The Sunday Soundtrack (Special Edition) – Princestrumentals

Posted on June 7, 2014 by Fresh

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Greetings readers….

Welcome to a special edition of The Sunday Soundtrack, in honor of the 56th birthday of the iconic musician, songwriter, producer, and performer, Prince Rogers Nelson. This podcast, staying with the concept of the Sunday Soundtrack, is comprised of only his instrumental tracks.

With all the instrumental songs he’s composed in his 30+ years of being an artist, the list was hard to narrow down to seven tracks. It’s my desire that you enjoy the flow. That said, let’s jump to the playlist.

1. From The Lotus – LOTUSFLOW3R
2. Gamillah – Chocolate Invasion
3. North – NEWS
4. Copenhagen – C-NOTE
5. 13 (Paisley Park Mix) – 16/Madhouse
6. Kamasutra (Overture #8) – Kamasutra (aka The Truth)/Crystal Ball
7. Back To The Lotus – LOTUSFLOW3R

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Shout out to Shelly Ogden Nelson for sourcing the podcast artwork.
Shout out to Come Back Nikki for alerting me to the follow correction. I mispoke in the podcast! Truth and Kamasutra are actually two different cds, both came with Crystal Ball if you pre-ordered it. The Truth is mostly acoustic.

Glad to know that his longevity is ongoing. Enjoy!

::: oceans of rhythm:::

Fresh!

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Halcyon Sky (Debut EP) – Day 15

Posted on May 28, 2014 by Fresh

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Greetings, Sitting in the public library in between stops, basking in a little satisfaction. Ahh yes…forward motion. Last night I wrapped up mixing one of the tracks on for the EP. It’s a track I composed about two years ago and thought it’d make an excellent song for the project. Though it’s in it’s pre-mastered state, a good thing to do for any track at this point is to play it on various systems – mp3 player, CD player, over computer speakers, studio monitors, etc. This is to try to achieve the best sound possible across the many mediums people listen to music on.

I burned it to CD and took for a ride around the city today….I like! Not too bassy coming out of the SUV’s sound system, percussion is nice and organic sounding, acoustic guitar is sweet. next is an mp3 for the iPod.

So, I can pretty much scratch this one off until I get to the part of the schedule where I master all the tracks over a few days. Forward motion. On to the next track in the priority list tonight.

In the last post, I mentioned starting design of the Bandcamp page. That actually is now completed as well. I like banner artwork and the color scheme design. Onward.

Have a good one….

::: oceans of rhythm :::

Fresh!

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Halcyon Sky (Debut EP) – Day 14

Posted on May 26, 2014 by Fresh

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Greetings all…
For those of you in the US, I hope you are enjoying Memorial Day and taking a moment to reflect upon why this holiday was created. It’s been pretty quiet here and I’ve decided to stay out of the heat.

The EP all of the tracks in various stages of development and with that, I’m backtracking to something I should have done at the onset – develop a production schedule. That said, it’s done. Working backwards from the target drop date, all the tasks needed to be done to meet that drop date are now scheduled, soooo…here we go.

Special initial shout outs to Stephanie Labeda for the artwork and my boys Todd Kelley and Fave (C3) for the completed collaboration on one of the tracks.

That’s it for now…

Have a great one….

::: oceans of rhythm :::

Fresh!

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Halcyon Sky (Debut EP) – Day 13

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Fresh

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[12:39 am] I don’t know if I can actually count yesterday as a true day 13 of working on the EP because I’ve nothing but tech difficulties in studio – I should say technical difficulty as it only pertains to re-setting up a wireless mouse. Non-powered USB hubs can be finicky and I think this is the case because connecting a portable USB hard drive doesn’t always seem to work. That being said, I’ll probably hit up eBay or Amazon to see if I can find one on the cheap. In any event, not actually working on tracks allowed me to take time to think about a realistic release date. Now that I’ve settled on one, it’s time to define the schedule to meet it. Every track on the EP is in some state of development, so I believe it”l be easy to (ideally) stick to schedule.

Initially, this EP was supposed to be comprised of tracks totally done by me only, but I already have (as some of you read) the (desired) collaboration with Todd and Fave of C3. I’m considering doing one more with a DC metro area artist whom I’ve had a few lengthy discussions with…good ones at that. That, in itself, will alter the drop date, but maybe I may go ahead with that.

Been an *interesting* weekend from a mental standpoint and kinda glad it’s over (who really ever said they were glad to see the weekend go, but….). Anyway, classical music is playing in the background. I get in the mood at times and this is one of those times.

Time to turn in….

::: oceans of rhythm :::

Fresh!

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Halcyon Sky (Debut EP) – Day 12

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Fresh

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Last night, I continued with the track I mentioned in the last post. I decided to add a synth solo at the section of the song right before the outro, using the same patch from Massive that played the synth hook in the beginning of the song. It came out nicely, after adjusting some MIDI velocities on that solo.

As for the bass synth track, I think I’m going to start with Logic’s Basement Bass, from the ES2 synthesizer. Once I compose and lay that track, the song will pretty much be on its way to the mix phase (that’s if I don’t add this guitar track I am conceptualizing in my head)> If I can reproduce what I’m hearing in my head, I think it’ll add a nice touch to the track.

As I am documenting the progress of the EP development in these blog posts, it reminded me to take advanrage of Logic’s notepad functionality to enter things such as what sample library and samples I’ve used, settings, and anything else of interest.

Well, that’s it for now.

::: oceans of rhythm :::

F!

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That thing, that thing, that thiiiiinnnng (the cellphone)

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Fresh

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[9:32PM EST]. Hit the road to pick up my daughter from a school field trip. As I was driving, the lights and traffic caused me to think of some things…nothing in particular…but the scene was strangely thought provoking. I pulled up to the stoplight, about 5 minutes from my house, only to realize I left my phone home. Immediately I checked the clock to see how much time I had to make it to my destination. Though I wasn’t far from the house, I proceeded on my way. As I drove further I said to myself, suppose I encounter an incident where I need the phone (car trouble, etc). I continued to drive on but then thought to myself “When, let alone where, was the last time I saw a phone booth anywhere?” I do remember seeing one at a local gas station, but even that one was useless because the handset was missing. Driving further, I began to remember riding everywhere and anywhere in the back of my dad’s Chevy Impala….decades before cellphones (and the big, bulky ones at that) were carried around only by realtors, let alone the small, light, smartphones we all carry today. Back then, pay phones were plenteous…today, not at all.

Needless to say, the roundtrip was uneventful but all the way there I thought about our dependence on the mobile phone today….and consequently about a time when it wasn’t in existence and how we survived without it.

#techdependency

peace,
Doug

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Halcyon Sky (Debut EP) – Day 11

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Fresh

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Greetings all. It’s been a very quiet Friday evening so I took advantage of that fact to get some progress time in on the EP. Tonight I continued on one of the more chilled tracks and have finished the entire arrangement. I got a little work in on it last night and afterwards popped in a sample library disk from the lastest issue of Future Music Magazine. On this disk there are some vocal samples from a collection called Terry Grant – Voices From The Edge. While I won’t give the title of the track I’m working on, these vocal samples AUTOMATICALLY and coincidentally fit the theme of the track perfectly. All that was required was for me to chop them up and place them where they fit best in the track. With some added stereo delay, the fit very nicely. All that’s left now is to record the bass synth. Logic has a nice stock bass synth from its ES2 synthesizer that I’ll use for the last track, then it’ll be time to mix. Once you finally hear it, come back and read this post if you remember. It’ll all come together.

9:24 pm…I gotta make a run. Have a good and safe weekend….

::: oceans of rhythm :::

Fresh!

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Halcyon Sky (Debut EP) – Day 10

Posted on April 20, 2014 by Fresh

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Day 10. Ok, so each track on the EP is at some level of development. Some are ready to mix and master, some are just snippets that need to be arranged and so on, others are sort of at the midway point. As said in the last post, collaboration track with C3 is arranged and ready for mixdown – after I upgrade to Logic X. As seen from the photo above, this afternoon I’m finally taking time to prioritize the schedule so I can get this out at the desired time.

Now that the Studio A is finally back up and running, the last thing I need to do is install the Maschine 1,8.2 software OS to be able to integrate Maschine Mikro into my Logic workflow. I was thinking of leaking the artwork to your good people, buuuuuut I think I’ll wait. 🙂

Speaking of schedules, I really should develop a master schedule to include this other music projects I’ve got going. Can’t reach the destination in the best way without a path forward.

Enjoy the evening…

::: oceans of rhythm :::

Fresh!

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Halcyon Sky (Debut EP) – Day 9

Posted on April 15, 2014 by Fresh

Logic Studio in The Lab

….and on the ninth day….I’m back. 🙂

It’s been a few weeks since I last posted, but things are moving along. First, good Tuesday morning at 7:24am. In our last episode, I received the drum track from from one of my production partners (of C3) for the collaborative track on the EP. Since then, I’ve received keyboard tracks from my other partner in C3, definitely some great additions to the track (as I expected). For all intents and purposes, all the elements of this track are in place. Next step is the final arrangement, then mixdown. I’m definitely looking forward to how this track will manifest itself.

In other news, I broke the studio down over the last two weeks in order to upgrade to a newer, better, faster computer – a 2.5 GHz Mac mini, i5 Intel processor. What does this mean, other than the performance upgrades? Logic X on the horizon :). The reassemble of the studio also meant integrating two older units into the rack for use with Logic: my Roland JV-1080 and Roland S-760 sampler. Why integrate older units from the 90’s when I could use everything more intuitively “in the box”? It’s where I came from AND I’d like to incorporate/integrate the old with the new instead of having them sit in my studio storage taking up space. Strangely enough, its part of the whole composition process. The units are still very capable in light of the advances in synth and sampling technology over the years. I had a long discussion with Netm8kr on this topic this past Sunday.

So, one track pretty much done. Off to the next one in progress on the list.

Have a great day….

:::oceans of rhythm:::

Fresh!

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Halcyon Sky (Debut EP) – Day 8

Posted on March 18, 2014 by Fresh

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Greetings….

I trust this post finds you well. 12:12 am and I’ve taken a few days off from the EP recording to focus on completing a final mix for the long awaited CD project my partner and I have been working on. We had a successful session last week and have one last mix to do before sending the entire project (less two tracks) out to Nashville to get mastered. More on that as the weeks approach.

Yesterday, I got back some drum tracks my man Todd Kelley of C3 recorded and programmed for me. These are, of course, for the track entitled “Deep (f/C3)”. After inserting the stems in to the track and giving it a listen, they fit perfectly. Working with individual stems (as you other recording artists/producers know) allow for maximum flexibility from an editing standpoint, so I can see now this is going to work out perfectly.The addition of the drums alone vibe great with the feel of the track.

In any event, that’s it for now. Bed time for sure….

::: oceans of rhythm :::

Fresh!

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