Halcyon Sky (debut EP) – Day 4

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Fresh

Screen shot 2014-02-16 at 7.55.23 PM
Photo Credit: Leland Melvin/Instagram
ND/HS

Greetings…

Sunday evening, sitting in “Studio B”, noticing it’s just about time for the NBA All-Star Game tipoff. Today was pretty quiet in The Lab. Last night, I sent a track, in progress, to two of my partners that we’ll colloborate on. Another track is still with my sax player who, as I previously mentioned, is working on a horn arrangement and possibly additional keyboards, so I’m satisfied with how the development of the EP is going so far. I did start work on a new track (the photo above fits the title and concept of the song). That said, it will be minimal in composition, but I’m finding that I’m going to take some time in programming the drums and percussion. The choice of other elements will be equally as important, as I’m trying to convey to the listener what the title of the song is. Evoking the essence of a song can involve a fair amount of time conceptualizing different things, but in my experience, I’ve found the time taken often brings the success originally hoped for.

Currently I’m deciding on a mix of digital soft synths and the one bit of analog kit I have in the studio – which will require some processing. It’ll be interesting because I first used this piece of equipment back in 1987 :). I -think- I may be also using NI Maschine on this song as well. In any event, I’m hoping this will end up as a mood piece.

As said before, production always starts in Logic. The track is open as I type this, so I think I’ll develop it a bit more, then catch some of the game at some point.

I’ve read, and continue to read, a lot of stories of artists, globally, that compose music (especially electronic) in a myriad of ways, some purely analog, some purely in the box (digital), some a mix of the two, some only with hardware. I get to see their studio setups (anything from a corner of a bedroom to huge control and recording rooms). Either way, it’s always exciting to read about the journeys the take and how descriptive they are along the way. It’s continually inspiration and and is one reason why I’m doing the same.

Enjoy the evening….

::: oceans of rhythm :::

Fresh!

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Halcyon Sky (debut EP) – Day 3

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Fresh

halcyonsky_day3_640

1:15PM. Woke up this morning to at least find the sun shining, which means snow removal assistance, so that’s a good thing. After getting the day started, I found some more inspiration for this collaboration track. After listening back, I like how the synth bass sits in the track so far, so I think it’s a keeper.

This particular track is a conceptual in that I’m composing it with certain elements to invoke that conception. One way I like to do that is via the use of samples. Every music composer who does so, via the use of their favorite DAW or sample based instrument, uses samples in various ways. I like to use small samples to insert certain aspects into a track, especially if the samples are vocal based or sound effect based. This particular track is using both. This morning I dug into my vocal samples folder and found a few that work nicely. The key to composing chillout tracks is to remember that often times, “less is more”. A particular song can have a mix of many audio and MIDI (software instrument) tracks, but still end up with a nice minimal feel – this is the approach I specifically plan to take with this track. Being an avid listener of chillout and downtempo, and producing podcasts that reflect those genres makes it even more exciting when composing these tracks.

As mentioned in the last post, I think the project as it stands, is ready to go out to my C3 partners in AL and CA… I’m interested to see what they’ll add to it and how it will drive the final composition. I’m now contemplating what kind of guitar tracks I’l record. If what I’m hearing in my head is pretty much translated to track, I think it’ll work fine….stay tuned.

Ok, once again, it’s time to don the boots, etc. Have a great day.

::: oceans of rhythm :::

F!

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CH 2014: Every VDay Deserves a Great Soundtrack (A Sunday Soundtrack Special Edition)

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Fresh

cupidshunt14_coverart

Greetings Listeners…

I trust this post finds you well. I have returned to the Cupid’s Hunt Podcast Extravaganza after a 4 year layoff. I’m pleased to bring you a special edition of the Sunday Soundtrack for those celebration this “Love’s Holiday”, in the way you choose. I present to you, the playlist:

Cupid’s Hunt 2014 – Every Valentine’s Day Deserves a Great Soundtrack
A Special Edition of The Sunday Soundtrack at vibesnscribes.com

Tracklist

1. The Way You Love – Incognito/Surreal
2. Got To Let My Feelings Show – Bluey/Leap of Faith
3. Your Love Is King – Sade/Diamond Life
4. Believe in Us – Mint Condition/Music At The Speed Of Life
5. Love Dub – Afterlife/The Afterlife Lounge
6. Right Is Right – Para Diso/Paradise II Paranoia
7. Sending My Love – Norman Brown/Sending My Love
8. So In Love – Norman Brown/Stay With Me
9. Really? – Blue Mind/OM Chilled Vol. 2

Background Intro Music: Cupid’s Hunt – Mint Condition/Livin’ The Luxury Brown

All the Cupid’s Hunt Podcasts celebration Valentine’s Day 2014 can be found at the Rhythms In Black Satin II website. Continually check there for podcasts as they are added!

Enjoy!

::: oceans of rhythm :::

Fresh!

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Halcyon Sky (debut EP) – Day 2

Posted on February 13, 2014 by Fresh

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So, we’re into another Snowpocalypse, which means I need to go shovel in about an hour. Until then, I’m down in the studio thinking about expanding the arrangement of one of the with further instrumentation, specifically via Massive. Massive is a software synth by Native Instruments. From my travels it’s widely popular for use in the dubstep genres but I’d like to leverage it for some nice textures on all the tracks for the EP, especially since it works as a great plugin with Logic 9. I love the synth pads and leads that come stock with Massive. Like samples, I’m always collecting presets I find on the net, and my Massive presets library is going. That library, plus the programmability of Massive, should keep me busy with a nice palette of sounds for the tracks

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Yesterday I heard from the sax player who’s laying a track for one of the songs. Seeing that he’s a decent keyboardist as well, he offered to lay a keyboard track that I could use in the song as well. Seeing it’s going to be on of Logic 9’s software instruments, I’ll get the project back from him and have the flexibility of using the keyboard instrument he chose, or substituting another one. Ah yes, collaboration can be a good thing.

I’m hoping to get “Deep” started with C3 by early next week. Today, I added some vocal samples and a placeholder synth bass line. More later….

C3cover

Time to suit up…already anticipating a nice BIG bowl of hot soup when my snow date is over.

::: oceans of rhythm :::

Fresh!

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Halcyon Sky (debut EP) – Day 1

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Fresh

Deep_Start

Today I began working on one of the tracks entitled Deep (f/C3), from the EP . The entire release will have a fair share of beats and samples, but at the same time, actual instrumentation as well (myself and a few guests as mentioned in the previous post).

This track I’m particularly fond of already because it will be a collaboration with two very talented artists – Trel Robinson and Todd Kelley – together we have recorded previously material together under the name Cross Country Collective, or C3. C3 was born to compose, record and produce tracks remotely, but release them as a product collectively. I became a part of C3 for the 2010 release Contempojazzsoulhop. Contempojazzsoulhop got it’s name from infusing the stregnths of our individual styles – Trel (soul), Todd (hip hop soul) and me (contemporary jazz). For those of you that haven’t heard it, give it a listen, you’ll find other C3 tracks at the Bandcamp site as well. I had the pleasure of coming back to record as C3 on two tunes from Todd Kelley’s latest 24-track release Moods.

Knowing Todd’s unique style of birthing silky soul (and hip hop) comprised of smooth beats and sample arrangements, and Trel’s soulful ballad and R&B laced keyboard playing talent, Deep (f/C3) is a track I’m excited about hearing when it’s finally ready. The foundation of it is minimal (on purpose), so the palette is wide open so far.

Once I have an idea for a track (be it starting with writing the arrangement on guitar, or being inspired by different samples I come across, or both), I always start laying tracks in Logic. For this EP, as a whole, I’m looking forward to not just using Logic but incorporating NI Massive and Maschine, using a few “vintage” hardware synths in my studio rack, bass guitar, electric and my 35 GB, ever expanding sample library.

Also got a track out to guest saxophonist, Kelvin Wilson. The song I wrote a few years back so the scratch track is fully arranged. He did great work on the current single from AfterSix Productions, Chamorrita.

I’m a heavy thinker (probably why I sleep like a baby…lol), that fact in itself inspired the title for this track. Thus far the flow and feel of it seems to reflect that. I think it’s gonna turn out to be nice.

I’m gone. Enjoy the day/evening/night.

::: oceans of rhythm :::

Fresh!

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Halcyon Sky (debut EP)

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Fresh

HS

Greetings readers…hope all is well with all of you. This is the first of what I plan to be many posts chronocling the start, production, and release of my first EP, Halcyon Sky, so I thought I’d take you on the ride :). A few of you know that as a musician/songwriter/producer, I’ve been involved in a bunch of different music projects over the last few years – AfterSix Productions with my long time biz partner/roommate-in-college, Dan McCollum, the current bands I play in, Divine Intervention Jazz Ensemble/Divine Intervention Praise Ensemble, working with local sax player Kelvin Wilson on our smooth jazz project “50/50”, DI Jazz and their CD project, which is underway, and as a church musician. Basically, I don’t know what boredom is. 🙂

While the AfterSix Productions project is final wrapping up for release (and a second project in the works already), I’ve wanted to do a solo project for years, as well. Like many composers, we all have *vaults* with songs in various stages of development. It turns out that over the last two years, I’ve amassed enough such tracks for five solo projects, Halcyon Sky being the first.

Some of you also know I’ve been doing a podcast called The Sunday Soundtrack since 2008. This podcast features independent artist tracks in the downtempo/chillout/smooth electronica/nu-jazz genres, in short, an alternative to mellow smooth jazz. Halcyon Sky will be a 10-track release of original songs I’ve composed reflecting those genres.

To date, one track is finished, the other nine are in various stages. I’m excited to present one track as a collaboration with two other talented artists, and two other guest appearances on two other tracks…details to come.

That’s it for know…updates to follow.

::: oceans of rhythm :::

Fresh!

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The Return to Coding….

Posted on February 1, 2014 by Fresh

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Today was an interesting day, one of the more interesting days I’ve had with regards tech meetups. In the spring of 2013, I decided it was high time that I return to learning computer programming. Yeah, I had taken (and got good grades in) college level computer science programming courses, but it was ages ago. Fast forwarding to a myriad of internet resources on self-paced (in the very least) learning, I wanted to make moves to boost my skill set. I always liked coding/programming. The last programming project I did was to write a program calculate overall system reliability numbers for various satellite subsystems for a DoD satellite program I was working for, but that was MANY years ago – and in BASIC (but I digress).

I chose Python as the language to start my journey with. My learning vehicle of choice has been Codecademy and I’m quite pleased with it. Specifically I’d like to learn Python and apply it to engineering and scientific specific applications as a whole. In the mean time, I already have one project I’d like to code after gaining confident knowledge – the best way to learn anything is to jump in and start doing it, in essence.I had the good fortune of meeting with a local cloud computing solutions company recently at a local Starbucks (this also came about for participation on the mailing list). After meeting with their lead systems architect and the CEO, I hope to do some collaborating with them to some extent on two of the contracts they current have in place. A future meeting is scheduled.

Back today…I’m part of the DC Python Meetup mailing list. A few days ago, someone posted a question about the possibility of getting together for an impromptu study session, something just to get questions answered, do some coding, share resources and other bits of knowledge. I thought this was a good idea, and remembered seeing a post on the list from an administrator at MLK Library, who also offered to teach a beginner class. I reposted his email, that got the ball rolling. AFter all was said and done, within two days we had a huge room at the library’s Digital Commons area.

There were about 20 individuals in attendance, all experience levels and like the list, all very helpful. Before the session was out, one of the members quickly set up a group hackpad for collaboration/sharing of learning resources. By the end of the day, the library administrator allowed us to keep the room on a weekly basis as a Python Lab for “open office hours” coinciding with the library hours for general discussion, coding, hacking etc. The official Python classes start next Saturday. We agreed on a text and already have our first reading assignment. Along with finishing my course on Codecademy, I’ll highly looking forward to what will come out of these meetup sessions. I’m hoping these future developments will aid in the result of some future news I hope to share with you soon.

Before closing, I’ll give a quick shout to all the coders/developers on ADN that I’ve had the pleasure of chatting with. Thanks for all you (some of which don’t follow me, and vice versa…yet) share in your regular posts. Thanks especially to BayProgrammer for the extra effort in explaining the basic differences between static and dynamic coding languages, back end vs frontend development, considerations, and much more. I’m feeling like a kid at Christmas time in that there’s some much to learn, so many resources out there, it’s sort of overwhelming as to where to start, but I’m looking forward to being able to talk (and code) intelligently in the future. They say “code is art”, I’m about to be on my way to realizing this.

::: oceans of rhythm :::

Fresh

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Blogging….still.

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Fresh

blogging

Blogging. Something I started, and did a lot of, in 2007, a few months after becoming an early adopter of Twitter. With the advent of Twitter and other forms of microblogging, I reduced traditional blogging in the last few years. Conversely, I’ve found that there is something to be said about self-publishing (though from my possibly skewed vantage point, it seems blogging is less popular than it used to be).

Now I have a renewed interest in blogging. In my early days, I used to make it a point to blog everyday, or every other. Later I developed a rule that I still adopt today – if I have to think about a topic that comes to mind more than 30 secs, I find it’s not worth my time to blog. Strange maybe, but it works for me.

Doing short podcasts like The Timesobviously rolls all of the tenets of blogging into audio form and does away with the typing, but there’s something tactile about blogging in the classic way.

With that said, let’s see what comes down the line.

Thanks for the read….

::: oceans of rhythm :::

Fresh

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Happy 30th Birthday, Macintosh!

Posted on January 25, 2014 by Fresh

Photo Source: Patrick Rhone/Minimal Mac

Yesterday, January 24th, was the 30th anniversary of the Apple Macintosh computer. I wasn’t aware of that until my browser brought up its default page, apple.com. I was pleasantly surprised and greeted with (expectedly) the great advertising that Apple is known for (click here for 30 Years of The Mac).

Seeing this immediately took me back to Apple back in 1988. I was a junior engineer, my first job, in an office that was run by Windows 3.1 machines – one for every employee, others for ancillary functions. Our office business manager, an avid Mac user, insisted we have three Macs in the office to hand the business functions of the program (then Naval satellite communications program) – a Mac Plus with a 20 MB external hard drive, a Mac SE, and a Mac IICi. David, our office manager, was an older gentlemen, well learned, but enjoyed using Macs so much (without trying to sell its merits) that he unknowingly sold me on its merits in the same way (I later found out) that Apple commercials did, but without the sales pitch (so to speak). He continually showed me how the user-centric design of the Mac easily helped him in his daily activities, in and out of the office. For me, already experienced in using the Windows platform, it was like a no-brainer that this platform would be my computing choice on a regular basis.

It wasn’t until two years later that I was able to purchase my first Mac (via our employee discount program) – a Mac Classic. Brand new, It cost me $1200. Specs: 4MB RAM. 40MB HD, running at a whopping 8MHz, running System 7.0 (fondly remembering this as it is sitting to the right of me as I type this post, emitting a very soft hum, Darkside as the screen saver).

The purchase of that Mac began a wonderful journey – word processing, graphics, connecting to the Internet via a 2400 baud external modem, and the beginning of using it for my favorite activity, music production. A small, all-n-one computer with a 9″ black and white screen – so easy to use, so user-centric, yet so beautiful.

Since then I’ve owned (let’s see): A Powerbook 100, 145, 165c, 170, 1400cs, Powerbook G3 Pismo, Powerbook G4 Aluminum, iBook, Blue and White G4 Tower, Silver G4 Tower, original iMac, Mac IIci, Quadra 605, Power Mac 7100 (2), Power Mac G5 (2), Macbook (Black) and Mac Mini Intel Core Duo (I think that covers it). One G5, the Mac Mini, and the Macbook are the core of my music production studio, while the second G5 (the one I am typing this from) is used for podcast production and simple word processing and web surfing. I think the last brand new Mac I purchased was the iBook in the mid-90s. While I am not a Mac guru, I’ve found it so easy to maintain them that I’ve purchased used ever since then.

I’m not sure how Apple did it and continues to do it, be it advertising, perpetuating the Mac *culture* or what, but however they are doing it, it has, and continues to be a fantastic voyage. I am forever, a Mac fanboy.

Happy Birthday, Mac…and many more.

::: oceans of rhythm :::

Fresh.

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Welcome To The Sunday Soundtrack – 05 Jan 14

Posted on January 5, 2014 by Fresh

Screen shot 2014-01-05 at 12.51.56 AM
Photo Courtesy of Flaschi (instagram.com/flaschi)

Greetings Listeners…

Welcome to the first podcast of 2014! It’s great to be back. I appreciate all the requests and glad that you’re taking the time to listen to this edition of The Sunday Soundtrack. Seventy percent of the playlist are new tracks never featured on previous podcasts, so I hope you enjoy them.

Last year was a year of musical collaborations that were (and still are) very satisfying. One such collaboration was on the project entitled “Moods” by Todd “Big La” Kelley. The track, “One Time” is featured on his farewell release, which is available as a FREE download on Bandcamp. The remainder of the playlist is sure to provide tracks ranging from lush to tightly knit smooth grooves, perfect for that chillout timeframe in your day. So, without further adieu…the playlist:

1. ‪Rhythmbreeze‬ – Fresh Moods/Fresh Moods
2, ‪Almost There‬ – Hideo Kobayashi/Om Lounge 10
3. Fantasy (Hideo Kobayashi Deep Vocal Mix) – Afterlife/Fantasy
4 Sentient – MrFijiwiji and Tulpa/Friends EP
5. Want Me – Affelaye/Maybe There
6. Racetracks – Tony Watson/Abstrakt Sampler
7. Loose Tunes – Skipless/Rooftops
8. Francesa – Ricardo Silveira/Storyteller
9. Janeiro (Chiller Twist Blue Line Remix) – Solid Session/Armada Lounge
10. One Time (f/C3) – Todd Kelley/Moods

A big shout out to my entire podcast massive (you know who you ALL are) as well as the listeners. Have a great day, whatever day it is, whatever time it is.

::: oceans of rhythm :::

Fresh!

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