NEWSNEWSNEWSNEWS

I've gone and registered a site - www.zombiemoonrobots.com . As fun as the blog format has been, I've really not liked the fact that people have to ask to be invited. I've gone for a bulletin board-style layout this time round.

It'd be great if you'd all come along, and it'd be FREAKIN AWESOME if you'd Copy and paste your old posts to the relevant sections. I've moved the competitions across already.

BY POPULAR DEMAND, THE COMPETITION.

This month's suggestion has come from Gilgamesh - Leekspin, also known as ievan polka, performed by the group loituma. ITS NOT A TUMA.



I'll be interested to see if anyone attempts a cover.



Here's a quick one I did. Here.

DYSLEXIA KARIOKEE TIME.

KAREOKE SINGING FOR MY BAND.
CLICK TO LISTEN OR DONT

The results of the first of many competitions.

You can still post entries if you like, but after a month and a few days it's time to highlight the entries we've had:

I'm sure everyone will agree that Gilgamesh wins, with not one but TWO entries, both of which were brilliant. I heard can't touch this on someone's radio the other week and was constantly expecting it to burst into some horse love.

Mystery Bob also had a lovely entry with his Spacker Calypso Remix, which I have chosen to blame for a recent pina colada binge. It was definitely in my head at one point when I was mixing the drinks. Never again.

The equally mysterious 'gorecki' has posted a more than decent tune, but has not left any clue as to who he or she may be. Gorecki, if you're reading this, let me know an email I can send the invite to and you can make new posts.

Onion Terror also shot off two entries, both of which fit the spirit of the game perfectly.

As is his wont, Rapitinui comes up the rear with his midi goodness - I still plan on making an entry and I'll probably be using this in it somewhere.

If you're still working on it, please don't give up. By now everyone should understand the torture of listening to something you love more than 500 times in a row. If this post has fallen down the page by the time you finish, don't hold back - just make a new post with a link to the original one. I have my creative and uncreative times, I'm sure most people are the same. You can't hurry love.

In terms of new compos, most posts should be a challenge in themselves to the other members. Post an idea for a song, some lyrics you've written, guitar riffs, little loops etc and see what other people come up with. I'll be going through the old posts here and doing my bit to show what I mean, but as I mentioned earlier, I am stuck in a musical rut right now and I need to leave it alone for a month or two and come back fresh.

There might still be announced competitions in the future, this was certainly great. Thanks to everyone that sent me this suggestion, it got me off my arse and actually doing it. Actually, I was on my arse when I did it, so even better. Feel free to announce your own competition if you have an idea, there should be more than one going at any given time.

Anyways, this is getting a bit long and I don't want this place to turn into all text, so here's a song I did a long while ago that should work with Rapitinui's baroque hip-hop track, but my midi converter is broke. Does anyone want to attempt it? Can anyone convert to an mp3 it so I can too? Do something different if you have other ideas.

Prepare to have your worlds rocked.

I'm an idiot has joined the blog.

shit i need to do in the near future:
1. write music.
2. buy new microphone to record music.
3. buy midi cable for keyboard to connect to computer.
4. buy new guitar.
5. buy distortion pedal or phaser.
6. fix didgeridoo.
7. finish carving didgeridoo stand.
8. relearn how to play the piano.
9. find some way to communicate with band in order to make more music.
10. get a job to pay for crap i need to buy.
11. buy more herb.

till the day that all these are complete (or just the most important ones) there's going to be a lot of silence from me on here.
about as much as i can give you right now is that i'm writing piano and guitar parts (with guestimates of elementary drums) for a song called The Funk Jet, as well as about 20 other unnamed songs simultaneously.
take care as always.
loves and kisses.
rick.

I had plans this summer.

Plans to make this into a bit more than a blog - I'd love to make this into a proper website, where it isn't so hard for people to join up and have some fun.

Alas, my plans are dashed, as I have to go back to work on Monday. This can become an ongoing project.

In the meantime, I still haven't even put in an entry to the I love horses competition. I'll do one, but I'm having a bit of a blank right now.

As much as I'd love to post something I've done with someone else's stuff from here, I'm not happy with anything new that I've done so I'm going to just go ahead and post something else I'll probably never finish.

I'm probably going to have to register a different name because www.twelveangrymen.com seems to be a dating service. I like the mental image of a horny old woman typing "twelve angry men" into a search engine.

If anyone would like to help out with the site, I'd love to hear from you (those that have already volunteered, you'll hear from me soon please thankyou). In the meantime, anyone that wants to join in and post some music, just let me know who you are (with an email address, create a new account if you want - I just need to send the invite somewhere) and I'll send you an invite. I'll work out a way of making it easier for people to join up soon.

Also, I'm sure most of you have a site or two of your own, let me know if you want a link on the side or some shit.

While searching for some stuff to post here

I came across a thing I made ages ago, but forgot about.

B3ta boarder Tedious was making a short film and asked me to provide a soundtrack. The brief was for a quiet overture, a main theme and a cheesy muzak version for a scene involving an elevator.

I came up with these:

The Overture

The Main Theme

The Cheese

Unfortunately I don't know if the movie was ever completed. I ended up quite liking the quiet piano version, but despite writing the piece I can't seem to play it very well. Thank the lord for MIDI and Cubase.

I really enjoyed the writing of a theme, then playing about with it to come up with three different treatments. It made me feel almost like a proper composer.

Greetings...

I do enjoy things with lots of buttons on them and so have always been attracted to synths and drum machines. The thing is, I have only ever been good at playing instruments with strings on them, with the possible exception of harps. This means all my music has ended up in the normal rock band bass/drums/guitar mould, which I love, but it can be fun to expand one's horizons.

Hence my pretend electronic band, Aldrin On Moon, which is just me and as many cubase plug-ins that my ageing computer can handle. Making things like this:

Cocoa Krispies 6.39 MB mp3

I am almost tempted to make one of those new fangled myspace pages and everything.

Make it funky he said!

Rapitinui's midi#10 from his post below.

So I got out some funk and a bit of jazz : Badassten 2.5mbMpg160

TERROR! SHOCK! DISMAY!

Oh god, what have I done...

I took a lot of valium and woke up with the following bastardisation of 'That Guy From That Movie With Wesley Snipes'

So I give you, the monstrosity that is :

That Other Guy From That Other Movie With Wesley Snipes

I think that my attention must have kept slipping or something, as there are random choruses all over the place.

Oooh yeah tune

Hello people ... do I get a bumming for my first post?

This is yet another tune I started any will never finish, just messing around with vocal samples and vocoders in Reason and Cubase. Anyone want to play with it?

Clickety-clackety-click here for ooh-yeahhh strangeness. Christ I love vocoders.

Make it funky, more or less

Kia ora ano,
still playing around with 7/4.. testing the theory that if you hit it on the one, it doesn't matter how many beats come after.
I think this could do with some oowww! HUH! get back! ..or solos?
I don't know if we have any horn players around here, but a hideously discordant guitar would do.

Unfinished Track

This is a track i've been working on for the last 30 minutes - it's only the bare bones, and stops abruptly after about a minute and a half. The plan is to have Yoshi from the band sing along with the main melody (she has an amazing voice, and it'll sound awesome - i'll provide frantic spazzy vocals in parts).

I present :
That Guy From That Movie With Wesley Snipes

The main melody (originally it was just the choppy bit) was created when I decided to place random notes all over the place - it seemed to work, and for the chorus type bit it was easy to fill the rest in.

I'm a little unsure about the settings that I used with AudioRealism Bassline (maybe to squelchy - it also needs to be a little louder.

If I fill it out a little, iron a few problems out, and if the guitars and vocals go as well as I hope with this track, this might end up on our 7".

Serial killah

Here's this morning's distraction; I was listening to some old Wendyhouse last night which put me in a Residents frame of mind.
This sequence is based on three tone-rows in 7/4, 4/4, and 13/8..
Who's up for some eccentric vocalising / monologue? It's only a minute long.

It's All The Same To Me

Another new song from me, this is a comedy blues track which I wrote in November.
It's All The Same To Me

Baroque hip-hop

Kia ora ano tatou,

here's a two-and-a-half minute sequence which is a development of a bass-line from a previous post..  started out with a hip-hop intent, but once the harpsichord and strings got in there I couldn't turn back.

Needs proper scratching over it - plus samples and/or vocals?

COMPETITION TIME, MOTHERFUCKERS

The time has come for a bit of a competition - this one will be for covers or remixes of the popular song, "I Love Horses" (Suggested by Rapitinui).

The rules are minimal. People can join forces, multiple entries are allowed, and it will remain open for ever, but the best one will be chosen this time next month. If anyone remembers to do it. There is no prize except the one you award yourself.

My favourite song of mine

I wrote this in 1996 under the name Starfield. I went through a period of writing songs that sounded like nothing else- no other bands, no other genre. This is the best one I did.
Starfield - Bethune
It's a sample of the song as it's my precious! :)

Long lost track...

Just been going through my hard drive and found a couple of half finished tracks from ages ago that I don't even have the source files for anymore, so they are forever doomed to be in the state they are in now. Here's one of them:

BLANKED (unfinished sample)

I probably got a few more of these I may as well post over the next couple of days. Most of them are experimental crap though ;)

A new instrumental track

Hi all. I've been writing songs since 1990 but have not done many recently. This is an guitar instrumental I started last week. You can listen to its initial layout here. http://www.b3ta.cr3ation.co.uk/data/mp3/instrumental.mp3
I haven't really thought what else to do with it yet, except write a kind of middle 8. What do you think?

Pins & Needles

GREETINGS, INTERNET!
Today, I come bearing a gift. An electropop gift. An electropop gift which I have made for you.

Well not really, it's a super-secret demo of a new song - sans-guitar and sans-vocals. It may end up in the pile marked 'rejected songs', but then again, it may not.

Pins & Needles

It was created soley by myself, using FL Studio 6, and an assortment of collected VST instruments. I hope that you enjoy it.

EDIT : Like a spastic, I deleted it from my server - it's re-uploaded now though :)

Stuck in the MIDI with you

kia ora tatou,

woo! first post and all the rest..  now, I don't have a home computer at the moment, so I won't be doing any mixing, acoustic recording or the like just yet.  I may on occasion record some short samples on my phone, but they always need tidying up.

What I have been enjoying lately is MIDI doodling - great for noting down little germs of ideas, or playing around with arrangements.  I've been using the freeware version of Anvil Studios, which is nice and easy to use, and not too buggy (the commercial version has proper audio recording and mixing features, I think).

Just for fun I've transcribed a few complete songs by other people, such as Franz Ferdinand, and several by Chris Knox.  For this collaborative project I can provide sequenced loops for anybody to do whatever the hell they like with..  or, when I have the attention span, more fully-realised sequences to be mixed down with samples and/or acoustic parts.

Heoi ano, here's a couple of scraps I found on the hard drive from last year:
a couple of bass lines, upright and synth;
and a funny little rock loop. Mmmm, cow-bell.

Here's something I made today, which started off with that insistent syncopated riff at the beginning and turned into a blues-rock jam.  I'd love to hear some vocals or harp samples over it..

LISTEN TO MUSCI

I won't have any new music for a while so I dug up an old track from my accapella days. This track, from my old band, Dyslexic Fishermen is called Chef Boyardeee.
My band was the original grunge accapella band. fuck all the imitators.

A couple of years ago, I had a vision.

Chicks in bikinis shooting silly string from their tits, and a sedated rhino. I had an ultimate stadium track in mind. I spent a good few months on it, but somehow never got past the build-up. I've got all the separate beats etc if you want to do something, just let me know what you want.

I'll probably stop posting for a while to let other people have a go.

*tries blog on for size* perfect fit!

I've been rummaging around my hard disk and found a couple of tracks I made a year or so ago, that I thought i'd share. This one is called Seek Help and is a tough house track with old school hoovers. I'll upload another one at some point soon, and hopefully get my act together and make something new!

ANYONE WANT TO RAGTIME?

I found this archive of old record cylinders from the early 1900s

I was thinking we could have a bit of fun with these. My favourite right now is this one, I plan on doing something with it but I am not quite sure what yet.

If you feel like playing with any of these songs, post them as comments here. If you need free hosting, go to cr3ation - there's a link to your right.

NO-FI, MOTHERFUCKER.

Let this be the hastily assembled, likely to be changed FAQ.

I want people to feel free to post whatever stuff they want, be it little loops, guitar solos, harmonica farts, or entire finished songs but the idea for this place is to be more of a "we made this" thing than an "I made this" thing.

http://www.b3ta.com/links/TWELVE_ANGRY_MEN

I got a bit carried away typing on my whore-post when it should have really been put over here. Read the above. I'll add new rules in the comments of this post, and if you have any questions about what I'm aiming for here, or why people are pissed off at you, put the comments on this one. I'd like people's posts to have interesting discussions/offers for help etc rather than people whining about the rules.

The most important thing is that there shouldn't be too many rules if people are going to have fun here.

The two golden rules are:

1: Don't be a cunt
2: Please recognise that someone might have put a lot of time into their stuff, if you don't like it, either offer constructive criticism, fix it yourself or DON'T POST A COMMENT. People will get the message if no-one ever responds to their posts.

From here on in, I'll just be amending this to further explain exactly what "Don't be a cunt" means should the need arise.

Oh, I forgot to mention - all interesting/original shapes, forms and styles of music are welcome here. Please don't post other people's work and try to pass it off as your own. That shit is wack.

edit: Tahkcalb has suggested a handy "how to" for people as well, which is a good idea.

YOU WILL NEED:

a) INTERNET
b) a sound editing program - Cool edit pro is my weapon of choice, but I don't get many people agreeing with me. Now that I think about it, very few people agree at all when it comes to sound editing programs. Some noteworthy ones are Acid Pro, Cubase, Reason (for advanced users) or fruityloops (for beginners). Depending on what you use, you'll need a wav to mp3 converter too - I use Alive, which has done the job nicely for me. I've never tried anything else or had a conversation with anyone about other wav to mp3 converters on the market, so if you're the discerning type of wav to mp3 user, you might want to get advice from someone else.
c) An idea of your own or the desire to see someone else's idea come to fruition
d) Hands, or maybe just a mouth and lungs
e) Depending on what you do, a musical instrument.

Step 1:Use your hands to operate your musical instrument and your computor and make the sounds sound beautiful with your new pogram.

Step 2:Host an mp3 on the internet - if you don't have your own hosting, give cr3ation a try, it's lovely.

step 3:Post a link as a comment if it is a reply to someone else, or as a new post if you're allowed. Please only post replies as new links if the old post is archived.

step 4: step 3 was the last one.

PLEASE DON'T POST WAV FILES. Try to keep your mp3s under 6mb, but if you have to go longer you have to go longer. I can respect that.

Anyone feel like singing?

I made this a while ago:

I'd give this song a name if it was about something

I keep either deleting what I write when I'm having a moment, or I just hate it anyway.

The general feeling I wanted here was a sort of happy, domesticated, at home with good friends kind of thing. Of course, this being the first time I've tried this, I'll take whatever I'm given.

Cr3ation is a great host, try him out if you need one. Just remember the bit about copyright files. That also applies here.

Post an mp3 or midi as a comment, if people become regular contributors I'll probably let them post. If I already know you just let me know, I'll probably let you guys run amok straight away, as long as you promise to stay on topic.

Stuff I've posted on b3ta but not here.

My self-indulgent pile of wank

This one, which shall also remain nameless for now

PRIVATE PANTS PARTY TIME - THE SONG

The last one had contributions from a few people on the board - You'll see them if you click the link. I really like the idea of a bunch of strangers with (generally) more imagination than musical talent getting together like this and would like to see how this goes.

I really want the idea to be that people can just download and listen to the music, and if they want to, mess around with it and post a new version. I don't have any big dreams of being a millionaire and I'm happy for people to hear my music. Of course, if someone tried to sell it as their own it would really piss me off. I'd have to use my internet skills to defame them.

Who knows, if it takes off I might actually set up the donation thing. I'll be sure to give it out to the people who join in.

Leave comments and shit, so I know who's interested in doing what.