NEW MUSIC FROM SAMMY JAMES!
15 Jan 2011, 22:23http://www.sammyjames.com/Music/Hangtime.mp3
This is the second song off of my forthcoming "Mall of Generica 2.0" album. I'm hoping to have it properly mastered soon. For the time being, I did a quiky mastering on my own.
Here are some relevant details about the album:
The Mall of Generica (2.0) contains 12 tracks, each with a slightly different style. The original album came out in 1998; at the time, I was experimenting with all of the different electronic styles that I had heard recently, meaning within about the year or so between 1996 and 1997. There are several tracks that are more like up-tempo dance / techno / nu-skool breaks / house and so on. There are also a couple of tracks, like this one, that I would liken to trip-hop or hip-hop, depending on your viewpoint. Again, I hope to have the whole thing mastered and released "soon" -- but that probably means by springtime at the earliest. I'm very poor right now and can't afford to spend money on anything that is not food, medicine, rent, or bills.
The new album tries hard to mimic the original sound, so it might sound somewhat dated to certain listeners. I did this intentionally, because so many people have heard the original and enjoy it still. But I knew that I had to redo it, because the first attempt was riddled with mistakes, tempo inconsistencies, and flat-out audio problems (like noise and level disparities among different songs, et cetera). Getting to rerecord all of the parts was a dream, and was made possible by the computer and the plug-ins that I used to make it with. And it didn't hurt that I've grown, matured, and gotten better at playing keyboards over the last 12 years as well.
The most challenging thing was redoing all of the solos, which I rerecorded note-for-note. (I didn't have the original MIDI tracks anymore, so I had to do them by ear. Which was more difficult than you might imagine...) Once I had done that, I went back and realized all of the other parts using Omnisphere and Korg Mono/Poly (mostly). Those were my two go-to synths to create new sounds with. I also used the Garritan Strad sound, which is phenomenal. I'm lucky that I bought that way back in 2006, because they promptly discontinued it and haven't followed up with any better products yet. There are two songs that make EXTENSIVE use of the violin, and I truly exploited most of its capabilities, including key switching and dynamics. You may be truly surprised at how good that instrument sounds, and I'm excited to release those songs. But I want to wait to see what reaction there will be to the little bit of music that you hear right now.
Later.
This is the second song off of my forthcoming "Mall of Generica 2.0" album. I'm hoping to have it properly mastered soon. For the time being, I did a quiky mastering on my own.
Here are some relevant details about the album:
The Mall of Generica (2.0) contains 12 tracks, each with a slightly different style. The original album came out in 1998; at the time, I was experimenting with all of the different electronic styles that I had heard recently, meaning within about the year or so between 1996 and 1997. There are several tracks that are more like up-tempo dance / techno / nu-skool breaks / house and so on. There are also a couple of tracks, like this one, that I would liken to trip-hop or hip-hop, depending on your viewpoint. Again, I hope to have the whole thing mastered and released "soon" -- but that probably means by springtime at the earliest. I'm very poor right now and can't afford to spend money on anything that is not food, medicine, rent, or bills.
The new album tries hard to mimic the original sound, so it might sound somewhat dated to certain listeners. I did this intentionally, because so many people have heard the original and enjoy it still. But I knew that I had to redo it, because the first attempt was riddled with mistakes, tempo inconsistencies, and flat-out audio problems (like noise and level disparities among different songs, et cetera). Getting to rerecord all of the parts was a dream, and was made possible by the computer and the plug-ins that I used to make it with. And it didn't hurt that I've grown, matured, and gotten better at playing keyboards over the last 12 years as well.
The most challenging thing was redoing all of the solos, which I rerecorded note-for-note. (I didn't have the original MIDI tracks anymore, so I had to do them by ear. Which was more difficult than you might imagine...) Once I had done that, I went back and realized all of the other parts using Omnisphere and Korg Mono/Poly (mostly). Those were my two go-to synths to create new sounds with. I also used the Garritan Strad sound, which is phenomenal. I'm lucky that I bought that way back in 2006, because they promptly discontinued it and haven't followed up with any better products yet. There are two songs that make EXTENSIVE use of the violin, and I truly exploited most of its capabilities, including key switching and dynamics. You may be truly surprised at how good that instrument sounds, and I'm excited to release those songs. But I want to wait to see what reaction there will be to the little bit of music that you hear right now.
Later.
Yes we did.
