I just posted some behind-the-scenes notes on the REBOOT track “Infected” over on my “Mark Mosher Music” news blog.
I also wanted to mention that I’m starting to use Soundcloud more and you can friend up here - http://soundcloud.com/markmosher
Here is infected via Soundcloud player.
04 Mark Mosher-REBOOT-Infected by MarkMosher
Mark
REBOOT Announcement
I’m happy to announce the release of my new album electronica REBOOT. I’ve been working on this project on and off for over 2 years. In this and future posts, I’ll share some behind-the-scenes information on the project and DIY music publishing that I hope will save you some time.
Get Reboot Now
I decided to currently offer REBOOT using a “pay what you will” model. Although the suggested pricing is $6 for the 7 song album + digital booklet and $1 for singles, you can name your own price including specifying $0 for free downloads. You can download/buy from my Bandcamp page - http://markmosher.bandcamp.com.
About Reboot
First let me say that I think you fellow electronic music artists are going to enjoy the album. It’s loaded with complex layers and lots of synth “ear candy”. The album was composed, performed, produced, and mastered using Ableton Live and a Windows Laptop. With the exception of vocals, ALL instruments are virtual – in other words the album is 99.9% digital. Most songs are made up of around 30 tracks.
Production Notes
Virtual Instruments: Ableton Sampler, Operator, Simpler, Impulse; Lennar Digital Sylenth1; reFX Vanguard, Slayer 2; Tone2 Gladiator 2; Camel Audio Alchemy; Native Instrument Absynth 4, Massive; Cakewalk Dimension Pro, Image-Line Morphine, Toxic Biohazard III; Future Audio Workshop Circle; SonicCharge Synplant, FXPansion DCAM Synth Squad. I think I go them all ;^).
Controllers: Novaton Remote SL, Korg nanoKey/Kontrol, M-Audio Trigger Finger, Akai APC40, QWERTY Keyboard, Wacom Bamboo Tablet
Digital Effects: All effects were produced using Ableton Live’s built-in effects or with effects within virtual instruments with the exception of Image-Line Gross Beat and Multiband Compressor
Finalizing & Tagging: Sony SoundForge 9, Mp3tag
Phased Plan for Digital Distribution
I decided to distribute digital only for now and do a phased release and slowly build up distribution channels. This will allow me to stay focused on music and not get completely bogged down in managing distribution. In addition to launching a landing page on a publishing site I wanted to integrate links into www.markmoshermusic.com/music.htm so I could build equity on my own site and centralize distribution.
Bandcamp Publishing Solution
After much experimentation with various social media music distribution sites, I settled on Bandcamp for phase 1. I really like Bandcamp. It focuses more on distribution than trying to compete with social media sites. Instead it offers many sharing options that allow visitors to spread the word. It simply makes publishing a breeze. It’s very simple and clean. Integrating with PayPal is a snap. It also has some nice widgets that allowed me to use Bandamp for heavy lifting on the music page on my site.
Pay What You Will
Bandcamp also supports the top high-rez audio formats and offers a flexible system that allows for many options for payment. Pay what you will, minimum payments, free but force an email address and more.
More on Self-Publishing…
If you’ve never self-published, there are a tone of little details behind the scenes – tagging, ISRC codes... I’ll post more on this in the future.
Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist, Composer, Sound Designer
Louisville/Denver/Boulder
http://www.modulatethis.com
http://www.markmoshermusic.com
http://www.twitter.com/markmosher
In this epic post I’m going to share some behind the scenes notes on what it took to compose the song “They Walk Among Us”. If you have any friends who think that all us electronic musicians do is just drop canned loops and hit buttons, have them read this – of course they’ll have no idea what I’m talking about ;^).
About The Song
Here is a fun blurb I put together when I first posted the song that will give a feel for what I was going for:
This song has an interesting story. You see - I traveled back in time with my music production laptop and a pile of virtual synthesizers to score a 50's Sci-Fi B-Movie. “They Walk Among Us” is the result, Will any humans survive? You’ll have to listen to find out. Extra points if you can tell me the Morse code message in the end of the song. So If you like theremins, 50’s SCI-FI B-Movies, flying saucer sounds, big beats and ear candy I think you’ll really dig this track.
DAW, Synths, Tools, and CPU Usage The song was composed, produced, mixed, and mastered entirely with Ableton Live 8 on an HP DV6500T Laptop using Windows Vista 32-bit Premium.
I composed all elements of the song in Session view using a Novation Remote SL controller,Korg NANOKeys, TriggerFinger, and the Qwerty keyboard to play notes. I also used a Wacom Tablet and my Laptop touchpad to enter and edit notes. I experimented with arrangements and created scenes in session view. I then practiced with these scenes to the point where I could perform the song structure live. I did a real-time recording of my work in session view to create the Arrangement view of the song. Then I stayed in Arrangement view and added a few more parts, mixed, and automating.
The song is all digital and no external hardware was used. There are 31 tracks. Most are “MIDI” and most are third party VSTs. As you can see below, I’ve used A LOT of Sylenth1 for this song. While I did use some factory presets, there are many heavily tweaked or effected presets. I also did some custom preset programming from scratch which I’ll describe in more detail below.
Revised 7-3-2009, changes are in red.
For over two years I've been completely laptop based and loving it. Here are some notes on the three configurations I run with my latpop.
First, I'm running an HP DV6500T running Vista, Ableton Live 8 Suite, and various vsts (Alchemy,Sylenth1,NI Massive/Absynth 4,Gladiator 2,Dimension Pro, Morphine...)
I run in one of the following states:
1 - Laptop Only - Laptop alone with Ableton Live + VSTs. I use the qwerty keyboard and touch pad and do composition and sound-design on the go (or from the couch).
2 - Laptop + Korg Nano - Sometimes I want more control or want to user velocity sensitive keys when I'm on the go. I then add a Korg nanoKey or nanoKontrol to config #1.
3 - Laptop Docked - Last year, my awesome wife and kids re-vamped my studio space as a birthday gift. Besides painting and swanky new furniture, they created stand to hold all my gear by cleverly using the old Ultimate Support Apex column I used to gig with and attached two permanent shelves (painted black and attached with brackets). Shelves are 15 3/4"x 47 3/4" and I believe were from home depot. The footprint for this rig is 26" wide from the wall to the outside edge of the bottom shelf, and 47 3/4" wide. Underneath all this is a dock with tons of USB ports that all the gear plugs in to. The laptop is sitting on a mesh filing box turned upside-down that I picked up from Target (see last picture in post). This setup is pictured below. All I have to do is plug the laptop into the doc and the following comes online:
For me this strategy is simple, elegant, has a small footprint yet is extremely powerful and flexible. With Ableton Live and VSTs accessible in every configuration I can jump in and out of projects in any configuration. I find the combination of the APC40, Remote SL and Trigger Finger to be perfect for just about everything I do.
The APC40 has made this a dream setup really and has almost completely eliminated mousing for me. I'll close with a few photos of the APC40 in my studio setup.
Just a fun shot in a dark room.
The APC40, Remote SL 25, and a Trigger Finger fit perfectly on the bottom tier.
Using the APC40 as a Lite Brite - "M" plus pretty colors :^).
Picture of laptop docked.
Mark Mosher
http://www.modulatethis.com
http://www.markmoshermusic.com
http://www.twitter.com/markmosher
I'm happy to report that latest single "Stealth" went to #1 out of 234,443 songs on the Electronica charts on Soundclick! Thanks to all who have taken the time to listen to the song.
If you haven't heard the song yet, use the player below. Every listen will help keep the song at the top of the charts. Also, pass this post on to others if you think they'll like the song.
You can also download the song for free at www.markmoshermusic.com and on www.soundclick.com/markmosher.
Mark Mosher
www.markmoshermusic.com
www.modulatethis.com
I'm happy to announce that Mark Mosher Music has licensed a song into the extra features of the DVD and the soundtrack to the motion picture One Six Right - The Romance of Flying. Both the DVD and soundtrack are on sale now. Please visit www.onesixright.com to learn more and purchase.
I just spent some time updating markmoshermusic.com. This is my portfolio site for my music and sound design work. This site is a full flash site meaning it's filled with cool animations and sound effects. I also developed a custom flash video player that will allow you to preview some of my work synced to video.
There are also pointers to the latest project that involved music and audio production www.wwiiaviator.com and the motion picture One Six Right.
If you've never checked it out, give it a look.
Mark
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