on the Dragonfire CD. It's the story
of two youths who are bonded together by passage through an ordeal, bonded
in friendship. The words are from an Elfin language I played with back in
college when I was bored in class. The whispered words roughly mean 'friend',
'companion', and that sort of thing.
Composition Notes
The whispers are done with the tube preamp set to pretty high gain, and the
MXL-990 condenser mic.
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Fantasy3.mp3
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22 Feb 2005
This is an earlier track that I finalized and got ready to use. It started
with playing out with a new synthesizer package, and finding a really neat
pattern. There's lots of guitar work in this one. Working title is 'Mage
Storm'.
Composition Notes
The guitar is, of course, me. The synth is impOscar, which is a really neat
synthesizer package. The steep cutoff it offers generates some really nice
effects when used with high resonance.
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Fantasy2.mp3
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12 Feb 2005
Another track we're planning to put on the next album. Working Title:
Dragonflight. It's got a
good bassline, and a nice trance-ish feel. It's a little more repetitive
than I like, but I may be able to fix that with a bit more editing.
Composition Notes
Most of this was produced on the Korg Triton. There are a few software
synthesizers thrown in for effect as well. Gecko Takari (Ryan Gates) did
the panflute composition in real time, and I just did a MIDI capture of his
performance. I think he did a good job with it :) The rest of it's all me.
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Fantasy1.mp3
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2 Dec 2004
This track is the first one I'm planning to put on my next album. The new
one will have more of a fantasy theme rather than sci-fi. This one actually
has lyrics.
Composition Notes
This track is almost entirely produced on the Korg, except for the guitar
work and the vocals. There are a few soft-synth tracks here and there, but
almost all of this is MIDI driving the Korg. A few tracks are played live
and simply recorded as-is without any MIDI in the way.
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Fantasy4.mp3
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25 Dec 2004
Some may wonder about the jump between Fantasy1 and 4. The reason is that 2
and 3 are works in progress. I don't have names for them yet :) This one
features a lot of arpeggiation and filter sweeps.
Composition Notes
This track is the first one I've produced entirely on the new soundcard.
For those who are curious, Creative Labs soundcards suck. They're okay for
listening, but there's something about recording on them -- you lose some of
the highs, and apparently they have trouble with sharp transients (like,
say, percussion). That's why some of my earlier tracks seem to lack that
'punch' of a commercial track. I just bought an M-Audio Delta 1010, and it
is amazing how much different it sounds!
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StellarSegue2.mp3
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30 Aug 2004
When I was assembling the Stellar War Saga, I couldn't get two of the tracks
(PluckFast.mp3 Alpha.mp3) to beat-match properly. Alpha has a very strange
rhythm. So I composed this little segue to go from 155 bpm (which is what
PluckFast is recorded at) down to 145 bpm (Alpha.mp3). It also matches the
key signatures and segues very nicely. This is the full track.
Composition Notes
This one was done almost entirely on the Korg. The percussion is a sampled
loop from PluckFast, since I got the techno beat just about right on that
one. Most of the other tracks are played live, except for the bassline and
the rhythmic arpeggio. All the 'effects' are done in realtime by me sitting
at the keyboard.
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StellarSegue1.mp3
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30 Aug 2004
When I was laying down the final mix, there was just no good way to go from
Orch1.mp3 (140 bpm) down to MidiGate.mp3 (120 bpm) without seriously hosing
one or both tracks by slowing them down/speeding them up too much. So I
wrote this little segue. It's intended to be very ambiant/environmental,
with no real beat. Just nice and slow. It's short, only about 3 minutes
long.
Composition Notes
Except for the gradually slowing down rhythmic arpeggio, this one was all
played manually. No MIDI. This is all Korg, here.
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Alpha.mp3
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30 Aug 2004
This track was composed for the Stellar War saga. I have a name for it
finally! The music is intended to represent two fleets of ships coming
together for battle, and one of them emerging victorious. It's intended to
be martial, military, and above all, represent conflict.
Composition Notes
I'm slowly getting better at mixing. The string-sweeps were a challenge. I
used the Korg a lot more heavily in this track -- perhaps half of the tracks
were done on the Triton rather than using software synths, and the result
shows. This is also the first track where I used sampled crash cymbals, and
I really like the effect.
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MidiGate.mp3
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30 Jun 2004
This is another piece of the Stellar War Saga. This one is intended to be
heroic, full of hope and optimism. Gotta love a feeling like that - just
before it gets dashed.
Composition Notes
This one uses, for its bassline, a filter effect. It's kind of cute -- it
creates that warbling, warpy bassline you hear toward the beginning. The
piano parts are live recorded. Most of the rest of it is MIDI. The Korg
does the percussion on it.
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Ozy2.mp3
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28 Dec 2003
Multilayered vocals create a melody atop acoustic and electric guitar
tracks. The song's lyrics are based on Percy Shelley's poem 'Ozymandius',
written back in the 19th century.
Composition Notes
This is my first real attempt to write something with vocals and live
instruments. I got a new microphone made by MXL, and it is *sweet*. Now
I'm having to learn how to do rock-mixing, which is totally different than
techno. Live tracks go all up and down the frequency spectrum, and you have
to ruthlessly cut them out or you get mud. I'm not ruthless enough, I guess
;) There's a definite knack to it, and as I learn I think it's improving.
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Orch3.mp3
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5 Dec 2003
Ambient intro creates a fantasy/sci-fi mystical feeling, followed by a
powerful melody line. The choir sound just helps to give this a more
mysterious sound.
Composition Notes
The choir effect is actually a synth with JS Humanizer run across it to give
it a vowel sound. Still, inside the mix, it sounds rather convincing. I'm
happy with how a lot of things about this track turned out.
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Orch2.mp3
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30 Oct 2003
This is my first real attempt at doing Trance -- more 'Epic Trance' rather
than any of the more traditional forms -- I tried very hard to give it a
smooth melody line that could be followed through a good portion of it.
More of an orchestral sound, of course, than the purely synth effects. I'm
fairly happy with it, though this isn't the final version yet.
Composition Notes
This one came out of me finding a way to create a very simple low-pass
resonant filter. I've been looking for something simple like that that
would be low on CPU overhead and other 'crap', and would just be the simple
effect. It turned out I was able to design it in SynthEdit and bring it in.
It uses about 1%% of the CPU for each instance, which is great, and control
it via VST. For anyone who doesn't have SynthEdit, this is a great package
that lets you create your own VST instruments.
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Orch1.mp3
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30 Sep 2003
This one was my first real attempt to use brass and strings to create a more
orchestral sound. It's sort of tranceish, along with some effects that give
it that dramatic feel of a movie score. I'm very happy with the second half
of it, especially. It might take a little too long to build, though.
Composition Notes
This one was a result of getting some new software synths. FM7 is the main
one, along with Waldorf Attack. Both are *great* synths, and ones I can
heartily recommend, even if they eat CPU cycles for dinner. :)
Guan the Gecko was kind enough to help me a *great* deal with the
percussion. Heck, he did most of it -- and it's why the percussion sounds
so much better than anything I've done before. I'm trying desperately to
learn what he did. :)
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PluckFast-New.mp3
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8 Jun 2003
This one I did after some things that DJ Dragonboy showed me with Reason.
This one is bit more techno, with the filter sweeps and the periodic gate
cuts that sound pretty cool. It's a flowing sound, somewhere in between
trance and techno.
The 'Fast' version was raised from the original 120 bpm to 160 bpm, just to
see what the results would be with more of a Trancecore flavor. Thanks for
the idea, Genki :)
Composition Notes
This one involves a couple of new effects. Most of the sounds are actually
not MIDI -- instead, most of them are directly recorded from the keyboard.
Gives a little better resolution that way. I also discovered a little trick
for making beats sound more techno-ish -- compress the *HELL* out of it. :)
I recently remastered this one. Made it a *LOT* better by compressing it
and doing some post-production on it.
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ReEntry2.mp3
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19 Apr 2003
This is a remake of ReEntry (see below). Much better bass response, and a
bit more in the way of audio effects thrown in just for fun.
Composition Notes
This one is redone with Cubase SX. I lost the original files in the hard
drive crash, so this is redone entirely, note-for-note, as close as I could
get to the original from listening to it and from memory.
Most of the music is done, once again, with Dreamstation. I used Audionaut
Fresh Killed Beat for the percussion, and added some subsonics to the sound
as well. It may bottom out some speakers -- turn down the bass :)
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GenkiIntro.mp3
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25 Mar 2003
This is a song that Genki and I wrote jointly. A lot of the ideas were his;
the production was mine. He wanted an intro that he could use at Anthrocon,
and so I made one for him. It was a lot of fun to do.
Composition Notes
Genki heard the THX-sound that I did on Dreamstation and wanted it, so I
threw it in here. All of these sounds are synth, except -- of course --
Genki's voice saying his own name in a whisper. That was kind of fun. It
sort of trails off into a windchime effect, intended for mixing into the
next song.
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TellMe.mp3
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15 Mar 2003
This one's called simply 'Tell Me'. Somewhat dark, mysterious, with
sweeping arpeggios and a powerful piano melody.
Composition Notes
This one is probably richer than anything before. The mixing I'm proud of,
as I'm finally starting to get the hang of EQ and automation. We'll have to
see how it sounds on different speakers. The voice tracks are me, in fact,
using the new vocoder effect I got. Prrprrprr. It's really neat!
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2-80s.mp3
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8 Mar 2003
"Too Eighties". It features a lot of live guitar tracks, as well as a live
violin track. This one was aimed at everybody who called my earlier stuff
'too eighties'. You want eighties? Here, have some eighties, with a little
bit of techno flavor thrown in for fun.
Composition Notes
This song is the first one I've done since having my hard disk drive crash.
I had actually started on it before the crash, and rebuilt much of what was
there from memory. I think the mixing is a lot better on it. There are,
incidentally, a lot more live tracks than in most of the previous songs.
All of the guitar tracks, as well as a violin track, are live. This is also
the first time I've tried micing an amp. The acoustic-sounding guitar is, in
fact, an acoustic guitar -- my new Alvarez. Love it. Prrr!
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BaroquenBeat.mp3
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2 Feb 2003
This song shows that nothing in music ever goes to waste. Well, not nothing
-- I can't think of any possible use for Barry Manilow. But most things,
anyway. This song re-uses some old melodies and chord progressions from
baroque music, sets them to a beat and synth instruments, and brings in more
energy than was thought proper in classical times.
Composition Notes
This was the first song where I used my two new toys: Audionaut Fresh Killed
Beat and Muon's Tau Pro. Both of these are inexpensive packages that
deliver beautiful rich synth instruments. The first is a drum synth, while
the second is specifically designed for basslines.
On one of the parts, you can definitely hear a guitar. That is a live
track, recorded from me playing it. This one is probably the most techno
sounding of the work I've done yet, in my opinion; the ability to produce
that nice thumping bassline has helped a lot.
Note: the original files for this song were destroyed in a hard drive crash.
I still have the MP3, but that's all that's left.
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ReEntry.mp3
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23 Jan 2003
This song was designed to have a futuristic sound, bringing to mind a bit of
the wonder and adventure of space travel. Nah, maybe that's a little
arrogant to say it that way. But it is a bit of what I was thinking about
when I wrote it. :)
Composition Notes
This was my second attempt, taking into account a lot of feedback from
people (thanks especially Genki and Valrejn and everyone else who listened
to the rough draft). Part of my goal here was to simplify the melodies and
harmonies. I'm a fan of rock, especially bands like Styx, Boston, and
Kansas, so I'm big on melodic flow, harmony, and the like. I know what I
want it to sound like, just not there yet, entirely.
In this case, I used Dreamstation (general synth package -- great, if you
like that sort of thing) to do most of the sounds. Almost everything you
hear in this one is Dreamstation, including the percussion. A little bit of
the hi-hat percussion, the piano sample, and a couple of others are
generated by the Yamaha, but other than that, this is all synth.
Note: the original files for this song were destroyed in a hard drive crash.
I still have the MP3, but that's all that's left.
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Joel1.mp3
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15 Jan 2003
This one brings to my mind a forest scene, the brave and noble
warriors going off to battle. Blah blah :) That sort of thing.
Composition Notes
This was my first attempt at composition using Cubasis VST. Like an idiot,
I used the drumsynth from my Yamaha keyboard. While it sounds decent on one
level, any attempt to bring up the bass on it resulted in a rather annoying
rumble. Crank your bass and you'll hear it, too. Still not sure what's
causing that... will try to fix it when I learn more about this. :)
Otherwise, I made some mistakes in terms of the way the instruments combine
together. The composition I'm rather proud of -- it took me a *LONG* time
to get this one working. It sounds good to my ear, in a lot of ways even
with the imperfections. I'll be redoing it when I learn more about how all
this stuff works.
Note: the original files for this song were destroyed in a hard drive crash.
I still have the MP3, but that's all that's left.
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