Song/Track | Download Link(s) | Date Released | Description |
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TechTalk - Episode 1 Techno Remix | Mirror (Thanks Trent!), Main Link | September 24, 2005 | This track was created weeks after I started playing with Fruity Loops. It's just meant to be a catchy, yet humourus song of the first episode of the podcast Tech Talk. I'm unhappy how one part of the song turned out, but I didn't know enough about sound filtering to really fix it. Building on the song remains to be an option to me, but this is whenever I have literally nothing to do and I'm almost always up to something anyway |
Quasar (Winter Remix) | Omnie Mirror | February 13, 2006 | This is the winter Remix of Outphases song 'Quasar' from the game 'Beatmania'. Probably ended up being the most frustrating songs I have ever created because I borrowed a MIDI track which happened to have the ideal SFX for a couple spots in the song. MIDI is simply files of sound instruction rather then a sound file which makes it hard to render (especially when you make it play something other then the default middle note. You can record that default note using 'WinGroove' though) I tried several pieces of software trying to render the specific sound into a wav file, but I came up with dead-end after dead-end. I eventually bit the bullet and took a microphone to a speaker, editted the sound on my PC so it only played on that specific speaker and recorded the sound. Took a couple tries to get it at least reletively similar to the original sound, but I stuck with something that was 'good enough'. Otherwise, it was a matter of adjusting the sounds (almost 70 layers of sound I might add) so it resembled the original, but still remained to be different (hence it's a remix) in its own respect. It sounds like a song that can be remixable on a first run through, but when you actually get down to the nitty gritty, there's actually a LOT more going on then the 2 (three if you have a good ear) main instruments and the main beat and the remix doesn't quite capture every aspect of the original tune either. Oh well, I tried. I think it's kinda catchy in it's own respect. Has more bass and is a more ambient dance/trance tune. |
Secret Lab | Omnie Mirror | February 15, 2006 | This song was something I decided to make within days of finding out about Fruity Loops (Thanks to Scratch of course) I actually had a lot more to this song, but after a while, I basically abandoned the project (like a lot of other ones) because I had other things I needed to get done. While trying to get other songs done, I remembered this one and thought that maybe I could work some more on it as it wasn't that bad of a track. I dusted the thing off and stripped off a lot of useless layers (like laser SFX, piano and bell sounds since it didn't add anything, merely hurting the quality of the song), mixed the remaining layers to keep the song interesting and added a fadeout. It was intended to be some sort of videogame in-game track and the purpose of the track never strayed. The only dissappointment I have is that I found that there was nothing to add or filter to make it better that I could dig up. I think it's just a simple track that might be best left simple as the couple of instruments already has a bit of a panoramic effect as well as that cool echo sound (in a way) It was originally called 'Sabatage Mission', but since I simplified it, I re-named it 'Secret Lab' as it was much more fitting. |
Distracta Beam (Frozen IceCube Air Raid Remix) | Main Link | April 6, 2006 | This song was probably, by far, the hardest song I have ever remix. It basically took all my creative thinking to not only think of a way to make the song sound different, but also in a tollerable way as well. It took about 49 patterns of music, 12 filters, and 36 instruments (3 of these custom made). In it;s actual creation, it actually starts off at 166BPM, then takes off at 255BPM only to change back over to 166BPM for a moment, then goes full throttle again at 255BPM. Play time is about 3:30. This is not mentioning the fact that I had to take the first version and almost scrap the whole thing and start back at the beginning with only 2 loops which I was able to salvage after all. What helped alot was the song 'TAQ - Paranoia (Bounce Connected)', 'SilverTear - So Deep (Perfect Sphere Remix)' and 'Silver Tear - So Deep (Original Mix)' (of course, I had the original song helping me along). I named the remix after I was completed. Felt the name suited the way it ended up going. The reason I kept at this for so long was because I promised Scratch a remix of that particular track. I'd feel bad if I didn't keep my promise to be real honest. Anyway, hope you enjoy the track! :D |
Ghost Trance | Main Link | April 12, 2006 | I started making this track completely drained of all energy. Essentially, the main beat you hear is when I wasn't really thinking straight at all as a result of a series of exams. I thought, at first, of doing a basic run-of-the-mill trance songs. After making the beat, it felt rather 'chalky' (with lack of any better way of describing it) After a day or so, I went back and continued making more of the song while thinking to myself that I needed something to spruce up the beginning. I added a little bit more bass and a few more ambient effects. The ending was actually the last thing I did after working on the beginning. I wanted an interesting way to end the song and looked at one of the instruments I had and thought to just gradually increase the volume on the second half of the track. Turned out very well I think. The hardest part was thinking of a melody and an instrument. The second hardest part was thinking of a secondary melody/instrument to break it up a little. All-in-all, a track that turned out well. First time I used the Vocoder filter as well. Track rendered at 134BPM. Essentially starts of like a trance/dance track and ends on a more ambient tune. Second fully original tune I made. |
Drainer | Main Link | April 21, 2006 | Where do I begin with this track anyway? How bout this... I basically cracked open Fruity Loops 6 XXL (A heck of an upgrade from the older version I was using) Right off the bat, I really liked it. I had some fun with it and played around with some sounds new and old. Well, afterwards, I decided to try and make an ambient type song. Well, it's not as long as I hoped I could make it, but with some filtering, I think I made some pretty convincing breathing noises. I dunno, I think I'm getting way too good with the 3x osc synthesiser and should focus on things like Wasp or something. I think I've learned quite a lot with the filters thanks to playing with that synthesiser though. This song was probably the fastest I've ever completed (just over a day) After playing around with some sounds and having what you hear, I wasn't really sure what was appropriate to add, so I just tweaked a few knobs and made the song sound like it just slipped away... |
Mischief | Main Link | April 21, 2006 | Sounds like I released two things in one day. Actually, I couldn't upload anything the other day, so I couldn't release the other song. Not sure why that was. Anyway, this song was actually made by accident. I was trying to make a Drum and Bass song and looked desperately for another instrument that would fit. Well, in the process, I resorted to the ol' 3x osc and figured how it hardly lets me down. Well, it didn't let me down, but it helped me unexpectedly. I let a simple sample play while I tried and modify it to sound better. Then I dug up a brand new filter called 'Reveerb 2' and played around with the knobs for a moment. Then I thought to myself, 'Man, this does not fit at all... wait... go back...' I thought it sounded pretty cool... kind of like one of those symphony type instruments. I went back to the melody sample and listened for a moment and realised that the notes were too long. I shortened all of them up and it instantly sounded just like what you hear in the intro. I was like, 'I GOTTA make a song with this in it!' So I emulated the song in a new FL file and brought up some slightly varied melody's to keep the song fresh throughout. I added a little bit of extra sound in two parts, then remembered the sound on the Peeker lesson file. I looked at the lesson file and emulated an ambient background noise it has and threw that in as well. After some shuffling around with my newfound symphony instrument to make it sound like it has a life of its own, I saved the thing. You would never guess that the synthesiser that made the retro sounds in the Scratch Attack remix song was also making that sound with merely two filters (Reveerb 2 and Free Filter) making it sound like you were enjoying a night at the playhouse! ;) |
Tech Talk Theme (Beta) | Main Link | May 6, 2006 | Well, I promised I'd help do some theme music for Trent's show "Teck Talk" and I finally released it. I dunno, there is something I dislike about it, but I couldn't really figure out how to 'fix' it to something I'm more happy with, but maybe it's also to the fact that I'm much more into dance, trance, etc. This track is also out of the orginary for me, but fortunately, I had found some raw material from Fort Minor's track, 'Remember the Name' which was on the 'Copyright Criminals' contest in the Creative Commons website somewhere (forget the link, but the actual data is no longer avaliable for download from what I remember. I asked for a few audio samples from Trent and put together a little scratching as well. That part actually turned out alright I think. Anyway, enjoy the new track. If I get some time, I might remix it which is why I call this a 'beta' for now. |
Beats N' Synth | Omnie Mirror | May 18, 2006 | This one just REFUSED to be completed. I had most of this song completed for a long time, but I looked for the longest time for a second instrument that would 'complete' the song and couldn't find it until yesterday. I'm not perfectly happy with it, but I still think I did a good job on it anyway. I've heard rumours that the instrument used by DaRude's 'SandStorm' wasn't possible to reproduce in FL Studio. Umm, it's actually not that hard to reproduce it. It's only one refined instrument with three filters. That's not that bad compared to other instruments that require just about all the filter slots to reproduce. The only thing is that I can only get it 'right' in a certain set of keys. I don't have the whole keyboard to work with. I'm sure there is a tweak that would allow me more room on the keyboard though. Anyway, this was made at 270 BPM. I'm not entirely satisfied with this song, but I felt that it was the best way I could make it. There's two parts of the song that I actually thought of when I was a lot younger. One is slightly modified because it didn't sound like what I had in mind, but the other sounded perfectly like I had imagined. Mashed them both into one track, so I think that's OK. Hope it's actually better then I thought it was. |
Flute | Omnie Mirror | June 02, 2006 | This track starts off with a slow flute solo for about 30 seconds, then launches into a trance-like song. This one is an upbeat song with delays as a result of lack of free time. This song was probably the happiest I've been over a track for a while (not that it's an upbeat song, more to the fact that I liked the quality of it a bit more) All in all, I don't hate the track, I just wish I had been doing this music thing for years and years so I can magically make it better. Oh well. This is also the first song posted where I experimented with cloned channels (where one is dumped in the left channel and the other is dumped in the right channel) I think it made the song better and less 'mono'. I also got to play around with the Delay filter on this one. A song that has an interesting diversity of filters really. Also a song I didn't completely drag my machine to its knees in the process (though it was starting to strain towards the end there) This song also makes all my published music totalling more then a half hour. Three months of work and I did it. Although I think I've improved since I stated, there's something about the Secret Lab track and the Distracta Beam song I still like. Anyway, enjoy. :)
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Tech Talk Theme Beta 2 (Intro) | Main Link | June 06, 2006 | I know, I spent a LOT of time for doing something so short, but hey, I finally completed this. I had so much other stuff in the way, it wasn't really funny at all. Anyway, the hardest part was thinkinf od a good melody. As you are probably aware, I'm much more into trance, ambient and dance type music, so rock isn't something I've synthesised too much. I think that is partly to blame for the length of time it took. I actually spent a total of three days trying to think this up. One day when I said I'd do a second one up, then one day a week later, and today. Specification of time was a factor in me not putting in the sample 'Welcome to TechTalk' into it. Once I had the melody, I knew there really wasn't room for much else other then a good drum loop. I havn't started on the middle or end theme, but at least now, I have an idea on where to go with this, so should make the rest a little bit easier. We'll see if Trent likes it - I hope he does. :)
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TechTalk Theme Beta 2 (Extended) | Main Link | June 06, 2006 | Apparently, Trent liked it and asked for an extended mix... so I did two different extended mixes, one with a quote and one witrhout a quote. I finally figured out how to use Audacity to record the output of the CPU chip, making getting quotes from media a LOT faster to accomplish! :D I was also asked to give it a softer beat, so I made it softer by removing a kick instrument and lowering the volume of the main hat. I was also asked to start the beat at about 5 seconds in, so I deleted a very small portion of the drum loop and it starts at roughly 5 seconds as asked. He said he'll seriously consider using this for the show. Hey, it'll be my first musical credit which would be really cool! :) |
TechTalk Theme Beta 2 (Extended) (Vocal) | Main Link | June 06, 2006 | This is the vocal version. After discovering the Audacity trick, I went over the "Celebration" episode of TechTalk and picked up this tiny little clip befor getting started on the loop. I thought, 'why not put it in just for kicks?' So I did. I made two versions of the song as you can tell so Trent can have one with or one without the vocal. |
TechTalk Theme Beta 2.1 | Main Link | June 20, 2006 | I've been asked to add something louder in the middle of the theme tune. After a few hours of thinking about this, I finally came up with this. I wanted to add a guitar-like sound, but it didn't seem to mesh to well with the rock feel to the song, so I stuck with a synthesised filter sound in the middle instead. I thought of matching the melody to the rest of the song, but I couldn't really put it in properly without making it sound repetitive, so I chose to simply match the bass-line of the middle paret instead and give it a funky tone to it which also adds an extra beat to the song at the same time. I think this turned out pretty good considering I'm modifying an already good track |
SilverTear - So Deep (Perfect Frozen IceCube Remix) | Omnie Mirror | September 02, 2006 | So it has been a while since I made music. Things happen, but I did learn a bunch of stuff while I wasn't posting music. Was sweating through trying to make this song 'sound right' because I couldn't get the main melody right. I spent about a month trying to get it right and, while I got close in some places, I couldn't get it right. After beating my head on a brick wall trying to get it right, it hit me that VGMusic had MIDI tracks. As it turns out, FLStudio can easily read melodies. I downloaded the MIDI rip and copy and pasted three melodies onto the main track in new loops and, well, it just sounded a heck of a lot better then befor. :P I figured that there was no use in re-inventing the wheel, so I went with it and continued adding stuff that was original and stuff that was ttrue to the Perfect Sphere Remix while still being different. I think this track turned out great in the end. Hope you like it as much as I do! :D Oh yeah, some elements are from the original longer version of the Perfect Sphere Remix, not the DDR version. ;) |
Attack of the Giant Snowman (Electric Remix) | Omnie Mirror | September 5, 2006 | Another videogame remix. This time, it's from Snowboard Kids 2 which just so happens to be one of the most addicting racing/battle games every released on the Nintendo64. Added a little rock feel to the tune and tried to keep reletively true to the original tune. I added a little beginning and and ending to an otherwise looping track as it felt appropriate. I also had to mix the song with one missing track as it ground my box down to the point where I couldn't really hear the song properly, so I left out one loop while I finished the track and only re-added it when it came time to render it, hoping that it would sound alright still (which it definitely does) I'm not exactly sure why, but my machine seems to hate Sytrus in particular. I had added every other track with very minimal problems, then re-added it in and it still had the same resource problems. Guess my machine isn't really fast enough to handle it all unrendered. :( |
The Futuristic Freeway (Mechanical Remix)(Long) | Omnie Mirror | October 28, 2006 | I've been meaning to post this for quite some time, but never really got around to it until now. I kept running into the problem of keeping this track from feeling too 'dry' (for lack of a better way of describing it) So I gave it a cool echo effect and it turned out pretty darn well. All in all, I'm quite happy with how this track came out. I found it strangely fitting because I beat Top Gear 3000 on hard mode. You'll find this track is a neat remix of the second level. I found the game very fun personally. I just wished they made the big finally better as opposed to a lame still. :( |
Unearthly Curiosity (Frozen IceCube's Freak Remix) | Main Link | October 28, 2006 | You'll probably listen to this track and be a little like, 'WTF?'. Well, this is a little experimental for me. It's partly designed to be mashed-up. I might make a mash-up of this and some other tune in the future. It originates from a remix of Scratch's 'Unearthly Curiosity' and uses some of the original elements used in the original track including the original acapella which can be found via Altavista (or if you REALLY want, editted from this track) Another aspect of this track is that this is probably the first track I really got in to playing around with an acapella. Of course, I used Wave Traveller to get some of the sounds, but I found out that BeatSlicer also nicely cuts up the audio file for easy manipulation. It was so easy, I didn't need a filter to make an echo effect. I think I took Scratch by surprise with this one as well. It was also meant as a surprise to him. I don't think he knew I was actually remixing the track until I told him it was done. :) |
I'm Dreaming of Food Again | Main Link | November 02, 2006 | OK, this was the most unique creation I've made... and by unique, I mean how it was made mostly, but also to the fact that this is a lullaby-like melody as well. I currently have this cold and have been basically sick for a week. Well, I'm on my way to recovery and I had just finished writing two Slyck articles. I finish up some business with a few people as my laptop basically lit up like a Christmas tree in activity (not that I mind a whole heck of a lot). I gather that I'll be spending today recovering from this cold as well and just go to sleep without setting my alarm. I get this dream that I'm wandering around this town I don't know. I look over and see this tree with two construction workers looking up. I look up and see a downed powerline resting right on top of the tree trunk. I look down and see one construction worker scamper up the tree like a squirrel. I think, 'yeah, they'll deal with that'. I continue wandering and think that I need to cross this busy intersection. The road I'm on makes a gradual turn towards me while forking straight. It's a three lane highway and takes a good bit to cross. I realise I'm on one of those concrete reserves and have another two lane road merging into the first road. On top of that, there's another two lane road joining this major super-highway in the same fasion as the first road. I wait a little bit because it's so busy and there's only a crosswalk. I eventually cross over and walk along another sidewalk with a park full of tree's. I walk past that into a small commercial zone. There's an overhang from all these one floor shops. I see a pizza store and have this sense of needing to go in there as if I had to meet someone or need to eat. Not exactly sure which. I go in and wait for a second. This waitress approaches and walks away as if I'm suppose to follow her. We both sit down in this booth and someone hands me this wierd leaning paper cup with a massively thick red straw full of creamy chocolate milk. This is where this song starts playing. The straw is also cut at an angle and I can't really wrap my lips around the straw it's so big. The cup itself was at the same 45 degree angle and yellow with white stripes. It has an angled 'V' cut to it (only rounded curves, no sharp angles in the cut) There's also a little strip at the very back of the cup that loops around in the same fasion as the rest of the cup to, in a way, resemble a shoe oddly enough. I'm asked to guess what this drink it. My guess of chocolate milk was 'not quite' I never guess what exactly the drink was, but made with 'steamed milk' was apparently not really it. I then get handed this overly tall menu. It's so tall, I actually accidently bump the waitresses face at the booth in the process. I look up and appologise as she sits there with this mustard colored seats and red curtain drawn window behind her (though there's a slit at the bottom of the curtains so sunlight can still come through even though it's a well lit resteraunt) As I'm looking at the menu, the music is more apparent. I notice prices in the menu and check my pocket to realise I have a large wad of money in my pocket. I relax and look over the menu with some items being pizza related (of course) I listen to all the elements of the song as each element is obviouse for a moment - long enough for me to remember. I then wake up. I had idea's for music before, but forget them after a while or some important element in them. So I grab my laptop and quickly render as much as I can from what I remember of the song. It's definitely interesting music to say the least. I got it at least darn near close to what I heard in the dream. Maybe the bass timing is a little off, and the main instrument doesn't sound exactly like that, but 99.99% close at least. Actual melody was surprisingly easy to get. I'm not sure if this song I dreamed up was already made before or not, but I didn't want to just forget about this one either and I thought it would be worth sharing with the world incase I would have forgotten it. Anyway, I named it 'I'm Dreaming of Food Again' because it was based off a dream that ended with thoughts on food. Enjoy. :) |
Simian Acres (Galactic Rednex Remix) | Omnie Mirror | November 10, 2006 | Well, final projects are here for school and I've been quite stressed out over it. I chose to remix this instead of working on my novel because I wanted to do something that had nothing to do with text - plus do something that would cheer me up. Essentially, this was the ideal thing to do under the circumstances. Again, this track made possible by vgmusic.com's MIDI rip. Saddly, it was, IMO, missing two effects in the track. The first was the rather cool bass drop which occurs twice. I was more then happy to put that in. The second was a real good Juice Harp - though I think I can blame the limitations of MIDI for that one. I thought I had a good juice harp, but as it turns out... well... I don't! lol! Just as well though because I was remixing this and it should have its own unique version of a juice harp. Of course, this wasn't exactly easy to do. I fiddled with a bunch of instruments. I thought for a while I would get one out of WASP for sure, but nothing came out of that. I gave Sytrus a whirl, but nothing really sounded all that great. I tried Simsynth and found an interesting preset that could help. I then detuned it and put in a couple filters. I then manually inserted a special effect to give it that 'boing' effect. As for the 'almost-banjo' instrument, that was a heavily modified Sytrus preset. Once it was at a volume that gave it that 'o' sound, all I had to do was lower the volume elsewhere - at least I thought. Once I did that, I lost the 'o' edge that made it unique. So I put a Fast Dist effect to it, but my troubles weren't over. It replaced the 'o' sound to an 'r' and 'z' sound which obliterated what made it sound good. I turned all the knobs to get rid of the effects to go back to the too loud 'o' sound, then nudged a knob over a hair so I could finally just lower the volume without losing the effect. When I was done, it sounded so bland compared to the original Blast Corps videogame I grew to like a lot. I followed a technique I discovered earlier and cloned a bunch of channels, then played with the panning to get a nice stereo effect. While there's two channels for most of the instruments, I balanced it out a little and had the 'almost-banjo' tilted to the left slightly with the bass guitar slightly to the right. It made the song sound better in the end, so I twinned another synth and had one all the way left with another all the way to the right. Lastly, I twinned the good ol' bass that appears in the two drops 30 per cent either way. I had a few idea's on what I'd name this song and the finished product kinda decided for me. So there you have it! Another cool track - albeit another remix - from the cool cube :) |
Space Rays | Omnie Mirror | December 14, 2006 | This one is probably the song I spent the most time to date working on. It was an off and on thing which seems to work well. I basically work on it a little until I get to the point of being somewhat stumped. Then I stop and work on it another day. I think the hardest part was getting a good melody going. I thought of the first part of the melody first. It sounded OK, but it needed something. So a few days later, I think of adding variations to the melody and added new loops to try ang change things up in the song. I think the best thing was dropping the first note down a few keys. I then modified the ending a couple of times and ended up having a melody with loops that sort of feed in to each other. It sounded good, but it also sounded short. About a week later, I think of splitting off the end of the longer notes and having the split down a few keys. It sounded great, so while I was feeling rather inspirational, I made a few more versions of the end of the loops and had one that sounded particularly brilliant. So on the second chorus, I doubled up on it. I used a number of filtered WaspXT instruments. I got it sounding great, but I thought I could make it better, so I fiddled with the volume using the LFO and figured that if I got it flickering between two folume levels, I would give it that slight 'rough' sound which, IMO, made it sound better. This track is also meant to be remixed and I hope to make a remix of this song in the not-to-distant future. If you feel like remixing it... by all means. It's partly why the CC license is there for! :)
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Dark Garden | Main Link | December 25, 2006 | I had this one sitting around for a little hwile now. While I wanted to make a Christmas mix in time for the holiday season -really- badly, it turned out to not be. However, I've been talking about this track for a while, so here it is! It's a rather basic song in terms of instruments with only a filtered clap and a filtered piano. The beginning FX and the beat is something I had imagined up as a kid and I have re-remembered that and emulated it as best I could. I then added some ambient pads and slow moving melodies to give it a nice suspensful ring to it. I then added the vocals to round out the song. After that, I extended it with a, what I consider, some well done piano-work. The odd thing about this song is that, without the piano, I listened carefully to the string instrument and it was as if I could hear a very distant piano. Most of the piano playing is the sound I heard in the 'distance'. After that, I made some adjustments in some parts so it was less dull and more ambient. After that, I tweaked the sound levels for each individual key hit to balance it out. I had problems on one melody as it sounded a little green. After a while - till tonight, I came back and was able to give it a sufficient final tweak, and then an ending so the track can be nicely looped. Essentially, overall, this is another one of those video game-like tracks just like 'Secret Lab' which is one track that got a few good reviews. |