Alchemy

Tried my hand at doing a simple metal song last night. Still 100% programmed, but trying to create an organic sound without any of the industrial flourishes I usually put in my music.

I’m not too happy with the guitar sound, though. I was told metal guitarists always push the midtones. I don’t like to do that. Usually, I scoop out the midtones entirely to get a very sharp sound which sounds more distorted to me. For this tune, I tried to push the midtones like a good boy, and I think it came out sounding tinny and stupid.

WORK IN PROGRESS; NOT FINAL VERSION

Yesterday’s tune, now with a few improvements:

First, I replaced the distorted drums in the chorus with some punchier, clean drums. They sounded so good that I used them for the “riff intro,” and relegated the distorted drums exclusively to the “verse” parts of the song.

Second, I added some vocals for the verse (extending the song a bit, since the verse is now 4 bars longer), as well as adding new lyrics to the chorus -- some might say pointlessly, since the lyrics are virtually indecipherable, but there you go.

Third, I used the distorted 8-bit NES drums for a bit more glitchy flavor in various parts of the song, including the opening, and during the “pre-chorus” build-ups.

A minor improvement was doubling the distortion guitar for the “riff intro,” which previously was only in the left channel.

WORK IN PROGRESS - NOT FINISHED

With a working MIDI keyboard at my disposal, I’ve started working on some new tunes. This time, I’m going to go more electronic than rock, but also dipping everything in a thick batter of distortion.

This is the first tune that’s come out of it so far. It’s a tune I’ve had stuck in my head for a long time, begging me to come out -- and now that I’ve had the chance to “put it down on paper,” or in audio form, as it were, it’s come out sounding very different than what was in my head. That’s okay. What was in my head was pretty vague in terms of sound design, anyway, so I’m happy to just let circumstance take its course.

Hoooowever, I might have to dial down the distortion (sadly!) on the chorus, particularly on the drums. It’s drowning out the synth bass, and the drums sound really muddy when they should be punchy.

I discovered a site that lets you crowdfund vinyl pressings. Naturally, this brought up all sorts of emotions in me.

I decided to try and crowdfund a special limited edition vinyl pressing of my cybermetal opus The Machines Will Kill Us All.

It will be limited to 100 copies and you can pre-order it right now from Qrates.com.

Here’s how it works: If enough people pre-order it, they’ll get their vinyl. If the target isn’t reached, then no money is lost, and you can all go home happy knowing that my dreams of seeing this album under a phonographic needle have been crushed.

It will be a three-sided vinyl (meaning it’s a double vinyl, but the fourth side is blank). It will contain the entire album plus sleeve artwork specially prepared for the vinyl.

My teenage dream came true. I’ve always dreamed of having my own music on a vinyl record, and now it is.

I had 25 copies of my ep, Ghosts Walk Among Us, printed up on picture disc vinyl. 24 of those are now on sale at my Bandcamp page.

If you do, I’ll type up the lyrics for the 5 songs on my parents’ old typewriter, as well as an individual thank-you message. So, it’s a super-limited edition vinyl that comes with a uniquely personalized lyric sheet!

My mate David put up the money to have these printed, and we’ve priced this so he’ll just about break even. No profit; just pure vinyl enthusiasm.

You’ll probably want to listen to it first. Luckily, you can! Here’s the entire album, although this version is the 16-bit digital master (that’s also gone through YouTube’s heavy “we-hate-music” compression). The vinyl is remastered with 32-bit audio.

I’m not really into this sort of Fruity Loops-y darkwave/goth music -- it feels like very little effort has gone into it -- but ... I get a tremendous giggle out of how the lead singer sounds like that loudspeaker voice from Papers, Please.

A man can dream, eh?

The Machines Will Kill Us All wouldn’t fit on a single vinyl, so it would also have to be a double vinyl.

This would be the tracklist:

Side A The Machines Will Kill Us All (7:46) Eradication Procedure (5:22) Total: 13:08

Side B Ruins of Civilization (5:41) Scorched Remains (5:37) A Cybernetic Laugh (5:09) Total: 16:27

Side C Your Final Days (4:12) Futile Insurgency (4:30) Underground Incursion (4:43) Total: 13:25

Side D All-Encompassing Hatred (9:12) Let There Be Death (5:08) Total: 14:20

Again, I’m not actually having a vinyl edition made. It’s just a fun experiment I like to do. I very much doubt anyone would actually buy a vinyl of this if I had them made, and certainly not at the price they would end up costing.

If you buy an album today on Bandcamp, 100% of the proceeds are donated to the ACLU because Trump and his band of idiots can get fucked.

I never thought I’d have to go back and “patch” an album of mine, let alone two different versions of it, but there you go.

On the “vocal” version of the album, the last track (”Let There Be Death”) now closes with a voice sample of Gordon “Ikifoo” Tumilty. He had sent me a clip of himself that I somehow managed to overlook when mixing the album the first time, so now I have included it.

On the “instrumental” version of the album, the track “Underground Incursion (The Last Survivor)” somehow had the bass synth sound horribly atonal. For some reason, when exporting the track, my sequencer decided to play some notes with that synth that I did not intend it to, and it ended up sounding rather avant-garde -- unintentionally so. So I’ve fixed that as well.