music

JH Sounds – The Duosis Sessions

by shaggy on January 25, 2012 at 2:56 pm
Posted In: Reviews

I could not resist when one of my Overclocked Remix buddies, JH, asked me to check out his album. While I don’t do album reviews that often, I sometimes like to reflect on the work of my piers as a learning experience. You can always learn something from another persons work.

The Duosis Sessions is a very groove oriented album. In some ways, it reminds me of some of Moby’s older stuff with many tracks being quite danceable. Other tracks have a slower grove that is much more relaxing. There’s certainly a good bit of contrast going on.

Genre wise, this album doesn’t sit in one particular spot. JH doesn’t really stick to a specific sound and there are some really odd vocal loops mixed into his work. Every song is different that I just didn’t find myself getting board as I listened through all of the tracks. It’s definitely one of those albums, though, that you wouldn’t find me listening to in my car. I think it’s more suited for background music and such. Great work, JH!

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music

Weekly Music Updates

by shaggy on January 24, 2012 at 2:11 pm
Posted In: News

I got a bit more work done on my Keith Courage remix and I think I’m just about done with the Overworld section. I’ll be moving on to the Underworld section this week and it’ll happen with some sort of key change but I need to work that out. It’s taking a bit longer to complete this song than I expected but I don’t have a need to rush this one out the of the door.

KC Rock Zone WIP by theshaggyfreak

Since I now have access to better orchestral samples, I decided to restart the little piece I’m doing for Amy Letts and her comic Epic Fail. I’m basically writing some music to go along with a short piece of animation that she put together. I feel that I have the right tools to do such a project now and it’s starting to come together in a more satisfactory way.

I’m now entering the 3rd week of my Orchestration class and I still feel that I’m absorbing a ton of new information. This weeks lesson has us starting to work with various string samples to get used how they’re all put into use.  Going through this process is also getting me back to reading notation more and I’m starting to remember more and more of my music theory. If you don’t exercise those brain muscles, they atrophy just like anything else.

The one problem I’m running into with working on more orchestral stuff is that my audio work station is starting to show its age. Stringed instruments as well as woodwinds tend to have a ton of different articulations and loading them all up is putting quite a strain on my five year old iMac. As it stands, I can’t really load up a full orchestra with all of the articulations without the CPU crying for help. The best solution for this problem is a new computer but I’ll have to see about that.

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dizzy

Epic Mickey

by shaggy on January 22, 2012 at 8:06 pm
Posted In: Reviews

Kate enjoys watching me play video games and it’s been a while since I started playing a new game on one of the current generation of consoles. Twilight Princess was the last game that I finished and that was just before Christmas. While I have a number of games in my back log, I decided to pick out one that Kate would enjoy watching and Epic Mickey was chosen.

I’ve gone through about an hour and a half of game play so far and I can honestly say it’s a decent game. My only major gripe is that the camera can be really annoying but I pretty much knew that after reading various other reviews. Epic Mickey is a 3D platform game that is mostly geared towards those who love all things Disney. If I wasn’t a fan of the mouse, I probably would give the game a pass. While it’s by no means a terrible game, it’s not exactly all that engaging either or at least that’s the feeling I get so far.

Will I finish the game? I’ll probably work on it until Final Fantasy XIII-2 arrives but I don’t think I’ll be heart broken if it gets put back on the shelf for a while. I don’t regret the $10 I spent on my Disney fandom, though. At least it’s not a My Little Pony game.

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