More Space Jazz 083020

 More Spacey Jazz-Rock-Fusion ... not much more to say, but there's more drum solos and improvs, bass is the Ample Bass VSTi, and I used my Agile AL-3010 Les Paul copy this time.

Most of this piece is composed of a bunch of quickly improvised bass and/or drum riffs, and them I added the atmospheric synth pads, and finally recorded the guitars. Line 6 POD GO for the guitar tones, with some additional Earthquaker Pedals (Tranmisser and Avalanche Run).

Spacejazz082320

Some new music, a bit of "spacey jazz fusion."

My trusty 32 year old Yamaha SJ550HR recorded thru my Line 6 POD Go, my Hadean Uke Bass recorded direct into my Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, and EZ Drummer played mostly "live" with my Korg NanoPad.

First Song by the New Band

Okay, kids, here's the first song that we've decided to post from the still unnamed band. Technically, I'm actually playing all the instruments for this particular demo, but we are adding live bass guitar from Clint, and Jamie will soon be recording his live drums.

Right-click to open in new tab or window.

http://soundcloud.com/dimaensionx/mr-flynns-rockit-ride

It's a heavy, kinda bluesy tune called, "Mr. Flynn's Rockit Ride." Here's a few comments we've already heard from a few "fans" on the Reaper DAW Users Forum.

"Great rocking tune! I like the sounds too, especially the bass growl and string clunk."

"Liked your dirty 70s blues sound."

"Sounds like a great start. IMO, you should make this band all about the singer. He's got a very gritty and distinct blue-collar kind of style. Make sure that he always has interesting phrasing and bad attitude."

So far so good, huh? Here's the details on the band:

Dan Flynn - vox

Clint Mitchell - bass

James Jones - drums

Dave Lanciani - guitar

Arisen from the ashes of the "Basement Barfers" (today's color is "chunky pink"), the eternal trio of Dan Flynn, James Jones, and Clint Mitchell "volunteered" (conscripted/recruited?? lured by the prospect of money, drugs and groupies) Dave Lanciani into the mix, hoping to temporarily stave off the "revolving-door policy" of random guitar-players. The new band, now with more of a rockin' thrashy, traditional heavy metalbackground (imagine the Sex Pistols jamming with Entombed, Motorhead and Iron Maiden) forge ahead into the unknown.

Wow, that sounds really pretentious...

We're going to get a link up on Facebook, too. And we still need a name. Any ideas?

New Album almost done!

Yup, I am close to completing the latest album - seven songs are mixed and mastered, one and a half originals, and a cover tune to go.

All will be uploaded and posted soon. This album has almost NO actual guitar solos, though. It is much more of a symphonic-rock ensemble recording, focusing more on mood and atmosphere, and sound in general, rather than being a "metal" album.

There are plenty of thick and crunchy rhythm guitars and fast double bass drums, and even live bass guitar on every song this time, which I was very insistent on having. But I wanted this to be a true "symphonic ensemble" project, thematic in nature, perhaps even soundtrack-ish - a movie for your ears. It may need that extra amount of time and attention to really listen to this one. Yes, Metalheads, I am asking for patience as you digest this one.

But please, turn it up loud. Even though it has its mellow moments, it has plenty of heavy moments of epic proportion, if I do say so myself.

Then again, I am biased, but if I didn't like it, I wouldn't post it.

I will be recording the last songs this weekend, and hopefully mixing and mastering the rest very soon.

A major shout-out to the developers of Reaper. This is truly one great program that I highly recommend to all musical folks into home recording looking for an inexpensive alternative to ProTools, Logic, Cubase, etc.

Reaper - Audio Production Without Limits

Three Demo songs posted!!

The first three songs (demo versions) have now been posted at Soundlick.com. Here's a picture of the cover art (as is in progress, anyway - it may change as time goes on), and a link to the songs.

The new demo songs!!

Please note that the 2nd song gets cut off after six minutes, so I've got to figure out that enigma. They seem to sound really lo-fi, too. Try playing the individual songs in hi-fi. they seem to sound better that way. I'll upload the final versions eventually, anyway. Hopefully these songs give you a good idea of what the new album will sound like. I'm definitely doing more with the symphonics and orchestral stuff, which I really enjoy more and more. I still love my metal, but I also like other sounds and styles

Hope you like 'em so far!

Please leave a comment in the Comments section.
ThanX.

New WorX - Old Becomes New...

New Project - actually equals old songs given new life, ... again, ...

Since I was very pleased with my "I Am Become Daevel" album, which was actually a bunch of old songs that I never recorded properly until recently, I decided to attempt the same thing with more unpublished material from my "archives".

Way back in 2000, I ended up recording FOUR Albums as pure MIDI/Synth - i.e., no real guitars. Yup. FOUR of these buggers exist. All played or programmed solely with synthesized instruments on an old Casio keyboard, which sounded surprisingly "okay" for Casio equipment. And some of the songs were actually pretty cool. I did a lot of really really fast "virtuoso"-type songs, very progressive, almost neo-classical, ... very influenced by Dream Theater, Symphony X, and a lot of other bands that play waayyy too many notes.

So now I've been listening back to some of these and wondering, "What if I actually tried re-recording these with my new drum samples (Toontrack rules!!), newer SONAR software, better symphonic samples, and REAL guitar?"

Not that I can actually play a lot of these songs note-for-note, ... (far from it), but I can play most of the rhythms and some of the "note-riff" sections. And a lot of the really really fast sections can just be played by the computer as synths anyway. Kind of like having Rick Wakeman or Jordan Rudess help me out with the keyboard parts. Plus, I can finally add some guitar solos (these albums have PLENTY of open spaces for actual improvisation).

I am going to try to go right thru each album, and maybe get rid of parts that didn't work, add some new stuff - in general, breathe new life into these old songs.

I'm actually kind of psyched up and can't wait to dig out the old files. these won't be done in a week or so, though. This might take a while, but I now have a goal. With the bar set very high.