ain't no hollaback girl.
Note: This post was written in 2025 and backdated to appear on the day I wrote and published the track. This is actually my second time writing this post. The first ended up being a 2,000 word rant examination of the problems I had with the massive legal overreach exhibited by XLN when they released “Life” – the plugin that I used for the main rhythmic pattern in this track. XLN also makes … Continue reading
Note: This post was written in 2025 and backdated to appear on the day I wrote and published the track. I’m not sure what this style / genre would have been called back in the 80s, but these days it’s called Synthwave. This is as “stereotypical” a synthwave track as I can think of, yet it’s absolutely true to an actual 80s track by Jan Hammer or Giorgio Moroder. The arrangement is simple, as is the instrumentation: drums, bass, guitar, electric piano, and two synths. The guitar is a real one (as opposed to a sampled or modeled one). I’m … Continue reading
Note: This post was written in 2025 and backdated to appear on the day I wrote and published the track. I almost started this post with, “Well, here we go back to Lo-Fi Land” except that I realized this track was actually my first intentional flirtation with the genre. I say “intentional” because I’ve been writing these types of tracks for years and years, but I always called them beats, demos, or sketches. They certainly weren’t complete works, but something to be fleshed out later. Then I discovered the Lo-Fi station on Apple Music (there are similar ones on any … Continue reading
Note: This post was written in 2025 and backdated to appear on the day I wrote and published the track. Ohhhhhh what to say about this one? It’s one of my “swing and a miss” tracks – what I had in my head was pretty cool, but the final result is definitely lacking. On the positive side of things, I think the riff of the hook is pretty solid. Maybe not crazily original, but it gets the job done. Also, I actually played it on guitar not once, but multiple times (there are four guitar tracks: two left and two … Continue reading
Note: This post was written in 2025 and backdated to appear on the day I wrote and published the track. I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I’d started a track but knew it would be too involved to complete with the time available. But today is a new day, and I’m starting early. Part of what I knew would make it time consuming is it’s based around an old spoken word recording. And when I say old, I mean very old. Over 100 years old, in fact. It is a travesty of intellectual property law that you have to look … Continue reading