Seclusia EP

Today was my personal deadline to release some new music. And here it is! I apologize for not getting another progress report written over the holidays, I decided to just keep working at it and polishing what I had. Originally my goal was to write and release a full album between November 1st and today. But I got crazy sick and lost over a third of my time. Rather than pushing back the deadline, I decided I'd focus on releasing an EP. So here you have it. I'm calling it Seclusia.

It's not metal. It rocks some times. It's pretty somber. It's kind of ambient. It's something totally different for me. This is just the first step towards something bigger, I feel.

Stream or download it at http://seclusia.bandcamp.com and if you're interested browse through some of the past posts to see how it all came about!

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As those of you who have been following my album writing project more than likely know, I was mutated into a disgusting mucus generating slime-beast with my head clamped in a migraine-inducing vice for a week and a half. That's how it felt anyway. Well luckily I started feeling functional again on Friday and was able to get back into action!

So needless to say, since I lost around 1/3 of my time I allocated for myself for this project, it's going to end up being more like an EP than an album. I know, I know, you can tell me I'm lame in the comments if you like ;)

But actually, this is probably for the best, because the path I've taken is uncharted territory for me style wise. You see, in the midst of my sickness I had time to ponder the things I was playing with before, and I was really liking the clean channel stuff I had going. So I decided to focus entirely on playing with that sound. So needless to say, if you're expecting some crazy thrash riffs and pinch-harmonics you're probably going to be disappointed...hahahhaa.

As a heads up, I wanted to record video of me playing while doing these recordings, but it causes too many latency and playback issues if I try to record video at the same time I'm actually recording into Ableton :( So no guitar videos this time around folks!

Now onto the first track! This one is still pretty short at less than two minutes in length. Out of everything I currently have going this is definitely the most "rock" oriented song. I'm using Ableton Live to do all the recording and mixing. For the drum sounds I'm using my trusty plugin BFD2.

I started by recording the base guitar tracks into Ableton by simply playing along with a metronome. I recorded each riff individually into the Session view. This is not how I normally operate. I usually write all my tunes and just record them linearly in Arrangement view. But this time around, since the name of this game is Trying New Things, I went for a different approach. Here's a glimpse of the base riffs in Session View:

For those unfamiliar with Ableton, each box is basically a riff, or in a few instances a pair of riffs. After I had this done, I was able to start playing around by triggering different riffs back to back to see what sort of interesting combinations and arrangements I could come up with. After playing around for a while I could then transfer these different arrangements to the timeline, which gives me something like this:

Nifty eh?

Then a rough sort of "skeleton" of a song I was able to start experimenting with drum programming. Drum programming takes f  o  r  e  v  e  r, but I've always really enjoyed it. It's like building Legos of sound!

After getting some rough drum beats down for all the different parts, I then picked up the ol' axe again and started to record additional layers of guitars, and then some bass tracks. These I recorded linearly in arrangement view. I basically just played on top of what I had going before. In all I ended up with 4 guitar tracks (2 for the left channel, 2 for the right channel) and 2 bass tracks (one for each channel). In the past I usually have 3 guitar tracks tops, and 1 bass track. But with this project I was really starting to  experiment with lots of layers of guitars. Here's what it ended up looking like when it was all said and done!

And now you can take a listen. It's still a work in progress, but I'm having fun and liking where it's going! *NOTE: INCREASE THE VIDEO QUALITY TO 720P FOR BEST SOUND QUALITY*

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Now on to track two. This time I'll skip the progress screenshots since it's essentially the same thing. This track still needs a lot of work and is not nearly as far along as the first one, but I'm really liking a lot of what's going on here. It's got a pretty haunting vibe. I started to experiment with some pitch shifting effects on the guitars, which you'll hear at about the 1:15 mark. The transitions in this track are pretty non-existent at this point. Once I program some drum fills and write a few guitar segways (and an actual ending) I think it'll be in good shape!

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The third track I have in the works is the most complete. It gets a little weird and needs some finessing in the middle when it "calms down," and the ending needs some refinement. But for the most part I'm really happy with it!

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This concludes tonight's musical diary. Now that I'm feeling better I hope to have several more updates throughout the week, so stay tuned! And as always, all questions and comments are welcome.

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Well the flu certainly put a bit of a damper on my productivity the past few days. Regardless, I was able to at least sit down and crank out some riffs. This time around I'm mostly playing in C#G#C#F#A#D#. Also began to play around with some clean channel stuff that I'm digging the vibe of. The cleans sound a lot better "in real life" than in these crappy little recordings, but it gets the ideas down.

I'm starting to get some ideas of some structuring, and a few drum beats are starting to play out in my head. I'm starting to hear a lot of potential for some pretty dark industrial beats and textures to accompany these riffs...

Going to start recording some of these guitar parts proper and play around with some drum beats and some song structuring tonight.

Here's the vid. As always, questions and comments are welcome!

And if you're interested, here's the previous two parts to this project:
Part 1
Part 2

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Here's a slew of new riffs I came up with the past couple days for my balls-to-the-wall album writing project. Lost some progress last night due to being hit like a freight train with the flu. But after sleeping for about 18 hours straight I got back at it late this afternoon.

So far a lot of what I'm coming up with is pretty slow and sludgy. I'm playing in Drop D with a capo on the first fret, so D#A#D#G#B#E#. I'm finding it provides for a lot of really dark and strange tones. Any questions or comments are welcome!

Also, if you missed it, the first part can be viewed here.

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I'm writing an album over the next few weeks and documenting the process as much as possible. I'm not trying to write anything legendary or blow any minds. It is simply a personal test to see what I can accomplish musically in a small amount of time.

What's the point of this? Having to complete an album in such a short amount of time forces me to write and act on instinct. I won't have time to over think, or barely think at all. I will have no choice but to write in an extremely primal and emotional manner.

So there you have it. I'm psychotic aren't I?

I'll be posting warts and all process videos and clips as frequently as I possibly can. So here we go, the first segment is below! In this first part you'll hear some initial riff ideas I came up with the past couple days that I'm pretty happy with. You'll also hear plenty of mistakes and guitar squawks. Let me know any thoughts, questions or anything else you might have in the comments below!

Achenar

Nothing gets me more excited than discovering killer music. Today while cruising around on Spotify I randomly ran across what is easily the most exciting and original slab of electronic sonic destruction I have heard in a long time. It's an album called Super Death Explosion Kittens by a guy named Duncan Hemingway, writing under the moniker of Achenar.

Right at 20 minutes in length, Super Death Explosion Kittens doesn't exactly have time to beat around any bushes. It sucks you in, chews you up and spits you out before you can even say the words "HOLY SHIT." I simply cannot recommend this enough.

If you like it, throw the dude some cash on BandCamp or buy a CD. This is one man making the music he wants to make out of pure passion and nothing else. If you can't support that, then get off my lawn.

Fuck. Yes.

Buy Super Death Explosion Kittens on BandCamp

Listen to Super Death Explosion Kittens on Spotify

Buy a physical copy of Super Death Explosion Kittens

Like Achenar on Facebook

Stream it right here and now:

Inter-

After roughly two years, I have finally released my new album Inter-.  During the course of its writing and production I went from freelancing (aka starving to death) in Plainville Kansas, to starting a career in motion graphics and moving to Wichita, Kansas, and then switching jobs and moving again to Kansas City, Missouri. I also parted ways with a significant other, battled severe depression and started taking serious steps to improve my physical/mental health and lifestyle. A lot can happen in two years!

The album is available for your own price (even free if you choose!) over at BandCamp and thesequenceofprime.com. I hope you like it, but if not that's perfectly fine by me :)

bd

Design Like An Artist

I've been invited to give a talk and a workshop at my old stomping grounds, Fort Hays State University. I'll be ranting about design, art, music, life and all sorts of other shit. I have received a few requests to record it. I'll find a way to make that happen. So if you're in the area on November 17th come on by!

Black Metal On Spotify

I am working on putting together the ultimate Black Metal playlist on Spotify. If you have an account you can subscribe to it. If you don't have Spotify, I highly recommend you give it a shot. There is a free version available to test the waters.

I will continuously be building on this playlist. And if you have any recommendations for bands that I should add feel free to send 'em my way!

The Drums of Virion

I love programming drums. For my album Virion I used Ableton Live with a plugin from FXpansion called BFD2. While there is an insane amount of pre-made beats and loops available, I chose not to use them. Every electronic attack was individually punched-in on the timeline by yours truly.

Below are the full drum sequences of every track on Virion. For those unfamiliar with this method of composing music, here is a quick rundown: The overall view is called the Piano Roll. Every row represents a different drum sound. Each box represents a single attack. The darker the color of the box, the louder the volume. The pink handlebars across the bottom adjust the velocity of the corresponding hits above.

Look painful? To many people it is. Perhaps I am an obsessive control freak, but I can easily spend days on end working on a single track. Yes, I am probably crazy.

So here you have it, beat by beat. And if you haven't heard it, Virion is available for free download in its entirety over at thesequenceofprime.com.

Enlightenment

Cenozoic Anoxia

Backlit

Nuclear Winter

Icosahedron

Particulate Matter

Dandelions in Spring

Ecophagy

Extremophile

Compression

Logging Guitar Riffs

This is a screenshot of a folder on my computer that is full of new or unused guitar riffs I have written. A few years ago I got into the habit of using the built in camera on my iMac to record myself playing anything that I think has potential to be developed into a song.

This allows me to not only hear the guitar parts, but also see how they are played. If it is something rather complex or crazy fast I play the riff full speed as well as at a slower pace to make sure that down the road I can pinpoint exactly what I was doing at the time.

The oldest unused riff was recorded Thursday, April 2, 2009. The most recent was recorded last night. Currently there are 251 files in this folder. Though the actual number of riffs in here is higher. This is because sometimes I have a few diddies that work well together, so I alternate back and forth between them while recording. I'm guessing that the number of unique guitar parts here is easily over 300.

Occasionally I will also have a drum beat in mind to go along with whatever I am playing. In this case I usually just beatbox it in the same movie clip.