Category Archives: Thank You!

Early birthday present!

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My wife Sachi has always been a great supporter of my extravagant projects, including my journey to become proficient in electronic music production. In fact, I cannot thank her enough for not just accepting that I’m turning our bedroom into a synth cave, but actively supporting and encouraging me along the way! Yay for you Sachi, you rock!

For my birthday this year, she gave me the perfect gift; the Spectrasonic Omnisphere software instrument. For those of you unfamiliar with this beast, it is a multi layer, multi timbre, software instrument, that is both sample and synthesis based at the same time. This means  you can layer high res sample based sounds and DSP synthesized sounds in the same patch, opening up for some incredible sounding results.

Each patch that you create has 2 independent layers, each of which can have either an oscillator or a sample based sound source. Up 8 patches, each with individual arpeggiators and effects can be combined into a Multi, wich can also have effects and other settings applied.

The included sound library is about 50Gb in size and contains about 8000 sound sources and 2000 presets… The instruments also comes with a dedicated iPad app for use in a special Live mode. This app has a unique interface that lets you manipulate effects and other settings for each patch in the current multi, as well as what patches are active and sounding.

I have barely touched the surface of the instrument here, so I really encourage you to check it out at the Spectrasonics website. You will see for your self why it is referred to as one of the most powerful software instruments ever created.

http://www.spectrasonics.net/products/omnisphere.php

First EP (Farhbahn) self-published :D

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I’ve released (as in totally self-published at bandcamp) my first EP. Even though it’s not profesional by any measure, for me personally its a big milestone.

This time I decided to put together three of the more analog, space-jamy kind of tracks that I’ve been working on. There are two reasons for this choice.

The first is that they represent the start of a journey for me. These songs are really my first attempt at getting some of the music I have in my head out and into a format that can be saved and shared. I’m learning and exploring more main stream kinds of music as well, but these songs are close to what I had in mind when I first started down this path.

The second is that they all came about using similar techniques, workflows and sounds. All three of them started with a very simple 2-3 tone bass line, and percussion / drums where kept very simple on each track. They also share a (imho) nice analog feeling since most of the sounds are from emulations of classic analog gear (think moog modular, arp 2600 and so on).

The timing is also interesting. This release coincides with me making a more serious commitment to Ableton Live as a working environment as well. All my tracks so far have been sequenced entirely in Maschine, but for the level I want to take my songs to next it is simply too scene / pattern based and too restricted in terms of lane automation and other ‘features’.

My only fear is that having crossed over this one milestone, and with the switch in environment, my productivity will drop leading to frustration and loss of motivation. I will do my best to make sure that does not happen.

You can buy or download the EP at bandcamp from the link below, or from the following page. You can enter any price you want (including 0 of course), every dollar and download counts :)

Last I want to thank everyone for your support so far. Your encouraging comments and ‘likes’ mean the world to me! Onwards!!

Jamming with Jolt

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My very good friend from Sweden (Jolt) came by San Francisco and of course we ended up going nuts on the gear :).

Thanks Jolt for bringing both Port Wine and Inspiration! Let’s do it again some time soon!

Tristan Prettyman’s upcoming album a classic in the making?

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Last night my wife and I had the great fortune of attending the EMI / Capitol private showcase in San Francisco for Tristan Prettyman’s upcoming album and tour ‘Cedar + Gold’. My wife is a long time fan and through a series of really amazing events Tristan invited us to the show.

Since my wife started playing Tristan’s music to me I have been fascinated with her voice and lyrics, but to be honest I hadn’t given her the attention or serious listening that she deserved.

Tristan Prettyman @ Cafe du Nord (Thanks Chii for the photo!)

Last nights show was an eye opener. Yes I understand that there’s something magic about live shows, but that aside, the music she played to us tonight felt incredibly honest and fresh in so many ways. From her natural ability to tell a great story (and to color it with that fantastic voice) to her immediacy on the stage, she managed to truly capture something in her music that I haven’t felt in a long time.

My wife said it very well when she told me ‘One of the great things about Tristan is that she is so honest with herself. Listening to her music and lyrics gives me the strength to be honest with myself’.

I think that really hit the spot. When she sings her stories of love (broken, new and unexplored such) and life there is something very honest about her words. You can tell right away that the songs have not been over thought to ‘sound right’ or play nicely in a certain commercial sense. Instead, those are songs born from particular states of mind, feelings and life experiences that are raw, close and sometimes very rough (in other words, very human).

Tristan managed to, within the short span of 45 minutes, go all the way from the singer-songwriter with a melody that just has to get out, via the southern rock n roll / blues tradition, to full throttle rock and then back to being just a girl with a guitar wanting to tell us something important.

I personally have not been this impressed by a live performance for a long time. Yes, Roger Water doing ‘The Wall’ was an incredible experience, but that was a very different kind of experience. I can’t wait for her album to come out and the tour to start for real. If you get a chance to attend her concert, do yourself a favor and go. Your heart deserves it!

Thank you so much for inviting us Tristan!

Best Track: Glass Jar

http://tristanprettyman.com/
The album ‘Cedar + Gold’ is slated for release on Capital Records on Sept. 25 2012. 

Perks! (aka Free Biz Cards!)

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Klout.com gave me a free perk! Business Cards from Moo.com. They look really snazzy if I may say so, and the print quality is very nice!