Tribloos 2 music progress

Work progresses well on the Tribloos 2 sound track. I've got about 7mins 30secs worth after a week and a bit across 6 separate tunes (one of which still needs some work.) Rather than going for a few long tunes I've decided to go for lots of different short (about 1 min) tunes that go better with the varying scenery. Therefore I've still got another 10/15 tunes to write before I'm done which feels like quite a lot! But I'll be getting the first Beta of the game out before then anyway so that I'm not completely drowning in music! So, here's one of the tunes I've been working on, a remix of an old chip tune I wrote but now in orchestral form:
Hopefully more to come next week!

Back and with a (virtual) guitar

Well since last posting a lot has been happening!

We've been looking after our new baby boy which has, unfortunately, removed most of my time for making music for fun (sad face!)

But I just wanted to report that I'm back on the horse tracker and even bought a new VST! Wow, that's only taken me two years...

It's called "Real Guitar" which I'm sure many people will have heard of and it's working out very nicely so far. I've been in need of a good guitar VST for years really and this fits the bill as it handles chords, strumming and even has input facilities for Guitar Hero game controllers! Must get me one of those now...

Much easier than learning guitar (which I just don't have time for these days.)

Also I've had a few people buy my albums on bandcamp recently to which I say: THANK YOU!

Can't stress this enough, and to have it bought at more than the $1 asking prices makes it even more amazing.

Thank you again and again guys!

So what am I working on now? I'm in music making mode for my latest game: Tribloos 2 coming to PC/Mac within the next few months as well as our other Bumpkin Brothers game "Ian Fell In The Machine"...coming to iPhone within the next few months!

In the process however I've been coming up with "offcuts" that don't really fit the games but I really like anyway. I'm hoping to turn these into independent tunes that I put up on youtube (not done this yet - scary!) and possibly bandcamp again for those that just want the music files.

Thanks again for visiting, hoping to have some exciting stuff to show very soon.

The Reign Deer!

Recently I've been asked to do a tune for an upcoming iphone/android project! It was great fun as always (can't wait to see the game published) and I'll talk more on that once it's been released.

However during the "creative process" I first came up with something that was slightly off the mark.

 It's called "Reign Deer" and was supposed to have a Christmas feel to it and loop at 1 min (so it's not too long!) But I really liked it so decided to share it with anyone who happened to be passing:

 

Did I mention Swings and Rounderbouts?

Which was recently added to my main demo?

Check out track 5 on the main demo page! It features me doing some violining "live" y'know.

I actually created this quite a long time ago (probably almost 10 years ago!) So it also uses Buzz Tracker which I was really into at the time. I took this tune to "The Gathering 2002" and entered the music contest there where I came...probably last if I remember correctly!

In my defence it was the only song with a melody and I was against 20 trance tunes, needless to say I should have listened to the previous years entries to see what style I should have written instead!

Anyway I quite like it, it has a haunted quality about it so let me know what you think!

Now available for work!

It's been a few years since I did this and the scene has changed quite dramatically, but the need for decent music and memorable melodies hasn't!

Therefore I've decided to start offering my compositional services once again to the community and start putting myself out there again.

For those that are interested my portfolio is now up and ready to be viewed (either from the menu bar at the top of the page or by clicking here

Feelings and Music

Not long ago I wrote a piece for a game a friend and I are planning to create. Since it could be some time until that game gets finished I've decided to post it here.

It's far more sombre than Potato man (from my previous post) but I kind of like the emotion I got into it:

The Potato Man!

For our work at BumpkinLabs I am required to write musical background pieces that reflect the mood and style of the game.

Generally I ignore the requirements and write what I feel like, like this:

The Old Nokia 3210 and wot I wrote with it

There was talk at my work about the old Nokia 3210 mobile phone the other day and how it's still in demand because of it's simplicity, clear menus and controls not to mention it's super long battery life!

Back in the early 00's I also wanted one very badly, but for a completely different reason! You see it was the first (and one of the only) mobile phones that you could compose your own ring tones for and because back then I was even more into writing music for games than I am now I was incredibly excited when I finally got one....and did nothing with it for months!

That was mainly because I'm not much of an outdoors person so I'm nearly always near a computer and therefore didn't need a mobile composing tool.

However, when I finally ended a relationship with an old GF back in May 2001 I found myself stuck at Kidderminster Railway Station at about 11pm at night with an old guy who'd had a bit too much to drink. While he snored gently in the corner of the shelter I decided to have a go at writing something on my phone to pass the time.

Now the 3210 only allows you to write monotone ring tones, before the days of polyphonic and MIDI enabled phones, so the following recording isn't from the phone itself but is rather a remix I did using a chip pack and Impulse Tracker a few days after writing the original.

Still it's turned out to be one of my more popular tunes over the years and in some ways I'm sad I no longer have the phone itself (In fact I have no idea at all where it went!)

Here we are then, I present: "Twiddle!"

The obligatory "Hello" post

I've starting a new blog! You're reading it right now you wonderful person you.

Back in the Naughties (between 1996 and 2005) I was pretty active as a tracker composer, many readers will already know what "trackers" are but if not there's additional reading available on the subject over at Wikipedia. I never really got anywhere aside from a couple of game credits to my name and a fairly impressive download count over at modararchive.

In 2005 I started concentrating more on my programming and my new job as well as trying my hand at a great many other projects over the last 5 years. Some of which still continue!

However I've never stopped writing music, although my output quantity is certainly less than it was I still enjoy coming up with a new melody now and then. This weekend I started recording some of my "live" piano playing and it made me think that perhaps I should take a shot at doing something more.

So I had a good look at what equipment I currently have:

Software:
Renoise
Schism Tracker

VSTs:
Mostly synths

Hardware:
PC with integrated soundcard on motherboard (hehe)
Yamaha DJX

So what are my goals? And will this equipment support me?

Goal 1: Writing Orchestral music
Something that has always eluded me has been orchestral scores, the likes of Jeremy Soule type stuff for example. I'm pretty sure I could cook up some great stuff if I had the right VSTs - but which to get and how much will it cost?

Goal 2: Create a Piano only album
I absolutely love playing piano but I don't really use it as a compositional tool would you believe? Most of my creativeness comes from using a tracker (I find myself very creative with generation 2 programs) But getting back to this, I'd love to try and come up with about 10 pieces that I could play on the piano and create some kind of album out of them.

Goal 3: Make some money from my music
Well I'd be lying to myself if I said I would do all of this for free. It's no good waiting for someone to come along and offer you some cash for being creative, you have to make that decision yourself. I don't particularaly want to be "signed" to any label or anything but wouldn't be completely opposed if somehow I was considered good enough for one! Also I'm not sure I want to write music for anything in particular, like games or TV or such, it's not that I don't believe I could but I generally find constrictions like that make me less creative. I'm not saying never though so if you're planning to offer me a big bag'o'cash to write computer game music for your project don't let me put you off! *wink*

Goal 4: Enter and win some free compos!
I used to love doing this when I was younger. I used to get up at 4am on a Sunday morning, log onto Esper.net (which still exists) and the #traxinspace channel and enter one-hour-compos with many of the guys there (I'll talk more on this later.) So I know there are some compos out there still, the sound devotion renoise compo runs every two weeks I believe so that could be somewhere to start...

So it looks like I could achieve 2 out of my 4 goals straight away, which is creating a piano album (although as good as my DJX is, the piano on it is still General Midi - ugh) and entering some compos to get my name out there again.

I also have some ideas to boost my creativity which I'll be sharing over the next few weeks. Even better than that however (depending on your point of view I suppose) is I'll be sharing some of my previously unshared works here soon, tunes that have never seen the light of the internet for you wonderful people to listen to.