1

well, the first post is always the hardest I guess. Specially for me because I wish I had started this blogg about two months ago when I left Australia with few possesions other than some t-shirts and my laptop. I guess that I will try to write a bit about the latest tracks I've mad to get the ball rolling, so here we go - track n.1 - Christchurch, NZ.

Well, what can I say? A busy hostel is not the ideal place to put on your Stanton MDR-v700's and try to get creative. I certainy don't mind having a few people about when I'm producing as I think they give my eyes a welcome break every now and then, but with many people also comes a lot of noice. But what also sucked was that the radio was playing the same eight songs over and over again from 7am to 11 pm in every room of the hostel non stop. Sitting down in the daylight hours was obviously out of the question.

Actually this didn't bother me much as I am quite the night owl and the coffee happened to be free, but anyway.

The first track I made featured a very awkward kind of breakbeat that just leaves you longing for that steady syncopation to come in and I still havn't gotten around to fix it to be honest. Some day I will though. I think. There is a lot of pretty distinct and 'personal' elements in this track that I thought was too good to abandon and they gave me a really hard time to merge them together into something that would fit into the maxim of Aristoteles: 'The sum is greater than its parts'.

I reckon that the fragmented style of the track is mostly due to the fact that I couldn't sit down with it a few hours every day for a couple of days and just marathon it like I usually do, but also I think I was adjusting to my new work flow seeing as I earlier was very dependent on Fruityloops to process samples in but now had to suffice with Cubase alone. Earlier I used NI's Battery for percussion and effects and I was absolutely not ready to let go of that approach to samples so I grabbed a free drumsampler vst that features pitch control, a filter and a primitive envelope to fill my needs. Without this little baby I doubt I could have done very much at all actually.

If you're starting out with producing go to www.amvst.com and search for Virtuadrum because it's a great tool to learn with and it is a wonder how the author can get away with handing out vst's of that quality for free. And if you're not starting you should check out that awesome website anyway.

Anyway, for me the track has a very dreamy and ethereal feel to it, and I am proud of the progression of uniting the sounds I sort of achieved. I might go as far as to call it one of those tracks you dislike at the first listen but then take to your heart after having heard it a few times, because there is definitely something very emotional and personal in it, for instance a bassline that seems to be searching for something and some wide portamento slides on the synth. For now I consider the track a rough diamond, because there sure are a lot of work left to be done on it to be able to comfortably showcase it without making disclaimers.

I have always been intent on finishing what I start but this track sort of drifted away from me because I can only remain interested for so long, and also I left the city of Christchurch to pursue some adventures in real life so that held me back from sitting down for quite a long time. But now I have a good Cubase file to refine whenever I find the time, and that is more than enough to keep me happy.