My Music

[Lasiien]

Hey all,

So for a while I've told you I played less games and got more into making music. I've started to upload some tonight and share so I thought I'd post here so you can see what i've been up to.

I'm quite (back) into the dance scene and electronic production at the minute (as is reflected by my latest couple of tracks) though I still love guitar and play very regularly. Eventually i may move towards a more pendulum style of music (if you know them, if not I suggest looking at something like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogMNV33AhCY) fusing rock/metal/dance but I'm learning and enjoying this scene right now, especially as you have to be so hot on your home recording/production values (musically it's much easier to make dance music imo, but so much harder to make it sound good and get the balance right in the mix).

Anyway, for those interested I made a home on soundcloud (but also links to friendface, twitter, youtube - links on there if you really wanna!) Any comments appreciated but I only accept nice ones

http://soundcloud.com/lasiien/tracks

They are pretty much listed in order, so the oldest track Eridanus is about 2 years old now I think. But hey, what good are they just sitting on my hdd Oh and I should point out Time is Running Out is a cover (Muse, who unfortunately have seem to got worse these days ) though all played by me and not sampled or anything.

las

p.s. yes, this is what has taken my spare time and hopefully explains some reluctance to get into another MMO....... Except when eko, cern and brigh made me play SWTOR........grrrr

[Cernos]

Awesome Las. Some really good music there. Great production values too, really clean. Been recording a bit lately myself and I'm really struggling with keeping the hum and hiss down, so I know how hard it is and you've done a great job.

My favourites are Eridanus and especially Universum, I really really liked that one, love how it builds.

Only minor disappointment was no vocals on Puff The Magic Dragon - that's just crying out for a bit of punk or metal vocal madness at the end

Great work. But enough of this musical sabbatical, get your butt over to Guild Wars 2 !

[Lasiien]

thanks Cern Allot of effort goes into as you say, it's a bit harder than you think at first. Would love to hear some of your guitar btw

I agree about Puff the magic dragon, fancy doing the vocals ?

GW2 is tempting but so is learning more about compression.........erm.....

[Cernos]

Heh, I can only do punk / metal vocals when I have a heavy cold and pre-shredded vocal chords.

Actually vocals is the thing I've been trying to work on the hardest. I don't have a naturally great singing voice. It's not terrible, at least not in an X-Factor reject sense, but my range is limited. So, I've been exploring where my range actually is, trying to 'find my voice' and bend songs to suit it, rather than the other way round. Work in progress, but I might pluck up the courage to post something soon. I do have some instrumentals I've recorded, but they are very much roughs that need some work. Need to play less MMOs and polish them up. Hmmmm ......

As for GW2, there's no monthly fee so you can dip in as much or as little as you like. Launch tomorrow is going to be total mayhem, but once things settle down a little I'll make a vid or two and see if I can tempt you all some more

[Lasiien]

Cheers Cern, thanks for the comments  & fair enough, i know exactly what you mean. I do have some lyrics for songs but unless i try to record them in some robot/filtered voice they sound pretty rubbish Though I am tone deaf, apparently (so I was always told as a kid, but now I'm not sure I believe it, I think I just can't sing perhaps!). If you can sing okay maybe I'm teaching you to suck eggs but dropping or upping the key is always good, works for me when I'm entertaining and people are singing live and I need to adjust.

Anyways, even if no vocals I'd love to hear instrumentals of yours, guitar is still my main instrument as such, doesn't take so much to play a few chords on the piano for dancey stuff

p.s. GW2 honestly I'm v.tempted, as for PS2... they both look good to me. I think part of my issue is I do obsess, or maybe that's not the right word. I indulge perhaps, headfirst in most things, once I'm into it i find it hard to get out (daoc anyone?). If honest I think PS2 tempts me more, even if it's because I know it's the same game and after a while it might grow old.....not sure I want daoc2 really (jeez, i played daoc 24/7, whilst great do any of us really want that again ))

[Lasiien]

p.s. for the dance music songs some (slightly) amusing graphics done on youtube (ok well I tried!)- http://www.youtube.com/user/lasiien

[Cernos]

Sounds like you're in the same boat as me where vocals is concerned. I've spent most of my life believing I couldn't sing and now I'm realising this isn't strictly true but I do need to adjust songs to suit (I've learned to love the capo) and I do need to respect my limits and not be under any delusions of grandeur It's all about building confidence, the more you sing the more your singing voice strengthens, the vocal chords are a muscle after all. It's a slow process and I'm not there yet, but if I ever need reassuring that you can have a voice totally shot to pieces and still make wonderful music, I listen to this (if you think it's going well at the start, wait for the chorus!).

What I would say is, don't filter your voice, resist the temptation to use the dreaded autotune (it just sounds rubbish, always), learn to love the imperfections in your voice, accentuate the strengths and don't be afraid to stylise - many singers have totally different singing to speaking voices. At the end of the day, if all else fails just go for it and hope no-one notices you can't really sing - Mick Jagger has got away with it for several decades now

Nice work with the Youtube vids. Are those different mixes of the two dance songs? Because they really seem to leap out on Youtube, more than they did on Soundcloud.

[Lasiien]

heh, I'm pretty sure I can't sing (as my brothers will tell you). But i think tone deaf is something different perhaps - well at least in terms of playing an instrument, and you actually bring up a favorite of mine with Neil Young! - I personally love Like a Hurricane, not only for the best guitar solo I've ever heard but also incredible (albeit slightly imperfect) singing . For some reason whilst I can't sing a note i think i can prolly play it, so maybe that's a good substitute

Thanks on the youtube vids, but no, no different in terms of upload, though the shiny gfx may help i dunno

[Cernos]

Well, I bet you probably can sing but there might just be a disconnect between what you want to sing and what you actually can sing. That's been my experience anyway. I've learned to revise my ambitions, heh. Just remember the voice is an instrument and it'll get better the more you try. Remember back to when you first started on the guitar, remember how horrible it probably sounded. And then think of where you are now.

Neil Young is a huge inspiration. If you can play Like A Hurricane, I'd love to hear your cover of it. Definitely agree about that being one of the best guitar solos ever, not technically of course, but for that mix of raw shambolic energy and beautiful lyrical expression. I'll never forget when I first heard it, my jaw literally dropped and it sort of still does every time after all these years, all those amazing squonks, squeals, howls and groans he gets out of the guitar. Playing it right now

Have you heard this version of Down By The River, it's from a special live archives set. Incredible guitar solo in this one too, especially when you consider it's from 1970 when he was still developing his electric style.

[Saxif]

Maybe one day you'll all be lucky and get to hear me sing

I missed this thread when it was first posted will have to read back ... and no I really sound terrible, no hidden talent here.  Still it amuses me to try!

[Lasiien]

heh, sorry Cern looks like a petered out and went to bed I can't play the full solo to like a hurricane, that would take some doing - there's so much variation and in all honesty I'm not sure the man himself can recreate it, he seems to do a different version everytime when I've seen him do it live but I think that's something with him really, he will genuinely go with the groove and flow on the night and changes things - something allot of artists won't do either for fear of disappointing the auidience or just maybe they aren't capable of it. But that solo on the studio version goes down as so awesome in my book. I did once look at a tab for it and it blew my mind (not that its especially fast or difficult, just so long+subtle variances), I can play a version of just the chords and melody though, I expect you can prolly do that too though

Awesome solo too on that link for Down by the River. I saw him on the telly at one of the big festivals a couple of years back, think it was glasto and he did Rockin in the Free World and just went on and on for ages, that was pretty cool too I thought (not in a big solo kinda way, but you could tell he was in the moment, enjoying it all!).

As for the vocal training I dunno, dance music is maybe one genre I can use autotune and mangle it to destruction so maybe it won't sound quite so bad

[Lasiien]

New tune..... http://soundcloud.com/lasiien/awakening ... you all better be liking your drum and bass by now or I'll have to post more

About two months in the making but been learning allot along the way

Oh yeah, title was inspired by the wow guild for those wondering

[Cernos]

Wonderful Las. I don't know my Drum & Bass that well, but it sounds good to me. I especially like the melancholy piano refrain at about 1 minute in and then how it growls into life after that, nice shift of moods.

[Lasiien]

Cheers Cern, I think you have an idea what goes into making these tracks from our discussions before so I really appreciate the feedback

As far as drum and bass goes it's pretty tame as it's liquid dnb (read: fusion of house, dnb, funk, disco etc), but I did try to heavy it up in places

[Cernos]

Yeah I can appreciate the huge amount of work that's gone into it. You've managed to get a really clean sounding mix. Even when working digitally I seem to manage to introduce noise, heh. So, now that this latest baby is born, what are you working on currently?