New Album Release; Synthscape – Melodic Distortion
5/01/2024 - New Album; Synthscape - Melodic Distortion
Something a little different and partly why I started another artist name to release this album and also release something different from the normal three genres I tend to make a lot of House, Jungle/Drum and Bass, and synthy stuff under my other artist name Gas No Light. It’s a synthscape basically and crossed between a mix that came out mangled when I first had the idea and lots of drums and synths and is like a soundscape but with synthesizers and noise in the background which is the mangled mix I put in Audacity and mangled it up for this weird sound FX. The album is best played from the beginning to end for a full view of the synthscape and was an hour-long file which I had to cut up and give titles for as you couldn’t upload an hour-long file and was too big for size so I cut it up to sections and gave them titles which was the hardest bit. There is YouTube video versions too which I made a running theme to the video and made a visual something quick and simple that can be found on my other YouTube channel Game For Experimentation. Also, there is a making of this one Melodic Distortion which is in parts and quite long videos one or two are over two hours long but it does take some time to make an hour-long synthscape as there are lots of songs that go in and out the background noise. I used all the best synth sounds I found in my DAW and made it sound interesting I think and not something that is made a lot though people do make them but all in different ways and hopefully, this is different. I played the keyboard with my trusted AKIA keyboard over the background noise and I did the drums manually using all the drums I could find but I did use all the beefy ones even the ones from the House section which I never use unless it’s House music. The album is one whole experiment with sound and synths with drums and something I will make more of in the future but not too many at the same time as I’m trying not to make too many of them and keep it rare also it does take a lot of time and strength especially the last half hour of the tape, I say tape but I mean I make them an hour long and I only did half hour it does get like when is it the end already. All the synths used are from my collection of synthesizer plugins and are mostly from the Arturia V Collection and The Korg Collection all rent to own on Splice.com my go-to for rent-to-own VST plugins and samples I use them quite a lot and I think they have a good range of plugins and samples. The best thing about the VST plugins is they are rent to own which means you pay anything under £25 depending on the manufacturer and you pay off the VST and own it for life after you pay the installments. You can cancel and resubscribe whenever you like which is good for me as not every month have I got the money and I spare the pennies by unsubscribing for a month or two on a VST plugin that I know I not using or haven’t used for a while. I like all the tracks on this album and think they all sound different and interesting with dark and light songs with Hip Hop-like drum patterns as I felt they worked best also 4/4 kick beat and is a staple in House music but also music in general. Â
New Album Release; Baby Bots Labs Vol. 1
5/01/2024 - New Album Baby Bots Labs Vol. 1
An experimental album of stuff I made with my Baby Bot 3000 which is a unique baby doll that generates synth sounds from a built-in oscillator which is the thing that generates the sounds. It has knobs around the top of the head which groom the sounds for example it has a low and high pass filter that cuts out certain frequencies depending on if you use the high pass or low pass side. The high pass keeps all the high frequencies and is more high pitched and at times piercing and the low pass filter is used to keep all the low end and is how basses are made from oscilator sounds which like the doll are noisy and just harsh sounds. This is why you use hardware filters to further smooth the sounds out and is what I used a lot on this album or it would have just been noise. The doll also generates rhythm which I found got some cool rhythms and sounds from like on the track In The Vapours which is funny enough one of my favorites on the album as I like the quirkiness of it. I got the doll from the online shop Etsy and fell in love with it with just the sight alone but when I read the description I fell in love with it even more and thought I must have it and how it would come into some use. I’ve already made lots of songs from it and also made a VST plugin with the sounds generated using filters and FXS like reverb and delay the VST plugin can be found on my other website gasnolight.co.uk under VST plugins or it can be found under the blog section too. I must admit it is a bit of a trip to set it up and get it working sometimes it takes more than an hour sometimes two and then there is the plug to it you need a special plug to fit in the charger and I have lots of leads and struggle to find the right one but I do enjoy it when I have it on and also making music with it. I fell in love with the Baby 3000 as they are custom-made and also the eyes glow up in the dark and the lights move with the sounds and rhythms which I thought was pretty cool. Not to mention it looks cool but kind of creepy with the knobs sticking out the top of the head it adds color and funk to the doll but it’s unique enough with the oscillator built into the doll. All the sounds came from the doll and I recorded the sounds with the Tascam recorder. The sound was coming out of my stereo for the first bit then I had one long noisy file which I put into FL Studio my DAW and began molding the sounds into something a bit more palatable as believe me it would have been a messy and unapproachable album and that’s not good. My favorites on the album are Fatal Showdowns, In The Vapours, Rays Of Sun, Wait To Burn – Balance, New Dawn, Up Late, Past Is There, Wild Cats, It Means Nothing, and my overall favorite with Wild Cats, Old Skool Time so the whole album basically as it’s something different and synthy which I said on my other site gasnolight.co.uk many times and over the internet I’m obsessed with synthesizers.
New Album Release; A Lil Experimentation Vol. 3
5/01/2024 - New Album Release; A Lil Experimentation Vol. 3
Another album of mixed bag of experimentation music and unreleased experimental synthy and rave stuff. It has a lot of earth songs on there too which turn out to be experimental so I added them on there too. This is the last album for the unreleased experimental stuff for now as I added all the songs I made over time, after 2020, and made albums out of them. There’s not a lot left to cover on this album I already explained how I make music for the Earth and how that worked in vol. 2 in the last post but there are more songs for the Earth on this album. For a quick recap, the earth runs on frequencies, and tuning in the right frequency or hertz can have a positive outcome for the earth like making it rain in a droughted area or healing the earth by easing tension it all started with tribes and their banging on the drum to make it rain. My favorites on the album are The Nights Drawn In my salsa-like earth song which was a tryout but I like the firey side to it and the found sounds I put in which were cocktail sticks in their container. Earth Care which is an earth song and contains certain pitches and frequencies like a hit on glass with a metal spoon, more horse neighs which I’ve been told you have to have on horse neigh on the earth song even though it’s not good for the frequencies, and stops it from humming if there is too much neighing but a little bit does the earth well and is how it connects. It sounds bonkers but going back to the earth runs on frequencies and certain animals and things can produce the same frequency or accompany the hum it’s not too hard to understand. I should also say the hum chant with the drums is the real reason why the tribes make it rain and is the matching of frequencies it’s the same with the didjeridoo that has the same frequencies to build a storm and they say too much can disturb the earth’s core and has dire consequences. My other favourites on the album are Some People a Drum and Bass experimental track, The Liberal Llmma which is my experimental Reggaeton track that has a Llmma on the track. Bags is another favorite on the album and is a more experimental Hip Hop track I made before 2020 but I liked it enough to put it on the album. It has some of my voice on from a sample pack I made quite a while ago but they were all alibis and shouts and when making I thought it went with the track when experimenting. Watch is my experimental gaming music track I made sometime in 2021 amid the COVID-19 virus and the lockdown. Climate which is another Earth song and has my old phone intercom built in my flat which has now been replaced and some other things on there to balance it out like the hit on glass or I think it was crystal glasses a common tool used to heal people and the world but I believe it’s more for tension purposes for people. The main bit of the track what I call the chorus is from an old opera song and is also another way to make it rain or do something to the earth when sung. Leo Cast is another favourite on the album and is more experimental Hip Hop it’s part of the earth songs I made and I like it because it’s different and not the usual stuff I make though I make Hip Hop now and then but not for a while. The last track on the album Boiling is another favorite and is not something I tend to listen to by choice but I liked it and was from my Baby Bot 3000 a unique synth doll that generates synth noises from the built-in oscillator and I used filters to smooth it out.
New Album Release; A Lil Experimentation Vol. 2
5/01/2024 - New Album Release; A Lil Experimentation Vol. 2
Another mixed bag of experimental music and unreleased stuff all made quite a while ago when I got bored and started to experiment with sound and music which is my favorite thing to do when making music or at least one of them. I would say I have been experimenting with music for some time and started with cassette tapes making loops from them and to see what you could do with a cassette tape. One thing I discovered is that you can back mask with a cassette tape and is something I did a little bit. To be honest, I can’t remember all the things I discovered but I knew as a kid it blew my mind and left me wanting to experiment with the tape a bit more and I did. It’s one of my favorite ways to experiment and used to start with some sort of tape ritual even though most of the time more than not I wished I didn’t use the tape as the sounds sometimes come worn and like it’s under water which isn’t good for quality wise. I find a lot of tape saturation which can be found on a cassette tape works well for eerie and experimental music and when I can be bothered to get the cassette tape out which is partly broken which is why I don’t use it so much but when I do I make some good sounding tracks and has interesting wobbles and stuff on it which would be bad for a normal use of a tape player. Another favorite way of making experimental music is going to the charity shop and buying toys and things that tend to make noise and experimenting with the sounds I selected. That’s fun and I could be there for hours experimenting and using hardware filters and FXS like delay and reverb those are the top two I use. As I said before I made the songs quite a while ago back in 2020 and onwards and was just me messing about one day being bored and thinking I can experiment with music again as it keeps me entertained for a while. All the songs from the A Lil Experimentation series weren’t going to be released but as I was making a new and another artist name for my experimentation stuff and also game music I thought it would be perfect to add them all and hopefully get them heard as I thought they were good enough for people to stream and buy. My favorite on the album is Time Slip a song I made whilst live on YouTube, Rabbit Hole is a dark and sort of glitchy track that I made in the past but have rediscovered but I’m sure it sounds different from the original, sound quality for one. I was making music for the Earth and is all about the frequencies blown out of the speakers. I was told that in the future this was in the 2000s speakers would blow out the right frequencies enough to make it rain spontaneously for example and start with the tribes banging on drums to make it rain. The rain dance is a classic example of a popular dance with drums that can make it rain and is due to the frequencies from banging on the drum. The panting of my dog on the track Rabbit Hole is what makes the earth think or do something that I can’t remember but panting from dogs is good for the earth. The other Earth song and favorite on the album is Dougie, it’s another old track I recreated and is jazzy I think, and has the strings to calm the earth down or there would be some sort of explosion lol. I should explain even further by saying the earth runs on a hum which is a frequency or hertz if you can accompany the frequency you could make it rain for example or even heal the earth a little bit by easing tension. The classic example of easing tension is a thunder-like rumble in the sky which is loud but muffled but is distinctly heard but the effects do vary around the world depending on how far you are close to the center of the earth IE the core. My other favorites on the album are Scratch Card a found sound experimental drum and bass track, Vito a synthy experimental track Harvest The Day, and Clear Out the last two are more melodic experimental and were something I just put together.Â
New Album Release; A Lil Experimentation Vol. 1
5/01/2024 - New Album Release; A Lil Experimentation Vol. 1
A mixture of experimental music which is all single sessions that I made throughout the years and was under my other artist name Gas No Light but is now under my new name Game For Experimentation and all in album form. I like to put on FL Studio, the DAW I use, and experiment with sound and music. The album has synthy vibes, House music, and Drum and Bass/Jungle music, and mostly sounds I found around my house like spoons, electronic stuff I found in the charity shop, light switches sounds, cocktail sticks rattling and dog biscuits dropping in the metal bowl. It also has some unreleased tracks on there that are sort of experimental but don’t feel like it with tracks like Carry On and Moo Goes The Cow which wasn’t meant to be on this account but it’s up now so I leave it and anyway it’s something different and like my other artist name Gas No Light where I make House, Jungle/Drum and Bass and Synthy vibes which isn’t experimental and is more of my serious stuff. It also has some of Baby 3000 which is a unique baby doll that generates synth sounds from the built-in oscillator and makes noise with knobs on the head that molds the sounds one is an HP and LP filter depending on which way you turn the knob. For those who don’t know what an LP and HP filter is it stands for Low Pass and High Pass and it filters out the noise for a more smoother and harmonic tone and is how you make synths sound partly I think it does a good amount of work with the FXs and the messing about using Serum but it works for any I think. My favorite tracks on the album are Bombs Away and the last track Duck Duck Hoose which I made sometime in 2020 actually when we were in isolation due to COVID-19 well thank goodness that is over lol. I like Bombs Away as it’s a bit Jazzy and reminds me of Blues or Jazz and has an upbeat and jolly feel to it and I think is good for dancing or at least makes you want to dance. It’s a pretty fast song at 130BPM and is a mix of Found Sounds I recorded and music. The other favorite on the album and that I mentioned before is the last Duck Duck Hoose the correct saying or game name is Duck Duck Goose which is a game you would play in school you ran around a group of kids and select someone by touching their head and saying “duck” you have to say “goose” as quick as you can or you will join whoever lost and is running around in a circle and around the children or you are out the game and sit out the circle is the alternate way to play it but the game might vary in different countries. I like the roughness of the song and the duck quack which is all over the track. Also, it’s a play on the word House which in Scottish pronunciation is sometimes pronounced Hoouse as in house but sounds more like goose which I made into Duck Duck Hoose instead of goose. Â