original music

New Music: Break Out the Old Funk

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32ndStReasonMixerThis track grew out of a study I was doing on classic breakbeat drum patterns and playing around with groove. The mix is not perfect, but then I’m not an expert mastering tech so I’m happy to live with what I can get.

I ended up pumping up the compression to really make the drums smack, and the driving gated bass line will reward anyone with good headphones or actual woofers on their speakers. The tone is set predominantly with subtractive poly synths running square and sawtooth waves with distortion layered on top and a breathy pad underneath in portions to support the mid-ranges. Enjoy!

A Retrospective Remix

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I started writing electronic music quite a while ago, so I have a lot of old stuff lying around on my hard drive from the “early days”. This week I noticed one of these songs was last edited pretty much exactly 10 years ago. It’s simple, but not bad. Here it is:

So I decide it was time for a remix. I kept it at the same tempo, but went a bit more up-beat with a club-ish feel and some new bass grooves, melodies, and harmonies. Had some fun with gated filter effects on the original music loops as well.

Night musica

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Sometimes the composition just flows, it must come out. Seeping forth from a weary mind, eating up the hours. This one was six hours from first phrase recorded to complete with a quick mix and mastering to keep it from being too muddy. Had to do it before it was lost. I’m not sure why it’s named what it is, probably it was just a fun phrase to say. So, enjoy ‘Antithetical Hermetics’…

Night Owl Music

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I tend to do a lot of my musical stuff at night. Neighbors probably haven’t appreciated that. In-fact, I once got a note on my door after some late night electric guitar jamming which said, “It’s late and your guitar is very loud downstairs, but your technique is clearly improving.” Anyhow, here’s a track I wrote a few years ago out in Cali late at night noodling around with some sampled piano and dulcimer loops and a down-temp beat. It’s “Gibbous Delight” and it’s kind of frenetic but relaxed at the same time, like composing at 2am. It’s also the only song I’ve written with a dulcimer break…

Anthem for returning

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A piece constructed in one furious, late-night composing session on one of the last nights I spent in a loft in downtown St. Louis, MO. The track is ‘Something Nice (Synth Kid Mix)’.

Living downtown was an experience. There wasn’t really much down there in 2006, but the building was incredible with 18ft. tall windows, exposed brick, original wood flooring, no sound-proofing, and all the problems that you could imagine coming with it.

Starting with some Favs

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Starting off with some favorite tracks. The first one, ‘Rainy Wednesday’ was actually written on a Wednesday when it was raining probably sometime in 2000 or 2001. Early on capturing something literal about the environment and the mood was a good way to get the composing process started. It’s ended up being one of my wife’s favorites. It has a pretty fast beat, but is also fairly laid back giving it a somewhat calm energy.

The second track, ‘Unknown (Danger Grip)’ is just a down-tempo electronic … thing. Layers and melodies of which developed over time in the mid 2000’s during time spent in Urbana, IL and St. Louis, MO. By the end of the process I was really happy how all the different parts integrated with each other.