Work In Progress - x0xm0x

Here's something I've been working on this weekend that I absolutely love. It's the perfect blend of old school analog acid and ultra fast in-your-face breaks.

I feel the need to elaborate on the title of the track. I can never seem to come up with anything decent for my track names, but this one came almost immediately. The Roland TB-303 Bassline synth is probably one of the most recognized sounds in electronic music, and also one of the more expensive pieces of kit one can own. Due to this, and also the fact that production ended on them in the 80's, many people have turned to emulation. One of the best emulations is something called x0xb0x (pronounced zocks-box), which is built from the exact same components as the original. the x0x part of the name is a play on Roland's x0x line of synths and drum machines (303, 505, 606, 707, 808, 909, etc.).

Now, because I used these machines a ton in this piece, and not the originals, but rather using samples and plugins, I got a kick out of using the name x0x"mocks". Anyway, check it out.

x0xm0x

New Project: The Human Fund

The Human Fund is a collaboration between myself and Kyle Egeland. Over the past month the two of us have been working over the net to put together some pieces. The idea is simple: heavy and raw. We've got a good little process going, Kyle writes the scratch tracks, sends them my way, I do the drums send it back, he adds a little more, etc. We do the back and forth until we find something we like and then I mix and master. The results have been quite interesting, and though I'd love to share everything we've done, there are plans for an album, so I have to keep most of it under wraps for now. Here's a teaser:

Generation Debt

Recurring Theme: Beats to Cruise to at Night

I've really been liking the sound of just ultra laid back 808 style beats. I get around when it comes to the styles I incorporate into my music, and I can't help but feel like the Ryan that makes these chilled beats is making fun of the uptight nerdy Ryan that makes the uptight super fast drum breaks. This is the birth of cool people, I hope you like it as much as I do.

ILL2


Transistor Rhythms

New Track: S.O.L.

Just wanted to post a track I wrote about a month ago. Experimented with a bit heavier DSP processing on the Amen breaks. The effects were "performed" real time, that's why it's kinda loose. Had I taken this a little more seriously I would have taken the time to automate the effects, but whatever.

S.O.L.

Sick.

Doesn't get any better.

Summer Round Up: Plenty of New Tracks

It's been a couple months since my last post announcing the net-release of Bleak. For anyone still interested you can find it HERE. This summer has been busy, with an overhaul of the studio, work, traveling back home to Alberta to visit family, as well as moving my girlfriend into my place (so much work...). But I have had a bit of time to get some work done musically.

After Bleak, I have kind of been working on a different "sound". Bleak was very experimental and avant-garde, but the stuff I've been writing lately is much more focused around musical concepts (exploring melody and harmony, as well as a very heavy focus on rhythm and drum programming). Anyway, best thing is to let the music speak for itself, so I'll just post a few tracks below (please don't hate on the Amen, I know it's overused, I know you've heard this sound before, but I want to master it before I move on to other things).

(K/A) Solution

mysndmashup

Clean Cuts

Celebration v2.0 beta3

Enjoy!

New Album - Bleak

Today I decided to group a bunch of tracks (both new and old) together into a nice little LP and take a shot at some more serious web marketing. I mastered some of the older tracks which needed some work (to some extent they were a little "unfixable" but I liked them anyway). I made a little album art and then proceeded to upload the album to a neat service called BandCamp. The service allows you to link to a paypal account and lets people listen to the album online, or have the option of downloading a 128kbps mp3 version or pay what they want for a higher quality version. I like the layout of BandCamp, and also it's got some cool in depth info for the user regarding buzz about your album, keeping track of stats on tracks, where your album is being talked about on the web, etc.

I think next I may get set up with cdBaby and get the album out as a digital download on Amazon, Itunes, etc, but we'll see how it goes with this site first.

The album is an interesting listen for me, and probably only for me. It's definitely experimental, most of the tracks are more on the sound art side of things than actual musical compositions. It's a very electronic and dark experience, consisting of tormenting synth work and tragic ballads. A few of the recordings have consistent rhythms to them, but most are fairly avante-garde. It's hard to explain really, but just think of me sitting at a synth knob-tweaking real-time, and that pretty much explains most of the album. Take a listen for yourself, that's the best way to understand it. If you love it that's awesome, if you hate it I understand. If you REALLY love it consider downloading a lossless version of it to hear it in it's unaltered beauty. Pay what you want for lossless, I set a minimum of $5, I think that's a fair minimum.

Here's the link:

http://ryanmcallister.bandcamp.com

Thanks in advance for taking the time to check it out!

Ryan