Also on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mUwzZ7liAw&feature=channel_video_title
YouTube description:
So this was my entry for Dwelling of Duels' Free Month this July. (http://www.dwellingofduels.net/duel.php?dir=11-07-Free_Month&amp;month=Free&amp;img=free1107) I got the 9th spot and was criticized for bad production, mainly the rhythm guitars strangling the hell out of the mix, so I went back and tweaked the mix a little before putting it up in YouTube, let me know if it works better. :O
I originally started working on this for June's One vs. Many month, but this was like three days before the deadline and it became apparent when I was almost finished tracking that it wasn't gonna be done in time, so I passed it over to the next month, which was a Free Month anyway. This is from one of the best games on the GameBoy Advance, a jRPG called Golden Sun. Its soundtrack was composed by Motoi Sakuraba, the same guy that's composed for the Tales series. I owned and beat this game as a kid, and I remembered it having an awesome soundtrack. Definitely some of the most fun I've had playing a jRPG, too. I was excited when I looked this guy up and found that he's a total progger. :D This song sounds more like power metal with prog in the middle, though, so that's the sound I tried to go for.
This is definitely the best thing I've recorded so far, and this time I wasn't alone; my friend from SCAD Joe, a keyboardist (http://www.youtube.com/user/pumpkinking872), helped me out with the keyboard solos around the second half of the song, and we play a unison, too! My gear hasn't really changed at all (Ibanez Xiphos, Line 6 POD X3 Live, Macbook Pro, Harman/Kardon Soundsticks II, GarageBand), but I dialed new tones rhythm and lead tones on my POD for this song using my new Sony MDR-V150s as reference. They're one of the simplest, cheapest studio headphones you can find, but they seem to do the job. They're just a little boomy on the low end. I alternated between monitoring with the MDRs and my Soundsticks while mixing this song. And I've added a new member to the family: an Ibanez RG7321. About time I got my hands on a goddamn 7-string. However, I didn't bring it back home to Panama. I'll see if I can make a video to show it off when I'm back in the US and in my new apartment for Fall quarter. 
In the past I've had videos where I play the game I'm covering a song from to accompany the music, but this time I simply took a video from a user called GoldenHeartNeko playing the boss battle this music is supposed to play to and edited it with my cover in After Effects. Here's the original video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jljcxYk3gI&amp;feature=related @GoldenHeartNeko: Thank you for putting up that video! If you have a problem with me using your video just let me know and I'll do something about it. xD


Saturos, Warrior of Mars (Golden Sun Cover)

So I borrowed a Rock Band mic from a friend and decided to mess with Audacity, one thing led to another and... yyyyeah.

Deku Palace... a capella?! (Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask Cover)

Another demo from the Bastard Files. Arrangement's a bit vague, but some alright ideas.

Bastard Files: The Pile

Dawn Again

This is a demo from the Bastard Files where I'm testing some new amp sim plugins from Neural DSP. Can't remember exactly which one is featured here... I was testing the Plini and Nolly plugins at the time, as well as the Fortin Nameless. I ended up keeping Archetype: Plini for cleans and crunch, and Nameless for distortion.

I wanted to change the drum programming on this, but I appear to have somehow lost the Logic Pro project file O_o It's especially weird toward the end. I think I used GGD Invasion for the drums.

Action at a Distance

This is just me testing Logic Pro's vocoder plugin using a vocal harmony arrangement I used for a song I turned in as an assignment in school. I probably won't upload it here, though; it'll likely just be exclusive to the Bastard Files.

Dead of Night (Vocoder Test)

This is something I made for a fun class in American University where we learned how to use different kinds of synthesizers and stuff. It was my first time using Ableton Live, as well as expensive Native Instruments plugins like Massive, FM8, and Battery. It started from me wanting to do something DnB-ish, so I began by cutting up the Amen Break. Probably no sense in hiding that the monkey howl sample is was sorta inspired by Yell Dead Cell from the Metal Gear Solid 2 OST.

I've had it lying around since the end of Fall 2018, really only showing it to people individually without putting it up anywhere (like a lot of stuff I made around that time). I knew I was gonna want to remix it later, so I had bounced out all the individual tracks from the Ableton project I left in the school computer I worked on before the semester ended. Wasn't until around now that I got around to really remixing the song, and I even added a couple more elements (namely a couple parts with Logic's RetroSynth for the chorus and bridge that really filled a lot of space that needed filling).

Up until recently, I was still calling this "Dram and Bess," or just "Ableton Project."

Bastard Files: AU Sessions

Jungle Joyride

I originally put this up on SoundCloud in 2017, having worked on it after the Guitar Pro file with the original riff laid around for a good while. I was originally thinking of incorporating this into Space Animal, but I doesn't fit quite as well with the other tracks, so I'm just gonna leave it as a standalone demo for the Bastard Files.

I still have all the Logic files for the things I was working on around that time and onward, so I went back into this one and started adjusting the timing of the guitar and bass DI tracks with Flex Time (goddamn some stuff was way off), then I ran them through new plugins and processing (Neural DSP's Plini: Archetype for guitar and BIAS Amp 1 for bass). I set up some ambient stuff with duplicates of the guitar track and reverb with modulation effects. And the drums, I kinda just processed them holistically instead of working on every part of the kit. Then I mastered the whole thing.

Bastard Files: Bastard Cuts

Energeia

This was the last assignment I turned in before graduating with a masters in audio technology from American University at the end of 2019. I had completed my capstone EP in the previous semester (which I'll release an improved version of before this shitty year ends), and I just had this one class left to go. It only had meeting times for like two weekends in the whole semester, too, so I had a lot of time on my hands.

We made two productions for this class. The goal with both (per the professor's suggestion) was to emulate another artist's song as closely as possible. The first track I turned in was Death Grips cover (you can find it yourself in the Bastard Files, I don't feel like uploading it). For the second assignment, I chose this song off of Opeth's Damnation, one of my favorite albums.

I began working in Logic Pro X, recording my Sterling by Music Man JP150 and Fender American Elite Jazz Bass V directly into my Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 from my apartment. I also recorded vocals in AU's studio with their Neumann TLM 103 (which is the same mic I saw Mikael Akerfeldt sing into in the "making of" documentary for the album).

Guitars went through Neural DSP's Archetype: Plini amp sim, and the bass through the first version of Positive Grid's BIAS Amp. Drums were programmed with Superior Drummer 2.0, and keys were I think pretty much all from Logic's own Alchemy.

Finally, I bounced out the edited and pre-processed tracks from Logic and brought them into Pro Tools in AU's studios for mixing and mastering with all the snazzy toys they've got over there.

I never released the mix publicly, as I thought it was maybe a bit too boomy on the low end, and there was maybe a couple other things I was nitpicking... So I've only showed it to people privately since last November. I tried going back to the mix almost a year later to correct some of these things, but when I finally put the master up against the original thing I turned in... it sounded, like, weak in comparison? Frustrated, I just said "fuck it" and touched up the original .WAV a bit, rolling off the boom and some harsh resonances and stuff, and bounced that out instead. 

I don't wanna spend so much time on older stuff anymore, lol. But I do have to figure out why I couldn't get the new mix to sound as nice and full as this one. I'm sure the fact I was mixing in a better room with better plugins factors in, but I have to be able to get close or better with my own stuff, too. Still probably the best mix I've worked on so far. If there's a good example of where I'm at right now in terms of music production, it's this one.

Hope Leaves (Opeth cover)

I deleted the previous version of this when I put this one up on YouTube, but I guess I had forgotten to upload it to SoundCloud, lol. Here's the description on the YouTube video:

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So this is a demo I made in back in 2014 or 2015... Back then when I was using Cubase in Windows 7, and a Line 6 POD HD. I also used my Ibanez Xiphos guitar, and an Ibanez Gio bass that I can't remember who I borrowed from, both tuned to drop C. And Superior Drummer 2.0.

It used to be under the name "Vakarian," (yes, like Garrus Vakarian from Mass Effect), but I recently changed it to "Space Animal" while planning out which tracks were going into the instrumental prog metal album I planned to put it in. :p I wanted to revisit this song and a few other demos and ideas I've had lying around forever, just to get that prog metal side of me out of the way (cause it's what 22-year-old me would've wanted xD) and then move on to making stuff that follows some of my other influences. It'll probably end up having like 6 or 7 tracks. Or less. I dunno.

I remember at the time I finally bounced it, it was the highest quality production I had been able to make so far, so I was pretty psyched about it. I'd be able to mix it better now, but I seem to have lost the original Cubase project file... I thought I'd at least re-master the whole track, but I couldn't even find a .WAV bounce, just an .MP3 one. So I committed the sin of re-mastering a .MP3 for this upload, lol... I wouldn't do it again if I can help it, but you probably won't be able to notice a drop in quality, anyway.

Bastard Files: Selected Tracks

Space Animal (2020 Remaster)

I made this a while ago when I was playing around with PlayStation boot-up sounds and decided to make an entire track with them and a few other choice samples. :D

Massive Damage

A Human Bean

I work with sounds and images.

I'm still keeping this SoundCloud because it's good for embedding stuff.

iSuplexedATrainOnce

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