Song-A-Day 2025

Here at the End of All Things

No, it’s not really the end of anything, other than this very delayed wrap-up post for Song-A-Day 2025. Many of the blog entries were written over the last several weeks. Clearly I lost the energy to keep talking about it while doing it and I’ll say more about that a little later. How Did It Go? It was a solid year. I didn’t reach any new plateaus, nor did I suffer any setbacks or meltdowns. That’s not to say that I wasn’t challenged every day. When I go through the folder for the month, there are several days where I … Continue reading

Here and Now

The last track! I’m normally happy to post anything at this point in the journey and have certainly thrown some “contractual obligation” pieces up. This one, however, is one of those happy times where I not only had a decent idea, but the time and energy to actually produce it. There were a couple of days relatively early in … Continue reading

Agile Gossip

Another day, another Stepic track. Seriously, this thing is amazing. I’m obviously in that new love phase, but the more I learn, the more capable and deep I realize this thing really is. One of the features I mentioned when I first got it a few days ago is the ability to sequence MIDI control change messages. I was really excited about that, except I could never get it to work. After an email exchange with the author, I determined that the problem lies with Digital Performer. Apparently it doesn’t support “legacy” MIDI messages for VST3 plugins.1If you don’t know … Continue reading

Gold Obelisk

Remember two days ago when I waxed poetic about Stepic, the amazing new step sequencer I got? Remember how I was fawning over those 80s Tangerine Dream soundtrack bass lines? Remember how I said that you’d likely hear more tracks with that kind of thing? Well, here we are. This is darn close (if not massively over the line) into pastiche territory. If I played this without comment for a Tangerine Dream fan, I suspect they’d be trying to figure out which album it didn’t make it on. Now, amazingly, I only used Stepic on two tracks in this piece, … Continue reading

Leviathan

The most notable thing about this track may be that it was my third attempt for the night. I’ve done that several nights this month, but sometimes nothing’s hitting. Or it hits but fizzles almost immediately because there’s nowhere to go. But on this project, that initial sound you hear grabbed me by the neck and shook me around until I agreed that this would be the track. I mean that sound. It’s just… nasty. Ok. So we’re currently at “nasty.” What’s next. Drums, of course. Now this might have gone in an industrial direction, but I heard more of … Continue reading