A little like Alcmene, this track came together pretty quickly and, as I mentioned on Twitter, it’s the first one I’ve composed for a long time which has been built on a completely linear timeline (i.e. no use of the Cubase arranger track). This doesn’t happen very often and when it does, it feels like the track has almost written itself.

The idea kicked off with a couple of bars sequenced up using iPad App from Korg, iElectribe which I’m hugely impressed with. You’ll hear the iElectribe very clearly at around 1:57. I then exported the pattern into Cubase and started to build the rest of the piece around those four bars. Adding sub bass first and then building some of the other synth parts, drums (glitched using Automaton from Audio Damage) and finally adding Marcus Hutton’s fabulous delivery of the Edgard Varèse quote.

I’m handing over to Pure Tone for some quick analysis (to see if he can spot any howlers), stepping away for a couple of days to watch the Spain v Germany World Cup Semi Final tonight and concentrate an Bootslam’s kick drum and I’ll work on the mix at the weekend.

idea by Kieron James

I’ve been away from Cubase for a week or so, but picked this one up again today and put together a rough mix of something which may make it to FOUR – but I’m still unsure (so any feedback gratefully received). I quite like some bits of it – certain bass parts, the drums and brass – but I think I may have ended up with two tracks here which I’m trying to mix into one, linked by the percussion.

First full arrangement – 6th June 2010

I’ve added a couple of new sounds and put together an arrangement. Need to leave this for a couple of days, let the ears recover and work on the mix later in the week. Doesn’t seem like too much is out of place, but tired ears mean I may not be hearing everything. (Over to Pure Tone for analysis.)

Track #6 Arrangement #1 by Kieron James

With some revisions – 30 May 2010

Track #6-98-bars by kieronjames

First upload

Track #6 by kieronjames

Great fun – and a very helpful distraction from FOUR and all the work going on behind the scenes on Clear Notice debut release CNR001. Spent a few hours last week and a chunk of Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning remixing the indie pop tune The Burns We Earn from Friends or Whatever.

I spotted the @blocsonic remix competition on Twitter on 1st May and was intrigued at how I’d get on remixing a track which was “outside my genre comfort zone”. A couple of elements of the track – notably the bass and vocals – suggested one or two ideas and I started to play around with them.

I extracted midi from the bass line and worked with Rob Papen’s SubBoomBass to generate a couple of different sounds. I created a new (extremely simple) drum part in Battery and glitched the hats using Audio Damage’s Automaton. I created a sequence for one of the original synth parts using BigSeq2 and applied a few filters to the vocals. The guitar part was run through Native Instruments’ Guitar Rig as was an additional synth to create the siren sound.

First up is the original – 2 minute track from Friends or Whatever:

Friends or Whatever – The Burns We Earn by blocSonic

And here is my remix:

The Burns We Earn (Kieron James RMX) by kieronjames

You can download the single including six other remixes and a lovely eleven page PDF booklet from blocSonic’s website:

»» DOWNLOAD THE FRIENDS OR WHATEVER SINGLE AND REMIXES ««

OK, this one has turned out completely off whack with the first three tracks of the album, but there’s something I really like about its quirkiness. There are lots of parts – both in terms of its many layers and the way it jumps from section to section.

I still have doubts as to whether it all works as a whole, but I’m not sure I care! Kinda happy to let it exist as a free-spirited piece and bounce wherever it likes.

Four by kieronjames

Update: 7 June 2010

Lovely to see that Matt Pacyga used this track for one of his #DAPTS videos:

Daily Achievements #DAPTS Playing Foursquare from Daily Achievements on Vimeo.

I’ve been working on this one for a while and I’m getting happier with the mix. Need to tweak the arrangement though – not sure about the first appearance of the guitar or its sound. I think that will be removed once I have the vocals. It seems incongruous early in the piece.

You can follow the history of work in progress as Johnny developed and the story of the track’s title on this post.

One thing which Pure Tone suggested, was some “girly vocals”. This set a train of thought in motion and I was looking around some movie sites last night. The track is pretty light and bouncy so I was after something with a touch of humour for some of the quiet sections. I thought these four lines would work well and I’m delighted with the way Salwa Azar has delivered them.

Johnny, is this true? ‘Cause if it is…

Good luck Johnny

Bye bye Johnny

Say kid, what do they call you?

…never should have picked a name like that. A name like that you gotta live up to.

Any last words Johnny?

Johnny by kieronjames

This is the second track I’ve put together for my debut album FOUR, which will be released on 1st July by Clear Notice. (This will leave six months to create the three sibling albums for Somió, Half-BIT and Blue Omen.)

Recap is a remix of Capitulation – the first piece of music I composed, at the time using the Jonathan Scary moniker. It has been mastered by Pure Tone, though we may tweak a little when I have all the other tracks for the album completed.

Recap by kieronjames

New year, new goals.

I posted a few days ago about my plan to release four albums this year and this week I started on the first track (not necessarily in terms of running order) for Four, which will be released under my own name. As mentioned in the last post, the other three will be produced under the Somió, Half-BIT and Blue Omen projects / collaborations.

So, here are twenty bars laying out some of the ideas I’ve been exploring for Four Track #1 (as yet untitled).

Once the track is complete, I’ll also post four bar samples of each of the stem files and select one sound for each of the “sibling” tracks on the other three albums.

Update: 22/01/2010

Hard to believe I spent three to four hours getting the sound on these four words and I’ve still not mixed or EQ’d the vocal track! Anyway, @groovecriminals was curious about what had taken me so long and whilst I’m sure it’ll be a disappointment, may as well put that work into the context of the piece:

Organised Sound (work in progress) by kieronjames

Update: 21/01/2010

Got a little more time on this. Have some doubts, but I’ll sit on it for a day and see what I think tomorrow / Saturday.

Four Track One (work in progress) by kieronjames

Update: 17/01/2010

Uploading the second update via Soundcloud as I’ve no FTP access today. May continue to do this as it makes it easier to annotate files. Might even consider upgrading to a paid Soundcloud account. Anyway, not had much time for this as I’ve been working on a track for Gavin Fisher (aka @bootslam. Added a bit of guitar (new melody) and some effects using PSP Nitro.

Four #1 by kieronjames

First Upload: 07/01/2010

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