The new project

[Dissily Mordentroge]

Thought I’d answered this earlier today but somehow my answer has vanished into the digital void/cloud.
I have no recordings of me playing and as I never went near a keyboard again after my traumatic departure from the cathedral where I was studying , nothing since. I can still read sheet music and hear it in my head but haven’t even attempted to sight read on a keyboard.
I one way I wish I did have something from my last year’s study. I was told I was heading for a concert career, not as a church organist (which I would have hated). Problem is most church authorities won’t allow you to simply give concerts without committing to training a choir and accompanying sunday services. This last would have sent me insane as I’m blessed (cursed?) with perfect pitch. Plus there’s nothing more dreary and turgid than most hymns. To me, listening to congregational singing is as much fun as sandpapering my eardrums. Sometimes when I have to attend a wedding or a funeral I develop a very unhealthy urge to machine gun the entire ‘melodious’ assembly. Me bad.

[SteveO]

I am a strange dude, duck, bird, human ...take your pick, Dissily. As the MD compadres know, my taste in music goes from death metal to bluegrass to avant garde jazz, on and on and on. If I like it, the genre has no bearing. If I feel that I am becoming genre pigeon holed then I move on to other music. I have the fear of missing out on the lost chord or the most supreme composition that I have ever heard. 

When I was 15 or so I bought a MCA record company sampler. This track impressed the hell out of me at such an early age ! It ignited me to explore other music besides the Top 40 !

[Dissily Mordentroge]

I am a strange dude, duck, bird, human ...take your pick, Dissily. As the MD compadres know, my taste in music goes from death metal to bluegrass to avant garde jazz, on and on and on. If I like it, the genre has no bearing. If I feel that I am becoming genre pigeon holed then I move on to other music. I have the fear of missing out on the lost chord or the most supreme composition that I have ever heard. 

When I was 15 or so I bought a MCA record company sampler. This track impressed the hell out of me at such an early age ! It ignited me to explore other music besides the Top 40 !

You sure dived in at the deep end. I have to ask, have you attended a live pipe organ concert (not a church service) and sat near enough to the instrument to have your guts massaged and your brains blown away?

[Jerome]

Duplicate post removed ( I’ll never get used to the software running this place)

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With all the other stuff I have going on (recording drum parts and trying to get 'Scenes' finished off), you'd think that starting a new project would be the most stupid thing to do but then you have to remember I'm not the brightest bulb in the box. So here's the first part of a second purely electronic/synthetic album of tracks I have been fiddling around with, tentatively titled Ebb & Flow - sounds like a happily married couple doesn't it! I am sure I will come up with another name along the way. Anyway part one is based around the emulated sounds of the Fairlight CMI, which in it's day was out of reach of most people due to it's hideously expensive price tag. Isn't technology wonderful - you can now have access to the exact same sounds for 30 bucks or less. You know where to go - http://www.auralscapes.com - this is only for electronic geeks like myself and other assorted nut jobs. The only time I have written a piece in a really offbeat time signature - first movement is in 9/8. That's the reason you won't be able to tap your foot in time to the rhythm - unless you are Simon Phillips of course. You just have to let it flow over you - geddit?

This is rude of me jutting into this discussion but from the perspective of an audiophile (audiophool?) I wonder what gear you’re listening to this stuff on?
Unfortunately a question like that could drag us all the way back into the studio with questions about how those drums , mentioned earlier as being too prominent, were miked (presuming it was a real kit and not digitaly generated - Fairlight?) Anyhow, more often than I care to think about drum tracks on my main system are so prominent it’s painful so you’re in good company.

I’ve tried to listen to the track/tracks I think you’re talking about but the link only brings up "404 - File or directory not found.
The resource you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.”

Finally got to listen to a few parts of ‘Into Imagined Lands’ and although i didn’t encounter the drum track referred to I did notice one aspect I hear too often with digitally generated music. Different ‘instruments’ at times sounded as if they were being played in different ambient spaces. I notice many listeners younger than myself don’t find this disturbing but my brain appears to struggle in an attempt to imagine the ‘real’ space all this is taking place in. Call me and old fart if you want.

Not rude at all. Everyone's opinion is valid. As for the gear I am listening on there are various bits and pieces. For headphones either Avantone MP1 Multimode reference headphones or Sennheisers. As for monitors I have a pair of Mission speakers connected to a Yamaha Amp and Yamaha CD player (for rough mixes burnt to CD). For actual mixing I use a pair of Yamaha HS50's connected directly to a Tascam & Behringer audio interface(s) which are driven by a Samplitude Pro X Suite DAW. I have a lot of other audio gear lying around the place and I sometimes find a really cheap piece of kit can work wonders if you use it properly. It all depends on where your head is at when you create the part.  

The track containing the prominent drums is no longer on my site so I am not sure which track you have been listening to. The drum kit you mentioned is real and was performed by Marc Norgaard from Baltimore Maryland. He no longer has his website up and running but most of the drums you hear are live kits although I can't remember what mikes he used - I think it might have been Shure or AKG but I can't remember the exact models. Since Marc is no longer providing drumming services I have had to start using a new drummer - Klemen Markelj. I have used synthetic/programmed drums on a project called 'Esoteric Movements' as this is intended to be a purely electronic album. Ebb & Flow will also be a purely electronic adventure. 

As for 'Into Imagined Lands' I have to admit my mixing skills are somewhat limited and I struggle to get the sound I hear in my head. I tried a couple of 'professional' mixing engineers but money was flying out of the door and the results were terrible. IAL was my first attempt at doing an 'album' and is really a mix of tracks from three different projects all still in the works. This is just a hobby for me (I'm a normal working stiff) - I am by no means a professional musician - and it shows - essentially a guitarist with a penchant for electronic synths and ambient/world music as well. What I find satisfying is that although I get to spend very little time with these pet projects it is a creative outlet for me and helps to wash away the boredom of the mundane working world. I have released two albums digitally and I am happy to say that every month the sales are climbing although the amount earned will never cover the investment to date. IAL cost me roughly 80K EURO to put together all things told. A labour of love for me. I hope some people get some enjoyment out of it if only for the novelty value. For many years I played folk music along with 2 friends but I got bored with that and my first love has always been prog rock and the electronic adventures of Jean Michel Jarre along with Floyd, Oldfield, early Genesis, Tangerine Dream, Eno, Camel, Yes, ELP etc. Those were my main influences growing up. 

Some people like the music and some people think it's crap - that's life.

As for parts being played in different places - they were - UK (different places), USA, Canada, Italy, Poland, Slovenia, Ireland & SA. 

As for calling you an old fart - I am one too! The wrong side of 55....

I still have the original pressing of Jean Michel Jarre’s ‘The Concerts in China’ which to my ears hasn’t dated at all. 
Floyd, Genesis, Yes etc I find haven’t dated as well but maybe that’s because I no longer listen to them stoned off my face or on LSD?
ELO I never could stand. I always found them overreachingly pretentious and lacking in the classical technique they pretended to understand. 
Recently I played Supertramp’s ‘Crime of The Century’ again for the first time in years and found this is another gem that's stood the test of time, and man oh man, was it ever brilliantly recorded. I’ve yet to find a digital version of either this or Jarre’s ‘The Concerts in China’ the sonic equal of the original LP’s. Just remembered another one I feel has aged well. Allan Parsons ‘I Robot’.

I have a complex love/hate relationship with digital recording etc. It can be brilliant, especially with some high resolution downloads. ( some of which are fake low resolution files just asking you to pay more) However, the unleashed power of digital synthesisers  ( do we still use that term?)  and processing makes it too easy to go beyond complexity into the overcomplex, overproduced sonic mud I hear too often today. By the way, I’m not aiming that criticism as your stuff as I’ve only heard it on Youtube etc which usually mangles things with MP 3 compression.

I know little about the actual discipline of recording myself apart from what I learnt from Eve - Anna Manley at Manley Labs when I collected my Manley ‘Steelhead’ phono-preamp and was taken on a tour by the lady herself. If you reside in the US or ever visit the States make a b-line for their factory. ( but phone first to arrange a tour.)
https://www.manley.com

I assume you mean ELP and not ELO - two very different bands. For me personally one of the best albums I own is ELP's Works Volume 1. Volume 2 was crap but 1 was superb in every sense. The material itself, the arranging and the recording were all top notch in my book. An example - https://youtu.be/YBfg8qtpptE
Fantastic lyrics too! Can you see any band around today producing lyrics like this. And those strings soaring in the background just blow me away every time.

[Dissily Mordentroge]

No, I meant Electric Light Orchestra, a group I can’t stand.
For me Emerson, Lake and Palmer are up there with the greats and you’re dead right about their lyrics.

[Jerome]

Oh OK - my mistake.

[Jerome]

A whole day's work to advance a few minutes into the album. Still it's a few minutes closer to the end than I was yesterday. Same as always - http://www.auralscapes.com

[Dissily Mordentroge]

I can’t get that to play. Clicking on the downward pointing button does nothing even if the clip has fully loaded. What am I doing wrong?

[Jerome]

I have quite a few glitches on this site. I use a program called Xara but I have not got to grips with it yet. The downward pointing arrow takes you to the next page. Sometimes it takes a while to become 'active' - don't know why. To get to the next page just use the Page Down key on your keyboard. To play the piece on the home page - the long black strip at the top just click in the black space on the left hand side of the player (in other words to the left of the 00:00 counter) - some people see an arrow and some people don't. Don't have a clue why ??!!??

Sometimes on the different pages you have to move off the arrow and then back on it to get the damn thing to work - again I don't have a clue why. I will try and fix it in the next week or so but I can't promise anything as my programming skills are severely limited.

[Dissily Mordentroge]

I have quite a few glitches on this site. I use a program called Xara but I have not got to grips with it yet. The downward pointing arrow takes you to the next page. Sometimes it takes a while to become 'active' - don't know why. To get to the next page just use the Page Down key on your keyboard. To play the piece on the home page - the long black strip at the top just click in the black space on the left hand side of the player (in other words to the left of the 00:00 counter) - some people see an arrow and some people don't. Don't have a clue why ??!!??

Sometimes on the different pages you have to move off the arrow and then back on it to get the damn thing to work - again I don't have a clue why. I will try and fix it in the next week or so but I can't promise anything as my programming skills are severely limited.

Your programming skill may be severely limited as are mine but it smells as if the Xara people’s skills leave a lot to be desired.
Anyhow, it’s just another reason I’m allergic to the 21st century.
I’ve experimented with your suggestions with no result.