This is a track I threw together in a couple of hours in Propellerheads Reason as backing music to a video I was producing about extracting opinion from images (the day job). The video's here: http://youtu.be/Pr6SGNTxl4M    I recorded the narration first and then set music to it.  It's nothing special, but I've made it CC so you can use it if it fits what you want.  It's mostly loops and arpeggiators with a bit of piano thrown in - but then it's only supposed to be backing music!

ARCOMEM - Opinion From Images Music Track

This was composed and tracked in early 1996 by myself ("DD-")and Gary Meakin ("BassQ"). At the time we were the musicians for a demo crew (called Aurora - we only came out with one demo!) and decided to work together on a track.  This track is heavily influenced by Gary's hard dance background and all the sounds but a couple were sampled from his gear at the time (a Juno 106, D10 and R8). It was put together in FastTracker II using 14 channels and was completed in March 1996.



This is the greetz file I put in with the tune:

---------------------------------------------
 Hello,

        DD is welcoming you to the first co-operation tune between myself and BassQ. The idea for a co-op came from BassQ when oneday I nipped round his place, and we were kinda bored. It began soft and just seemed to get faster and faster. BassQ left for university nearing the end of the tune, and as it was required for this music disk, I was left to finish it. I hope I did a good enough job BQ. Nearly all samples were sampled especially from the song, from BassQ's equipment, and some previously sampled samples from my equipment. A few samples come from MAZs sample collection which
 really is the best for FastTracker instruments on the web.

        Greetz go out to the same old motely bunch:
                all #trax'ers #coders'ers, MAZ, Soundwave dude, the Aurora
        Crew, all other demo groups, and especially the Sahara Surfers, 'coz
        I really luv Midas ;)

Catalyst

This soft rock track I wrote when I first met my girlfriend (now wife) way back in 1999.  

I played all the parts - acoustic, electric and bass guitar, piano and programmed drums.  To be fair, the guitar parts are a bit rubbish, but I was still learning back then.  It was all sequenced in Cakewalk Sonar.

Someone commented to me that it sounded like a travel show intro, but I'd just started on a lifetime journey.

Clear Waters

In 1997 I was coming to the end of my tracking days, beginning to prefer sequencing in Cakewalk. However, the last few tracks I produced I spent time to get sounding the best I could, utilising FastTracker II's multisampling with pretty large samples and complex rhythms.   This has a latin feel with steel drums (which I'd never come across before in a tracked tune).  I had some feedback that apparently it was good for ice dancing and a school was using it in Australia.

These are the notes from the samples in the file:

-------------------------------------------
      DD Presents
                      
 The Spring Carnival
                      
Finally complete after
   far too long in
       progress
                      
Playing Time: 2:32
Instruments:  23
Samples:      40
 All samples by myself
from my equipment:
  Yamaha DB50XG
  Alesis S4+ Rack
  Yamaha PSR6700
                      
Big Greetz to:
BassQ Hunz Dupont Lemm
Screamager Astrid Mick
Ami Dilvish SSlimer MD
Nexus Human Smash Skie
 Procyon Mercure WAVE
                      
Its  spring in the  UK
now and the weather is
getting  better,   the
warm  beer  is  coming
out of the fridges and
everyone looks forward
to summer. As Hale Bop
comet  fires   through
the skys carnivals run
up the spirits of  the
people here.
                      
Hope  you   enjoy  the
music and look forward
to seeing you on #trax
and everyone take care
in the new season.
                      
                    DD
29th March 1997

The Spring Carnival

Finished on the 23rd June 1996, this tune was me pushing myself to try to make a more interesting sounding track in FastTracker II.  I spent some time fiddling with the fretless bassline to make it sound convincing, and I used my own environment samples.  

I wrote this while I was in the demo group Aurora. There isn't much information in the XM file itself; just greetz.

Travelling

I composed this music for a video about two projects called OpenIMAJ and ImageTerrier. 
It's a euro-poppy kind of thing with electric guitar and piano.  The music is in two halves and the change (at about 4:00) matches the change of description of the two projects in the video. In the video there is a voice-over added. 

It's composed in Propellerheads Reason 6 at 24bit 96KHz (245Mb wav file!). It is my first composition using the sequencing and synthesisers in Reason 6.  It's mainly using presets from the various instruments and effects as I needed to get something together quite quickly. The guitar and piano are recorded live.

The video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNEQ0eNqLgA   or click the "Track Video" button above (oh that button seems to have disappeared).

OpenIMAJ and ImageTerrier Music

Here's another piece of music I designed, composed and created for a video I was creating for the Arcomem project on which I am currently working.

The video is about some software that has been written for the project . The software was developed during some "hackathon" meetings where a bunch of programmers in the project got together to get something going in a few days.

With that in mind, I wanted to create some music that involved the idea of programming and dreamed up a rhythm being produced while typing on a keyboard.  I sampled a bunch of key-hit noises from my computer keyboard, edited them in Adobe Audition and brought them in to the Reason Redrum machine to trigger them, using the space bar like a snare. I synchronised these key-hits with the titles in the video which were being typed onto the screen.

I also wanted to create the music with a retro feel to match the graphic design that was emerging for the video. With that in mind I designed some basic square wave synths in Reason 6 that sounded similar to the BBC Micro, which have been used throughout.

Initially the music headed too retro - it was beginning to sound too much like chip music, so I backtracked a little and beefed it up a bit with a nicer bass and some synth brass stabs.  I didn't want it too chippy as it was still background music to a video.  For fun, I kept some chip chords in near the end of the video as well as a random little reference to an old BBC Micro game I used to play incessantly - Chuckie Egg.

I also designed a "siner" synth - the sort of thing that was popular as a lead synth during the MOD music of the demo-scene way back in the 90s. Along with some electric guitar, this is used to run a (slightly unimaginative) lead part in some of the music.

The chord progression is, again, a bit unimaginative - that's what comes from concentrating too much on sound design rather than song design. It basically loops around Cm, Ab, Bb, Cm.

Anyway, check the video (http://vimeo.com/44921553) to see how I used the music.  For  the video I applied side-chain compression to the whole mix from the narration so that the music dips under the speech.

Released under cc-attribution.  I'd love to know if you find another use for it.

Arcomem Prototype 1

I intended to make a video of this track, but ended up having trouble with the videos, so I've made it available as an audio recording instead.

Recorded using Propellerhead Reason 10, this uses the fiddle, guitar, bodhrán and shaky egg.

It was put together a little hastily one afternoon. I'm trying to get some recording of the sets we're doing at our beginner's Irish music session.

Calum's Road / Sweetness of Mary / Morning Star

A jig in B-minor that I mostly wrote one evening after having a nice walk with my little 2 year old boy, William.  This recording was pretty quick just to send it to a friend to have a play with working out some more interesting backing than I managed here.

Mixed and recorded in Propellerheads Reason 6.5 and Adobe Audition. 

David Dupplaw