Amberwolf's Music Studio Technical Stuff (and the sonic products thereof)

[A-DamW]

Since we aren't allowed by contest rules to post remixes on any site other than the contest site, is there anyone here that would be willing to listen and critique by a private method?

I'd lend an ear and opinion.

I just listened to the original on YT, I like your idea of a spy-movie remix.

I'll try to be objective on such a subjective topic.

 

[amberwolf]

I'd lend an ear and opinion.

I just listened to the original on YT, I like your idea of a spy-movie remix.

I'll try to be objective on such a subjective topic.

Subjectiveness is totally fine; I mostly want to see if I'm headed anywhere in the right direction for making something that might catch other's attention, or if it's going to get skipped after a few seconds.


I have a bunch of sounds I am considering adding in there, from a "kit" called Retro Action Score ueberschall.com | Retro Action Score - Authentic Action Movie Retro Sound that I got for a few bucks on sale to have fun with, but before I even bother installing that and digging thru the sounds, I want to find out if what's already there is working.

Hey man.

I'd be glad to listen and give you my input.

I'll take y'all up on that; have had no listeners for it yet. (My brother says the original is fine as it is).

I PM'd the MP3 version; had to rename it to .zip to get the PM system to accept it, so just rename the file to .mp3 .

Just don't send it or post it anywhere.

Glad to hear you're into music too.

Actually I have a TON of gear. Sadly I don't use any of it. Been collecting for 20 years or more now.

I don't have much gear; only lost a few pieces in the fire back in 2013 (Yamaha G10 guitar controller, Takamine Jasmine acoustic, the DAW I was using at the time and the audio interface in it, and soemthing else I actually don't remember right now.

I think everything else I still have and it's probably discussed in this thread, or at least shown in the pictures of various things.

Need to finally start making music with all this stuff.

Yes, you do. Music is fun....

Seems like we have a bunch of the same gear.

I should take and share some pics of this gear hoarding addiction I have. It's all I have to show for it so far. lol.

Sure--post 'em here in this thread if you like.

I don't use my actual hardware much anymore, though the ASR88 has seen more use these days than in a long time, as just the keyboard itself. 99.9999999% of what I do in the last...long while has been done completely inside SONAR. (sometimes playing in something via MIDI, or recording something with the phone's crappy mic and importing that in as a wave file, someitmes recording in a wave file directly into SONAR of bad guiltar "playing" and using that to scrounge useful pieces from. )

I do often use Audacity for fine tuning of small wave files since SONAR doens't have an actual audio editor in it (seems like a serious deficiency, but it's never had one in all the decades various versions of it have existed). (loop construction view doesn't count; it can't do waht's needed).

I'm presently using it to composite assorted kick drums to replace the ones in the stems for the KSHMR remix, as I will eventually want to put this track up on my own pages, and can't do that with any of the original tracks in it (I'll replace the vocals with some cello, violin, not sure what else, it'll be a LOT of work). And I wanted a slightly different kick than it has in there, and a different snare and clap too, and something slightly less repeetititititititive for a percussion pattern than they used. (I discovered I like building percussion tracks...though I am not very good at it).


The last several pieces I have used just wave files and built the tracks from those, piece by piece. It's been interesting, tedious, and fun, and I've gotten results that I didn't expect, both good and bad, but still "worked" even with primitive techniques and ancient software.


So...you can make a lot of music without *any* gear.... (just a computer)

 

[amberwolf]

If anyone is reading this, I need some help.


Below references advice given that i should try to keep below -12 LUFS, and the loudest to go would be -8. But...this results in something far far too quiet to be usable.

All the relevant info should be in the quote below. If you need more info, please ask.

I couldn't get any of the plugins to show up in my SONAR8.3 except for dpMeter5nogpu, which at least shows me the info, though it doesn't appear to have anything to modify things built in, just the meter. The only modes that show LUFS are the EBU R128 modes. The first mode that actually does anything shows only LU; the first one that shows LUFS readouts is marked as LUFS -20, but the manual doesn't explain that. It does say that the field that shows up as -20 LUFS in there is a reference level, but it doesn't explain what it means by that.



I definitely need your help.

Hopefully you'll be patient and read thru all of the following, as I provided as much detail as I could with the knowledge I have.

I must not be understanding the -12LUFS thing right, because:

When turn things down that far to get to the -12LUFS, the result is very very different and sounds nothing like the way I intended it, so I will have to figure out how to cause them to sound the same. The parts don't even "mix together" correctly; I assume because of hte compression (or lack thereof, rather) at that stage.

The only way around i have found so far without experimenting with setting up a bunch of sidechains of things into each other's tracks' individual compressors and guessing and tweaking is to push the master compressor internal gain up to make up for it, and then turn down the master bus output that is later in the gainstaging back down to make it come out at the low LUFS.


But whether I do that or not:



When i go for a "integrated loudness" (average?) LUFS of -12, I have to turn the master output down to -28.2dB, which is so quiet I cannot even hear it above a "distant mumble" in the speakers at the volume i normally listen at for mixing (four out of 12 LEDs on the soundbar volume control, each LED represnets 3 volume levels with dim, halfbright, fullbright), which is normally pretty loud, just below the limit of uncomfortable with loud passages.

To hear it at less than half the volume it was before, I have to bring the speaker volume up all the way to the max.

To get it back to the correct volume *even with the speakers all the way up, many times beyond reasonable* (for me to listen to), I have to insert a secondary bus (speaker bus, beyond the actual mix gainstaging) and run it's input gain and output gain boht up +6db, and output the reduced-volume master bus into it.

To get it back to the correct volume (for me to listen to) without turning up the speakers, I have to insert a *second* bus in series with the first one, at 4.7dB input gain and +6dB output gain. (because +6dB is the max gain it will provide at any point inside a bus, though a track will do up to +18dB from the clips in it).


The part I'm confused about is, that if I go to the contest site:

LabelRadar

LabelRadar streamlines the demo submission process across the music industry, helping artists get heard while also allowing labels to review new submissions in an efficient and addictive way.

www.labelradar.com

and listen to any of the submissions already there, they are all way louder than mine, thru the same speakers at the same volume settings, even with my stuff set to the *original* volumes. They're so loud I actually have to turn my volume down by 1/4 (a whole LED level) to listen for more than a second.


I don't really know how this stuff works, but I expect that if I were to submit a mix as quiet as the -12LUFS would make it, nobody would even bother to listen to it, if they could even tell there was music there at the levels they'd probably have to have their speakers at for the other submissions.





I made a screenshot since my descriptions might be insufficient. The top two busses only feed the speaker, and are not in the mix the meter sees (and wouldn't be in the resulting file), so you can ignore the red "clipping" it shows, not relevant to the issues at hand).

The third bus down is just for the LUFS meter so it shows what's actually going out.

The fourth one is the actual master bus.

View attachment 375607

 

[OkinawaJapan]

Hey Amberwolf. How goes it?
While you're researching the distortion issue, are you still planning on making further changes to the song before submission as you'd mentioned or just keep it as is?

On the distortion issue, it might be time to get a set of studio monitors. Even inexpensive ones if carefully chosen can be great. They can really reveal a lot about a mix that are hidden in cheap bookshelf speakers.

Or what's becoming popular over the last two years is for people to mix on headphones. The slate VSX are seeming to take over as a new industry reference monitoring solution as it's standardized and portable and the accuracy is very very good. Or there are other options like SonarWorks or Dsoniq realphones with a well chosen pair of headphones.

Any of the above options will run around $300 or so. So it's just preference on what to choose.

My energy is finally starting to come back enough for me to begin working on my ebikes perhaps again today and sit in the studio to listen again. I was still hearing the distortion though last I checked. But I plan to listen to the current track on another PC just to 100% rule out it isn't something with my main DAW PC that may have changed in the settings somewhere that might be causing this. I'll try and do that today and let you know if we're on a wild goose chase for nothing. Sometimes that happens.

 

[amberwolf]

Hey Amberwolf. How goes it?

Still waiting on the requested help.

 

[amberwolf]

Sorry if the below sounds grumpy.

On the distortion issue, it might be time to get a set of studio monitors.

Already have the closest thing I will ever own, as previously discussed in PM (they're also discussed in this thread). I don't have money to spend on anything better (these were originally priced at $150each, $300/pair, when tehy were made, which would put them in todays money at a price point of almost $500 each; I could never afford monitors that cost more than a thousand dollars a pair to be "better" than what these probably are compared to whatever is out there. (I couldn't justify spendng $50 on new ones; I will never make money from this hobby to pay for them; I can't even get a handful of people to listen to each track I make, much less buy them)

The headphones I use (and how) are also discussed in this thread somewhere (might've also mentioned them in the PMs).




And I couldn't hear anything better in anything better than what I have, anyway.

Not sure if my severe tinnitus has been completely described in this thread, but it prevents me from hearing lots of things. It's probably why I don't hear any distortion.

If you have never experienced tinnitus, then to simulate mine, put on your headphones, turn your volume all the way up (as if someone with a high pitched voice was right next to your head, screaming in terror at the top of their lungs, continuously), and set up sinewave tone generators at several frequencies from around 1khz up to 20khz (I don't yet know all the frequencies it's at) at whatever their full output level is. Leave that running 24/7, forever.

I'm sure there are hearing losses to go with that, but the tinnitus alone keeps me from hearing things because it is SO LOUD. It's hard to think or do anything else.

(was hard enough already because I'm always exhausted from lack of sleep...for info about that, you'd just have to look around my posts over the years, it's too much to type up all over again).

 

[amberwolf]

Another new one:

Don't Know Why You Stay

https://amberwolf.bandcamp.com/track/dont-know-why-you-stay

just a minute of it so far so it won't take much time.

Might have words, still working on those, read them real fast with the beat:

I can feeeel youuu
waiting for me
I can heeear youu
asking for me
I can seeee you
walking away
from me.
Don't know why you stay
when you only want to leave
I can feeeel it all
can feeel your need
i can feel you
watching me
i can hear you
looking down at me
Don't know why I care
when you're not really there
What is it when you call my name
what is it when i hear you say
what is it called
what the hell do i say
when i
don't know don't care don't feel don't want
when i
cant see cant hear cant feel oh god
I can feeeel youuu
waiting for me
I can heeear youu
asking for me
I can seeee you
walking away
from me.
But I
don't know don't care don't feel don't want
when i
cant see cant hear cant feel oh god
need to
see you touch you smell you feel you
but you
run away look back callmy name
then you
come back tell me what i am
and i
feel you holding me killing me willing me
to go away stay there don't leave
oh god
I can feeeel it all
can feeel your need
i can feel you
watching me
i can hear you
looking down at me

 

[OkinawaJapan]

Sorry if the below sounds grumpy.


Already have the closest thing I will ever own, as previously discussed in PM (they're also discussed in this thread). I don't have money to spend on anything better (these were originally priced at $150each, $300/pair, when tehy were made, which would put them in todays money at a price point of almost $500 each; I could never afford monitors that cost more than a thousand dollars a pair to be "better" than what these probably are compared to whatever is out there. (I couldn't justify spendng $50 on new ones; I will never make money from this hobby to pay for them; I can't even get a handful of people to listen to each track I make, much less buy them)

The headphones I use (and how) are also discussed in this thread somewhere (might've also mentioned them in the PMs).




And I couldn't hear anything better in anything better than what I have, anyway.

Not sure if my severe tinnitus has been completely described in this thread, but it prevents me from hearing lots of things. It's probably why I don't hear any distortion.

If you have never experienced tinnitus, then to simulate mine, put on your headphones, turn your volume all the way up (as if someone with a high pitched voice was right next to your head, screaming in terror at the top of their lungs, continuously), and set up sinewave tone generators at several frequencies from around 1khz up to 20khz (I don't yet know all the frequencies it's at) at whatever their full output level is. Leave that running 24/7, forever.

I'm sure there are hearing losses to go with that, but the tinnitus alone keeps me from hearing things because it is SO LOUD. It's hard to think or do anything else.

(was hard enough already because I'm always exhausted from lack of sleep...for info about that, you'd just have to look around my posts over the years, it's too much to type up all over again).

Oh, sorry. I didn't have the energy to read the original earlier posts you made yet. My health was terrible and I was really out of it until the last day or so. I'll try to read up on it all tomorrow. It's almost 10pm here now. Apologies for not being able to keep up.

 

[OkinawaJapan]

Well, I just downloaded Sonar and got it installed. Had to fight with it for the last 30 minutes as it was stuck in a loop trying to use asio4all and failing causing a continuous loop. Fun stuff...

Got working finally now. Got a demo song loaded and playing finally just this minute. I'll take a look around. Been ages since I've looked at Sonar. Like since perhaps 2001 or before.

 

[OkinawaJapan]

So I'm curious what options you have checked in your export window.


I checked the box for render in realtime and also enabled the 64bit engine. These usually are good ideas as it increases quality and eliminated glitches when done in realtime. The 64 bit engine gives it huge headroom so clipping is supposed to be near impossible for the engine portion of the processing at least.

You could also experiment with unchecking particular items within the mix and render area to see if they are affecting the export SQ. That can help narrow down where something might be amiss in the processing to help find and adjust it out.

Hope that's a helpful start at least for now.

 

[amberwolf]

Well, the problem I am having is not clipping. That is fixed simply by turning the input gain to the master bus down as noted.

It is that if I use the LUFS settings you're recommending, it's far far too quiet. The full explanation is in the previous post (and PM before the post) where I was asking for help.

I am certain that I must be reading / using the metering plugin incorrectly, but the documentation doesn't explain things well enough for me to tell what I'm doing wrong, or what I should be doing instead.

If I just ignore all the LUFS stuff and just do what I normally do, (other than fixing hte input gain), I can get it to sound normal, no clipping, etc.

But if I am to do things the way you were saying they should be done...I need to know what I'm doing wrong there, so I can get an output volume comparable to the other submissions (because no one is going to listen to something they have to turn their speakers up by several times as loud as for everything else; the volume difference is that great).


As for the export options, my window doesn't look quite like the modern SONAR, as mine is a couple decades older.

But it doesn't matter if I use 32bit or 64bit, or whcih dithering option, which export bit depth or sample rate, etc., it is just as quiet either way. (and any clipping that occurs from turning the master bus input gain up too high will occur regardless; it's not a headroom problem there, just a gainstaging issue tha'ts fixed by not driving the input too hot).

There's nothing wrong with the processing, etc. It all works fine, it's just far too quiet with the LUFS levels suggested, assuming I'm using the metering plugin correctly.

 

[amberwolf]

Well, I just downloaded Sonar and got it installed. Had to fight with it for the last 30 minutes as it was stuck in a loop trying to use asio4all and failing causing a continuous loop. Fun stuff...

That, unfortunately, is a thing with Cakewalk products. They dont' handle very well the way ASIO4All (and other not-really-ASIO-drivers that are really wrappers for other drivers) work, and the "bakers" have been incredibly resistant to doing anything about this problem for the entire existence of ASIO support within CW products, even up to modern versions. I guess they just don't see it as a problem for them to cause the user all sorts of grief about it, instead of just recoding how they handle such drivers. (because other DAWs, from what various users say, handle it much more gracefully).

Got working finally now. Got a demo song loaded and playing finally just this minute. I'll take a look around. Been ages since I've looked at Sonar. Like since perhaps 2001 or before.

Sonar didn't exist before 2001, AFAICR that's when it changed from Cakewalk Pro Audio to SONAR. The version I'm using (8.5?) isn't all that much newer, though, becuase it does what I want and it's UI is usable, unlike that of newer versions. I also have "Splat" (SONAR Platinum) but it's UI is not very usable; the whole toolbar area changed from something useful and efficient to this...mess...that isn't customizable in the correct way.


But anyway, you don't really ahve to worry about using Sonar, as there's nothing in it specifically that has anything to do with the quietness problem.

 

[amberwolf]

Oh, sorry. I didn't have the energy to read the original earlier posts you made yet. My health was terrible and I was really out of it until the last day or so. I'll try to read up on it all tomorrow. It's almost 10pm here now. Apologies for not being able to keep up.

I totally understand about the energy problem. I can't sleep easily or stay there when I do (too many nightmares, too much stress, and nowadays the tinnitus too).

Music and my wolfy project are ways to help me with that (and usually my dogs, but the one I have now isn't really a snuggler and prefers to sulk where no one can see her (and doesn't understand that if she stuck around she would get far more attention than if she leaves the instant she isn't getting exactly the attention she wants)).

 

[amberwolf]

FWIW, if I seem too detailed and specific, it's just how my brain works. My brother calls it "non-neurotypical", the doctors call it "autism", most people call it "wierd", I just call it "me".

But it does drive away lots of people, especially from any kind of discussion I try to have. (if I try to discuss things in the limited way most people are willing to, it is boring and doesn't really have much point, it's like talking about the weather instead of the important things that need discussing at whatever moment...but if I don't do that, i don't get to talk to them at all).

 

[amberwolf]

Updated, lengthened, improved and filled out Don't Know Why You Stay

Don't Know Why You Stay, by Amberwolf

Original version still here
https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=15091036

 

[amberwolf]

Your music has way more imagination in it than I could ever come up with. Like you've stated, a soundscape. Some perfect for the soundtrack on a SciFi movie.

I imagine a lot of things...ideas I am very good at. Implementations are....rougher. In anything I do.

Music...I am always hearing things in sounds everywhere, even in random noises in the environment, or when I'm working on stuff (like tensioning spokes in a wheel, I often play it like an instrument at various stages of the process just for fun; I've recorded this a few times but it is never anything useful for making a track from, though I have used sounds from these in other tracks); even with things like testing some robotics servos, or using a sifter in the kitchen. (boht of the latter sounds I used percussively inEven If I Could Tell You)

It's not always musical, in any traditional sense, but it is...interesting, and fun. Most people would have no interest at all in the noises I make with things, so I don't really work on postable tracks for most of what I think of (just plonk around in realtime with the noises), and just do that for tracks that are musical enough for someone else to possibly enjoy.

I'm a guitar player that's tried to pull in a few different sounds to fill things out.

I like your guitar stuff in most of what you linked; it would be interesting to collaborate on things, even just remixes of what you've got there, if you have the original separate tracks.

There's a bunch of my stuff that could use a real guitar player...I have guitars, and they're real, and I can make them make sounds, but a guitar player I am not. Cloudwalkers would probably be some of the best I've done played in mostly left intact; it is more or less a long jam. Just Give Me A Voice is probably the best where I took what I played, chopped it up, and "fixed" it or modified it into what it is now.

I just looked. A decade ago I stashed some stuff on Broadjam. It's still there - heh! So-

(Hmmm... Music links below aren't working through Broadjam(?) so redirected them to a Google Drive account.)

I've posted a very few of the thoughts I had while listening; there's more but I have been working on new stuff so haven't had time to go back and finish typing this all up (started back when you posted the reply I'm quoting; posting it now in incompleteness before I either forget or the file gets lost).

This would be a completed song with vocals even though I hate to sing. (About losing a friend on the net.)

LadyM is good but I'd fairly drastically change hte reverby vocal fx portion (the parts that say oooh ladym), and the one with the flanger or chorus part feels like it's too much. Also there are parts in the verses where the fx are either too much or the parts stomp on each other.

That's something that I'm guilty of quite often; it is so hard to decide which of several concurrent things going on to emphasize, and which to push into the background or mute...sometimes I will make an extra section just to swap them around :lol: I just did this in a few places in my latest one Don't Know Why You Stay because I liked all the different things going on and didn't want to hide them away.

Here is me experimenting with keyboards even though I don't play keyboards. I put my fingers on the keys and if it doesn't sound good I move them - chuckles.....

I like "Island", it reminds me of a few things I've done, and also of something else, maybe Pachelbel's Canon? not sure.

FWIW, I make most of my music that way. Poke at things until sound comes out and keep poking differently until the sound is one that "does something" for me. There is usually some idea behind it that is in my head but what is in my head is almost never translatable (by me) to something that can be heard by others; I need a cable I can plug into my brain to get the sound out complete and intact of what I am hearing in there, because the process of me trying to get it out changes it. (or destroys it).

I'm pretty conventional but get a little disjunct and wandering on this song.

"Shakin" starts out a little odd; feels like it's missing stuff until the bassline (?) starts. Like some of my stuff it seems to get too busy / loud somewhere in there after the middle.

...and sometimes I record things just to try out effects, techniques and sounds.

This one (Thoughts) reminds me in melody (?) of my old track Ethic (one of the very few that has gotten a fair number of listens / likes over the years wherever it's been posted):
(EDIT: soundclick aparently gave me a random garbage URL for the share link to Ethic, fixed now)

https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=5112634

though at the very beginning, when the percussion started, my first thought was "No one is to blame" by Howard Jones.

I like "Thoughts" and would find it an interesting one to remix if you have the original tracks laying around (especially if they're the dry tracks without fx; I think the delayed guitar would work better with a more subtle delay with less feedback).

...and one more just for the heck of it (you don't want to listen to a whole album of stuff) called Plains. (Think running horses!)

This one I had trouble getting into. I think that for me, the percusion (or whatever the background is) was not rhythmic enough for me--normal poeple would probably feel differently. At some point I'll have to go back to it to see if my brain can figure it out and listen properly.

Might also be that there are parts there that are just blocked by my tinnitus; it's VERY VERY LOUD and masks a whole lot of sounds.

Agreed! A big part of recording is how good you are with the tools you have. I have Ardour installed on one of my Linux machines but struggle to use it because I don't know it.

I haven't heard of that one before. (but I am still barely conversant with Linux at all; hardly ever get teh chance to fire up the laptop I have some variant installed on, originally so I coudl figure out some programming stuff that' ssupposed to be easier there (see my wolfy robotics project thread about that)).

 

[amberwolf]

Updated Don't Know Why You Stay with some of the backing vocalizations. I have to fix these up the same as I would teh lyrical vocals, so it's time consuming (I first have to find the right ones, then make them fit the rest of the track).


08-30-25: 082525 000001 000063k

Don't Know Why You Stay, by Amberwolf

 

[amberwolf]

Updated Don't Know Why You Stay with extensive backing vocalizations. (said this part before, but I have to fix these up the same as I would teh lyrical vocals, so it's time consuming (I first have to find the right ones, then make them fit the rest of the track)).

08-30-25: 082525 000001 100070m

https://amberwolf.bandcamp.com/track/dont-know-why-you-stay

This one is...I guess my brother said it's something like these (that I haven't heard of) Sisters of mercy "This corrosion", The White Stripes "Seven Nation Army", and another one I don't remember (EDIT: something by Men At Work, don't recall which one, but at least I've heard their stuff before and know who they are, unlike the first two).. I don't know what I'd call it myself except it's more like a "regular song" than one of my "soundtracks".



I still haven't had time to build the lyrical vocals for it; that will probably be a long and complex task, finding each word or phrase, cutting it up and time/pitch warping it to fit the track at that point and the previous and next vocal bits. It's a little like cutting individual words and letters out of magazines and newspapers and whatnot, then warping them to make them all look close enough to each other that when put together for a message they look like they were from the same source done all at the same time for that one new purpose.

The closest I've come to completing that kind of thing was with the Elven section of Behind You Lie Many Unseen which is very short and did not have to make sense, unlike this one.


These are the lyrics I have for now; they need to be edited to scan with the music I've got now (which is a bit different than when I thought up the lyrics when first creating the idea of the song here . Sing it darkly...the first part would be slower, then the first refrain of Don't Know Why You Stay starts the much faster part that syllablizes with the beat.

I can feeeel youuu
waiting for me
I can heeear youu
asking for me
I can seeee you
walking away
from me.
Don't know why you stay
when you only want to leave
I can feeeel it all
can feeel your need
i can feel you
watching me
i can hear you
looking down at me
Don't know why I care
when you're not really there
What is it when you call my name
what is it when i hear you say
what is it called
what the hell do i say
when i
don't know don't care don't feel don't want
when i
cant see cant hear cant feel oh god
I can feeeel youuu
waiting for me
I can heeear youu
asking for me
I can seeee you
walking away
from me.
But I
don't know don't care don't feel don't want
when i
cant see cant hear cant feel oh god
need to
see you touch you smell you feel you
but you
run away look back callmy name
then you
come back tell me what i am
and i
feel you holding me killing me willing me
to go away stay there don't leave
oh god
I can feeeel it all
can feeel your need
i can feel you
watching me
i can hear you
looking down at me

 

[Diggs]

I wanted to touch base on this -

you have the original separate tracks.

I've lost the drive with all the original tracks. I've spent hours looking but I destroy dozens of drives every month sometimes (a work thing) and it may have got lost in that shuffle. All I have are the finished mp3s in the cloud.

flanger or chorus part feels like it's too much

I think it was chorus and delay and it caused the flanging effect. Yes, I wanted a stark difference between the lead vocal (flat, no effects and very top of my range) and the chorus heavy in effects. Many of my songs are me just trying out ideas. Some take it too far.

"Shakin" starts out a little odd;

Agreed. It's actually a Casio (keyboard) lead-in percussion track that I just elaborated on as it went.

This one I had trouble getting into. I think that for me, the percusion (or whatever the background is) was not rhythmic enough for me

It's one of the more obscure things I worked on. I think again it starts out with a percussion track from the Casio.

The tools I had were a Les Paul copy, Ibanez bass, Takamine acoustic, large diaphragm condenser mic, and an inexpensive Casio keyboard (noisy) that I was also used for strings, doubling the bass and of course drum lines. At some point I added the V-Amp 2 which models amps/guitars and effects.

I've tried to get back into my music again several times and I just don't stay with it. The flame/inspiration (so to speak) is gone.

(I should add I was the sound engineer for the band Warlord out of New Jersey back in the late 70s/early 80s. High energy rock & roll. Best compliments I ever got was from the soundman of the super-group Yes!)

 

[amberwolf]

The KSHMR Wild Ride contest ends submissions today, so I posted up my version:


Amberwolf's Wild Ride Remix


I don't think they have a voting system but they do have a "like" button...



They have VERY limited set of "genres" to pick from, so I'm sure it's the wrong one for what it is, but I couldn't find a better one than "electronic - indie dance". They don't have "soundtrack" or "soundscape" or anything remotely like that.

 

[amberwolf]

Didn't win either contest, no surprise.

Gotta contact the contest-runners and see if they'll ok me posting up my version on my bandcamp for posterity and so it isn't wasted effort to have made them.


Still working on the Ray of Light remix idea.


Sorta kinda on topic, looking for something for someone else in a different forum, I ran across part of my "media collection", so posting some pics here for posterity, too:

(see end of post for a bunch of pics; i had a thought and looked in my media collection, and found I actually have a number of those ancient tapes, one of which says it was erased in 1974 (sticker from the library)...another has notes indicating it has pulsar timing / recordings on it, and a couple of Joan Baez prerecorded ones too. A couple of ancient vinyls from my dad's collection that I saved for memories (I think they both inspired me, though not at the time, directly).

is the whole ELO album from a (probable) master tape; couldn't find any of the WC Well-Temperered Synthesizer online (just other people's takes on it). Also found I still have one of the 8" floppies, and some magnetic cards and pencil-in "punchcards"; most of the other weird media must either be in a different box or it was lost along the way since the housefire; I collect examples of information storage media of various kinds, mostly electronic).

Media pics:

 

[OkinawaJapan]

(I should add I was the sound engineer for the band Warlord out of New Jersey back in the late 70s/early 80s. High energy rock & roll. Best compliments I ever got was from the soundman of the super-group Yes!)

Wait. For Warlord? Like the Warlord that had the "Deliver Us" song and album? If so, that was on constant repeat for me back around 1985 or so. One of my favorites ever.

 

[amberwolf]

Another new WIP on soundclick:

091425 000001 100021c (initial version) by Amberwolf

EDIT: If you listen to this now (or did before) please also listen to the updated version below on bandcamp.

 

[amberwolf]

"Finished" it, now called Drywater, Mars:


Drywater, Mars, by Amberwolf


What do you see when listening?



I kind of visualize the opening of a Firefly-like TV show or movie where a cargo ship is coming in to land at Drywater while the townspeople look up at it; starting from the POV near the ship itself, watching the pilot struggle to keep the overloaded ship shiny side up and get it down safely while the crew tries to keep containers and cargo from going over the sides. :lol:

 

[amberwolf]

Drywater, Mars has been extended at both ends a bit, and there are extensive small edits throughout.

What do you think of it now?

Drywater, Mars, by Amberwolf