A cover of the Halo 1 theme using '80s and early '90s sounds.
Apologies to everyone for my bit of a public hiatus. This was largely because I was working on the mastering for my currently-written tracks for Cyborg, which proved surprisingly difficult and involved quite a bit of experimentation. Good news is that I think I finally have it down: it's both good quality and loud, now. Expect a possibility of a preorder of the album in the near future.
I also got a Roland XV-3080 yesterday, which I intend to replace my JV-2080, as it has virtually all of the same patches and then some. I also hope to actually be active in commenting on others' work again, especially on SoundCloud. Thank you all for your patience, as well as for waiting. I've been giving it some thought the past two days. I'm considering removing some of my tracks from my next album and releasing them separately, and there are two big reasons for this:
1. Inconsistent atmosphere. I think one problem with my prior albums is that each track tended to have rather sudden changes of mood. In the case of Cyborg, some tracks are just too cheery sounding relative to the other tracks, which tend to sound more like darksynth artist Perturbator. 2. Waning audience. I realize it's been a few months since I updated my Bandcamp catalog, and I feel I need filler material between now and when Cyborg is finally released. Among the tracks that would be released separate from Cyborg would be my track "Electric Dreams", which will likely be great news for those who liked it but can't download the final version, yet. I think I officially finished mastering that track as of yesterday, so expect some sort of compensation for your patience in the near future. Thank you for reading. Well, some updates for everyone.
First, one may notice that I redesigned my website slightly. Expect me to gradually implement more changes for the sake of a more appealing experience here. The main reason I post this, however, is about my soundtrack to Amnesia: The Great Work. Both the creator of the mod and I have received a few complaints about their YouTube Let's Play videos being flagged as having copyrighted content, namely, my music, so I feel I need to clear up some things. It is true that I registered the soundtrack with YouTube's Content ID system. However, the videos should not be getting notices to be pulled; all it should do is embed ads for any videos that have the music play loud enough within the video. Even my own videos of the soundtrack on my channel are not immune to this rule (I had allowed them to be claimed by my aggregator) so I do have an idea of how annoying the ads can be. To make matters more complicated, I already contacted my aggregator on behalf of the people who complained, requesting that the content be de-registered with YouTube. Unfortunately, it's been a few days since I sent them an email, and still I have not received a response, making me also question whether de-registering the content with YouTube's Content ID system is even possible. If this is the case, I regret to say to YouTube Let's Players that you'll have to deal with embedded ads for Amnesia: The Great Work. Apologies for this inconvenience, and by all means, contact me if your video was pulled, as that was most certainly not my intent when I made the initial decision. Thank you all for your time. With the permission of Intravenous Software, I present to you the music for the alpha trailer of NeonXSZ. If you like the music, here is the trailer it's for. This question has been bugging me for a bit, sadly. On one hand, Indiegogo is a crowdfunding site, and I appear to have received more contributions in terms of total gain that way than through album sales in prior campaigns. On the other, however, the lack of funds has also made me contemplate whether I even need some of the things that would be spent on for the purpose of "Cyborg" (i.e. additional synthesizers). Combine this with my tendency to finish one track at a time instead of all at once. This is a relatively short blog, partially because I'm hoping people will contribute with their own thoughts. Let me know in the comments whether you would prefer to spend on a crowdfunding campaign or a preorder. In the meantime, I uploaded this preview track from Cyborg, though I regret to say that the audio is not the final version, nor is the artwork in the video. Again, let me know in the comments whether to crowdfund or to enable preorders.
Well, I've been giving it some thought about my next album since my last blog post in two ways.
First, I'm hoping there will be enough popularity for my next album to have two editions: a download version, and a CD version. Expect two different artists for each edition, if this is the case. The other aspect, however, is the following I have. It appears there's still a bit of trouble getting the word out about my work. I will be planning on resuming email newsletters in the near future, but this also depends on the followers I have already. Therefore, everyone who reads this, I'm asking you to do what you can. Share my pages wherever you feel it's fit. Watch my videos on YouTube. Even sharing just my Bandcamp page could suffice. Links to my most active places are below, those of you who can't readily access them right now. Soundcloud Tumblr YouTube Bandcamp Thank you for reading, and again, expect an email update in the near future. First of all, I'm extremely ashamed of myself for another hiatus. Hopefully, I'll speed up soon since I've started to resume music projects.
Some of you may have been around long enough to remember that I ran two Indiegogo campaigns in the past for my '80s-style albums. One of these campaigns is the sole reason a limited-edition CD of one of the albums, Prison of the Mind, even exists. That being said, I'm feeling tempted to run a third Indiegogo campaign because there are some costly things I'll need if I'm going to have a good sound in my music, not only in terms of what music synthesizers I have, but also in terms of how to process and master them to sound more professional. I feel it necessary to run this by my listeners to see their own thoughts about the subject and whether this would be worth it. It will be my most costly project so far at nearly $2,000, just so everyone knows. You can add comments at the bottom of this entry. Thank you all for reading, and I look forward to your thoughts on the subject.First of all, I'm extremely ashamed of myself for another hiatus. Hopefully, I'll speed up soon since I've started to resume music projects. Some of you may have been around long enough to remember that I ran two Indiegogo campaigns in the past for my '80s-style albums. One of these campaigns is the sole reason a limited-edition CD of one of the albums, Prison of the Mind, even exists. That being said, I'm feeling tempted to run a third Indiegogo campaign because there are some costly things I'll need if I'm going to have a good sound in my music, not only in terms of what music synthesizers I have, but also in terms of how to process and master them to sound more professional. I feel it necessary to run this by my listeners to see their own thoughts about the subject and whether this would be worth it. It will be my most costly project so far at nearly $2,000, just so everyone knows. You can add comments at the bottom of this entry. Thank you all for reading, and I look forward to your thoughts on the subject. I apologize for another delay; on top of personal matters not worth delving into, I was also partially with making arrangements in anticipation of my TV soundtrack position. That's not the reason I write this, however. For those of you who follow me for my retro music, there's been an update at last: New Retro Wave's second volume of their '80s Dream Compilation is officially released as of yesterday! My own contribution, "The New Communism", requires getting the entire album, whether paid for or for free, as it's a bonus track. I also recommend you listen to the other submissions by the others to this volume.
Thank you for reading. |