One night in Belesta (southern France) the wine was flowing so after dinner we got the portastudio out and recorded four songs totally live. These are unedited - the only affectation is the addition of a touch of reverb. Featuring Yvette, Ted, Juliet, Julie, Trevor, Katy, John, Darren and Sue with ages spanning 45 years. listen for the sound of the cooker cooling down and chairs creaking!

Moon River live around the kitchen table

My first test piece using Cubase Artist 7 linked to a Novation Zero SL II (for the techies out there). But really a wonderful evening spent enjoying Spitfire Audio's fabulous orchestral sounds mixed in with the Duduk from Desert Winds, chants from Francesca (Forgotten Voices) and percussion from the Native Instruments West Africa library.

Banshee

When you're a 1950s superspy in need of an archaeologist then Mummerset digger and treasure hunter 'Indiana' Phil (Harding) is your man. This theme written to avoid copyright infringing use of the Raiders of the Lost Ark theme music during our live I Hear Voices Theatre Company Recordings. www.ihearvoicestheatre.co.uk 

Indiana Phil Theme

The theme music to the original 'Greatermass Experiment' live show. I admit it, I was unashamedly ripping off Holst! Find out more at www.ihearvoicestheatre.co.uk 

Greatermass Theme

This is the first rough mix of sections 1 & 2 of much longer piece called 'The Music of the Marshes'. This composition is being sponsored to raise money for Suffolk Wildlife Trust's £1m campaign to secure a 1011 acre wetland nature reserve. You can support my fundraising by texting SWTB66 £3 (or whatever you can spare) to 70070. £1 = 1 second and every second counts!

Predawn and Sunrise

Predawn & Sunrise

This is a short version of the main Sherlock theme used for a short scene change in A Terrible Case of Sherlock Homes by I Hear Voices Theatre Company. As we knew how long the scene change was I didn't have to create a loop.

Sherlock theme short

This is the main theme for the production of A Terrible Case of Sherlock Holmes by I Hear Voices Theatre Company. It contains the main two themes I reprised in various forms throughout the play.

A Terrible Case Of Sherlock Holmes

The brief for this piece was to take the rough piano recording and turn it into a fanfare like march for the procession of a town mayor. Working to a very tight deadline I was able to turn this very basic idea into a fully blown composition.

Mayoral Theme Comparison

A little transitional sting to move from one scene to another. Had to reflect the overall x-files style spoof genre.

OFU Transition Sting

A dramatic sting to end a scene in the spoof x-files style adopted for the OFU show.

OFU Drama Chords

A short sting to end a scene and introduce another in the spy spoof genre.

Bondish Sting Dramatic

Another style of sting for scene ends during the spy spoof Bentley Strangetrousers.

Bondish Sting Soft

This is a Christmas version of the theme tune for 1960s spy spoof Bentley Strangetrousers. The brief was to produce a John Barry, James Bond style piece without straying into copyright infringement territory.

Bentley Strangetrousers Xmas Spy Theme.mp3

Written for my wife's birthday in 2018. A chance to play in the newly installed Moon Hare Studios at the back of my house here in deepest, darkest East Anglia. Porcupine Tree meets Vaughan Williams?? Thank you Yvette Staelens for the vocal intro.

Demos and Offcuts

My light in the storm

It's hard to put into words what you should say to a friend who has lost their father. I hope this goes some way to filling the awkward gap.

In a Northern Field

After reassembling the studio and recovering from a knife crime incident, I decided to take on the Spitfire Labs Challenge to compose a piece of music using ONLY the newly relaunched Spitfire Labs samples – Felt Piano and Strings (short and long). In this video I show you how I got on creating music to video, some of the things I learned along the way, and how I created the worst drum kit in the world to complete the challenge!

If you haven’t tried out Spitfire Labs yet (I have been a fan for years) they are COMPLETELY FREE OF CHARGE. Just go to the link below, download the spitfire VST and have some fun. If you only get one product from Spitfire in your life then surely this is the one? (Well actually it’s Spitfire Chamber Strings but you know what I mean!)

https://www.spitfireaudio.com/labs/

#labscollabs Making drums from cellos! Taking on the Spitfire Labs Challenge.

This is a rough mix of the middle section of a 16 minute 51 second composition called The Music of the Marshes - a fundraising project for Suffolk Wildlife Trust which allowed me to raise more than £1100 in sponsorship. Although not a finished piece I thought it might be nice for sponsors to hear progress. It may change in the final mix. This is the first time I've used the free Spitfire Labs drum kit too.

Moonhare

Music of the Marshes

Otter chase

This is my entry to the Eric Whitacre and Spitfire Audio scoring competition. The brief is clear – you may only use the FREE Spitfire Labs Choir patch BUT effects are allowed. The choir patch is beautiful but as an Evo with a very long attack it was quite a challenge to do anything slightly less “out of the box”. 

I have avoided using any samplers (wasn’t sure if that was allowed) and have simply used Cubase 10 stock plugins plus Native Instruments Guitar Rig, Transient Master and Valhalla Vintageverb. Other than that it was rendering audio and cutting it up by hand. In my next video I will be running you through the process step by step but for now, sit back, relax and join me at the end of the universe.

Other than stock Cubase reverb, EQ and compression I used the following plugins and effects:
Valhalla Vintage Verb
NI Guitar Rig
NI Transient Master
Cubase Stock plugins; Chopper, Octaver, MorphFilter, PingPong delay, Stereo Enhancer, Maximiser

Eric Whitacre Labs Choir is available to download FREE here along with loads of other instruments
https://www.spitfireaudio.com/labs/

Eric Whitacre and Spitfire Audio Labs Choir Entry #LabsChoir

My friend and fellow conservationist, Joe Firmin, died this week. Here is my tribute to him and the wildlife he loved so dearly.

Joe's piece

This will just be a linking passage in a much longer piece I'm composing. I plan on some more instrumentation and percussion for the real thing but this was a test run. Superb 8dioboe used on this for the first time along with Spitfire Albion 1 and 2 for the strings. The celeste is off my Roland Fantom X8 and the choir my Roland JV3080 with choir expansion board. A combination of vintage and brand new musical technology - sweet.

Oboe interlude

Darren spent his twenties and thirties recording albums, singles and live videos with a variety of folk,rock and punk/folk bands including Blyth Power, The Wickermen, Pavlov's Cat, Jilt and Jack's Family. He toured the world playing every type of venue imaginable from small pubs to sports stadiums, from the Isle of Skye to Melbourne in Australia. Now a professional ecologist, he still composes and records music for the I Hear Voices Theatre Company as well as working on his own compositions. Moonhare Studio is his own purpose built recording facility in his home in deep in the Suffolk countryside. And yes, there are hares in the field behind the studio.

Darken Jax

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