Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
"Hah. I laugh at me."
S'up? I'm working out that site redesign, but in the meantime I've managed to finish everything so that I can now say Embracing Fate III is re-issued. It's got four new songs on it, and one of them is that TOA song that didn't make it; Antithesis. I decided to go ahead and put it on there, and I also left it connected to TOA because it seems like something they'd do if they were real. The other new songs are; The Scariest Little Tune - Ever, Random Inc Domination, and Mid Night. These songs really managed to bring EmFateIII up in terms of quality. Still not my best album, but now I can at least say that I'm not ashamed to listen through it. I also re-uploaded some of the other albums because of some stupid little thing that got stuck in my head and I had to fix before I went crazy. Some of the text files for lyrics had blank lines at the end of them... Drove me nuts so I went back and fixed all of them. I'm freakin' insane. Anyway. I'm also done. Peace out.
Lataz.
Monday, September 29th, 2008
"Curse you static. You beat me again..."
So, there we are. Another new song in the player, and I'm kinda disappointed in myself on this one. Had to change my mastering settings a bit for this one so that it'd work properly. Sounds weird to me, but it doesn't have as much noticeable static in it as it did. Next year when I start doing major composition projects I'm going to be significantly less concerned with volume and more with keeping the quality at the top. Volume is nice but damn you have to sacrifice a lot for it.
Lataz.
Friday, September 26th, 2008
"Eww."
I fucking hate animals. I swear to shit that I'd kill myself if I ever was forced to own one.
In other news... Couple of new songs are up. I tried to do four in one day but one of them took a lot more time than I thought it would so I just got two done. Thinking about redesigning the site a bit. Any thoughts?
Lataz.
Thursday, September 25th, 2008
"Dark Anger."
It's done, it's on the site, download it! Also the first TOA album got remixed and is up on the site now too. Download 'em both! Or just listen to them on the 'Bands' page in the Music section. Whatever.
Embracing Fate III is my next project. Gotta write four new songs for it, remix it a bit and reissue it. Should be good times. I'm really tired now though so I think I'm gonna go to sleep pretty quick. I'll do the overview for Dark Anger tomorrow and have it in the Writings section. I'm out!
Lataz.
Wednesday, September 24th, 2008
"Fucking finally."
I finished Dark Anger. I also finished finding the new mixing/mastering combo that I wanted to use for all of the 2008 albums so far. Now I just gotta go through and actually remix/remaster all of the songs from those albums. Which will undoubtedly take some time. Or I could have it done before the day is over. Who knows? I don't. We'll just have to see. In the meantime, I tease you with the bonus track from Dark Anger! It's over in the player. Basically it's the same thing that I did for the For Never bonus track. I just took bits and pieces from the other ten songs on the album, added a long rhythm guitar intro and made up some new lyrics. Seriously though, doing bonus tracks like that is just all kinds of fun. I was excited when I finished it.
In other news, I'm gonna either try to revive the comics section of the site or take it down completely. I don't know which yet, but I need to commit to it one way or another.
Expect Dark Anger to be posted soon, and the remix of For Never. Embracing Fate III is gonna get some replacement songs before I repost it and once that's done I'll get to move on to the next album in the 'Bands' series: Proc The Darkness - Milk Fire. It's gonna be kinda punk/grunge/pop rock with nerd-oriented topics, specifically video games. I'm not sure what setup I'll be using, but I'm leaning towards one guitar, bass and drums with a more normal voice instead of something insane like the TOA voice. That voice hurts.
Lataz.
Sunday, September 21st, 2008
"Kapowish."
No new songs yet. Sorry. Working on it. Gonna have the TOA album done soon so I may just wait until I finish the rest so I can put the whole album up. We'll see.
Speed Racer is the best car/race movie I've ever seen. Whoever gave it a bad review, seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you? That movie was beyond comprehension. Well executed. Awesome actors. Matching dialogue and the best race action scenes in any movie ever. I had started watching it thinking that it was gonna be lame but by the time it was halfway through I couldn't look away. I think it was around the time Racer X attacked the truck that I fell in love with the movie. There was nothing about this movie that was dissapointing or boring or lacking in any way. To hell with those that didn't like it. You're all stupid as shit.
That being said, Hancock was lame and Iron Man is the best comic book movie made so far. Though I still like The Punisher better just because Thomas Jane pwns and John Travolta rocked his part.
Lataz.
Monday, September 15th, 2008
"SHINY WOOT!"
I got my new piano today. I'll get around to taking some pictures for the Equipment page sooner or later. It'll just get updated in December anyway... I dunno.
7th song from the new album is done! In the player. Originally this one had more choruses but I cut 'em out because it just didn't sound right. Honestly I could barely sing it at all. Took me awhile to make it sound at all like Taking Out Anger. The music is pretty though. Only four more songs until this album is finished and then I can move on to the next 'Bands' album, and the next 'Band': Proc The Darkness. It's gonna be a power-chord rockish kinda band with some good energy and an easier-to-sing-in voice. Seriously doing that TOA voice is killing me. I don't think I could do another TOA album. That's okay though because I've got plenty of other ideas and I'm still gearing up for the massive project I'm going to start in January. The digital piano will help that quite a lot.
Also it seems like the UG article did get a good bit of people glancing in my direction. Can't really be sure but if anyone wants to post on the forums or email me or something I'm around.
Lataz.
Sunday, September 14th, 2008
"Rockin' hard."
What's up all?! New song in the player. Sixth from the next album. Enjoy.
Also my creative juices are flowing so I may actually crank out another before the night is over. Who knows? You do know I'm talking about songs right? Crank out another song... Yeah.
Lataz.
Thursday, September 11th, 2008
"I'm back bitches. You missed me."
Super update: the return!
So here I am again. I know it has been like all of August and July since I bothered to update anything, but in my defense I haven't been able to update. For a good portion of my away-time I was on a dial-up internet connection. I wanted to wait a bit to finish my next album before updating again but then I noticed that Sam over at Ultimate Guitar put me in his article already so I figured I'd go ahead and start updating again. By the way, Sam is freakin' awesome and the article is completely true and well written. Especially the quality vs. quantity part. The article can be found here.
So instead of coming back empty handed I've actually got five songs from the new album up in the player. The mixing and mastering isn't really decided on these yet so they are still pretty early versions, plus those of you that listened in last year know that I don't consider an album to be completely 'done' until the year is up and I have all the albums mixed and mastered one final time. When I did The Nightmare Battles it went through an insane amount of remixing/remastering before I finally called it finished. I think the total number was somewhere around six or seven. Anyway...
The new album I'm working on is the second album in the 'Bands' series, but moreso the second Taking Out Anger album: Dark Anger. I'm five songs in, so I've got about six to go. I actually have another finished but I'm going to transfer it over to another project I'm doing. See, Embracing Fate III was really rushed and I really dislike the song choices and mixing and everything about it really. So I'm gonna replace some of the songs from it with new ones to make the album a bit better. One, Two, Three, and Domination at least will be taken off and replaced with something new. I'm not sure what yet, but I can pretty much guarantee that Domination will be replaced by Random Inc Domination (similar to EmFateI's Sweeping Domination and EmFateII's Superior Conflict Domination). Also the new song Antithesis was supposed to go on TOA's Dark Anger, but it really doesn't fit well enough so it'll end up on the recut of EmFateIII as well.
Also I've got good news for fans of instrumentals! Not that anyone cares... But after this year is up I won't be doing as many vocal tracks. I'm aware my voice isn't cut out for them, but I'm also aware that I really just love singing. After I finish up the 'Bands' series (which is my main goal until this year is out) I'm going to pretty much stop doing vocal albums altogether and instead focus on my real goal of being a video game/anime/film/whatever composer. The first project of 2009 is already being planned and it is going to be a very large scale operation. Look forward to it! I am.
Also I'm bumping up some quality. You'll notice the new TOA mixes are a bit better than even the TOA stuff from For Never. To go along with the new mixing/mastering style I'm also getting some new equipment. Mainly a brand new digital piano (a William's Encore), and two new microphones (Shure's SM57 and SM58 for instruments and vocals, respectively). Also before the year is over I plan to have a new computer, new synthesizer (I'm thinking about an Alesis Micron, any thoughts?), and hopefully a new FX pedal for my bass guitar. So wish me luck on all of that.
I'm also getting out into the world! Not really. I'm still stuck in Oklahoma and I figure I should make the best of my time here so I'm attempting to join a band. I haven't really decided which band to go for yet, but I did meet these guys on Sunday and they seem okay. I went to audition/practice with a bass and ended up being a guitarist. I'm not sure how that happened really... It seems like a fun group though.
That's all for now I suppose. I'll update again whenever there is something worth updating about. Until then...
Lataz.
