From notapplicable.org, circa 2002.
i sing
most of the time when i record or play something, its to sing more than anything else. although singing just wouldnt be the same without my own accompaniment, its still my favorite part of the whole process. my voice is my main instrument, as i hope will always be the case in my music.i play piano/synth
when i was much younger i played some piano, now ive graduated to synthesizers. i am not a very good player technically, but my ear helps me along more so with a keyboard than with guitar strings. i find that i am happier with the results i get when using keyboards, even if i do play rather slowly.i play guitar
well, i used to play guitar. every once in a while i will pick one of my four guitars up and start plunking with it, realizing why they all collect so much dust. i really am not very good at it, but if you’d like to heard some of my guitar stylings i would suggest checking out my covers section of the music page.. i use my guitars very little in the recording process of my original works.i record:
THEN: (Point of Origin, Cover songs)to make my first album, i pumped my Roland Juno 106 synth to the line-in of my Ensoniq PCI card and recorded the base music that way. when i wanted to record vocals or other instruments, i would have to muck with cabling and volumes as i only had one input to the computer.
to record my vocals, i would copy the base music file to a second machine (a slackware 4 machine called ‘deroda’, whom has since died) and play it through headphones. as i listened, i would record improvised vocals through a cheap $4 computer microphone into anya and effect the vocals after the fact in sound forge. if i tried to play the file and record on the same machine, the audio would meld together and i would get bleeding music in the recorded vocal track.
i then mixed all the pieces together in a single .wav file, using sound forges ‘mix’ command. this was all done by ear, as i would pause the needle indicator where i felt i wanted a certain sound to mix into the track.
in 1996 when i recorded my first cover songs.. i used the same technique, only i didnt have a synth and i played guitar through the cheap ass microphone as well as singing through it. i also encoded at a much lower quality, because at the time i was more concerned about the file size than about the quality of the sound. (i was on dialup) i used the famed l3enc program to encode those files.
NOW: Sepulture, and whatever lies ahead.
my production technique (if one would like to call it that) has not changed much in the past years. i now have a multiple input mixer so i dont need to get behind my computer as often as i used to, and effects processors to sing through.. but all in all its mostly the same. i have a professional microphone and no longer use a second computer, but i still listen to the base music to improvise vocals. i also still use the one wave method of mixing in sound forge, as well.. though i think i am finally ready to try a sequencer.
minimal is my key. i like the way i do things, it is hard for me to complicate my setup. gradually, with pressure from others, i am becoming a more proficient and fickle producer.. the result of which i believe can be heard over the course of my musical history.
biography:
I began creating, recording, and distributing music online in 1995. I started with rudimentary and quite terrible quality covers, and distributed those through my personal website and friends via IRC.In 1997, I joined mp3.com as a means of cataloging and distributing my music. In October of 1999, I produced and recorded my first song, “Infinite Reality”, in about 7 hours from nothing to finished. It became considerably popular in it’s genre on mp3.com, and made way for the songs which eventually comprised my first album, “Point of Origin”, which received rave reviews within the mp3.com community and occasionally outside it as well. All of the songs I created during that time materialized in hours.
During most of 2000, the acceptance and success from my music was almost overwhelming. By my standards, being as I was simply a lonely untrained musician whaling sad things into a $10 computer microphone, I was astounded at the response I got from my fellow musicians and music lovers.
I nearly immediately released a follow-up album, “Altercations”, to showcase the amazing collection of re-mixes done by other mp3.com artists, which had been lovingly presented to me unsolicited. Very few of my albums were ever produced to CD, as they were made-to-order, and both of my original albums are out of print. I suppose that means if anyone ‘important’ knows who I am, they are collectors items now. 🙂
Since my beginnings on mp3.com, I have been asked to be part of many projects, films, college assignments, musical compilations and various media streams. During this time I was also periodically solicited in regards to recording contracts, all of which I turned down. I produce my music in solitude, on my own terms and through my own avenues, that is part of how I am able to create what I do, and I have no current intention of commercializing it.