Daemon

Half a year ago a nerd friend of mine ordered me to make an electronic album with “dirty basses” and funded the production generously. Originally the project was meant to be a space ambient album when we negotiated about it first time in the spring of 2019. (The last ambient song of the album “Multidimensions” was finished back then.) However, after the summer this nerd guy wanted some more strong stuff in order to play the sh*t out of his sub-woofers. Then I started to make this eclectic collection of electronic music with experimental progressive metal influences or something like that. Unfortunately I cannot tell, if the music fits into some sub-genre of electronic music because I don’t listen to different electronic music that much. (Mostly the electronic stuff I listen is some sort of minimalist ambient, video game music, or some Jarreish-stuff.) In the end the album was polished and mastered with the nerd friend’s custom bass setup.

Songs 1 “Noaidi” and 9 “StormCloud” probably mostly represent my prog metal influences. Song 5 “Hiitola” has some improvised jazz influences. The rest of the songs are my take on the DnB-ish/dubstep-ish/whatever-ish route. Bass frequencies go approximately as low as 17–30Hz which is why sub-woofer is recommended for  optimal listening experience (assuming you can call it “listening” anymore). BPM of the songs is mostly around 100–120 with the exception of songs Hiitola (160) and AI (175). Time signatures can be a bit mess at times. Thus the album is not aimed for dancing but I don’t prohibit it either. Besides drum samples (and one piano track), the whole album has an original sound design. In the future I would want to make my own drums, though. Only free open source Linux software is used and some additional (virtual)analogue synthesizer hardware (Korg R3, Arturia Microbrute, and Roland SE-02).

Unfinished version of the album was published in SoundCloud too, but the finished stuff was released on bandcamp. Later on somewhere next decade (!!) this will be my debut album on Spotify and other streaming services (until the distribution process within a week or so is finished). Here is my distributor’s (Distrokid) hyperfollow link for streaming services (it will notify or take to the page when the album is live): https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/aeroll/daemon

UPDATE:
The album is now on Spotify, Deezer, Google Play/YuoTube, iTunes etc.

Some recent small music projects

Lyhyesti: on tullut syntetisoitua saundeja aika paljon Zynillä ja Helmillä, joista alla yksi näyte (subbariversio). Ohjelmoin pianolle myös harjoiteltavan etydin, jonka joskus toivottavasti saan haltuun.

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I have been synthesizing a lot of sounds recently with Zyn and Helm. Unlike before, I am starting to use my own synthesized sounds exclusively on my electronic productions (excluding drum samples on Hydrogen kits, though). Maybe it turns out something in the future. I experimented with some bass sounds on that first song but it wasn’t bassy enough for subwoofers, so I made a dedicated subwoofer mix with additional help (since I don’t have a subwoofer and couldn’t hear a thing when mixing).

The second song is a short étude I composed to practice my piano playing techniques. My longer term goal might be to practice Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata (3rd movement) if I find enough time for that. Practicing dynamics is also important for my expressively dynamic synth sounds I aim to make more and more.

天下 Tiānxià

Julkaisin uuden albumin. Se sisältää joitain Kiinan reissun aikana ohjelmoituja kappaleita ja muutamia muita. Kun pianoa ei ollut käytettävissä, tilanne johti minut kokeilemaan uusia elektronisia tyylejä ja lopputulos on kuultavilla tällä albumilla kokonaisuudessaan. En ole oikeastaan aiemmin tehnytkään tämän tyylistä elektronista vaikka musiikissani on aina ollutkin vahva elektroninen painotus. (Erityisesti kosketinsoittajana ja tietokonenörttinä se on helpointa genreä tuottaa.)

Suunnittelin julkaisevani tämän albumin joku vuosi tai puoli sitten, mutta “Samsara” viivästytti tätä tuotantolimbossa. Se on edelleen aika sotku, mutta saa nyt luvan kelvata. On yllättävän vaikeaa sovittaa vaikeita pianoralleja elektronisiksi sovituksiksi ja löytää sopivat saundit jne. Siksi helpointa olisi vain tehdä elektronisiakin kappaleita vain elektronisina alusta saakka. Olen luonnostellut kappaleita yleensä MIDI sekvenssereillä ja niiden köykäisillä äänifonteilla, mutta seuraava askel olisi varmaan tehdä kaikki virtuaali-instrumenteilla alusta saakka (kuten spekuloin aiemmassa postissa). Kokeilua ja pohdintaa on siis tiedossa jatkossakin.

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I published a new album. It contains some songs I programmed during my China trip a year ago and some others as well. Not having an access to pianos led me to experiment with new electronic styles and the result can be heard on the album as a whole. I actually haven’t done this kind of electronic music before even though my music has always had a strong electronic leaning. (Especially as a keyboardist and computer nerd it’s the most easiest genre to produce.)

I planned to publish this album like a year or half ago, but the song “Samsara” delayed this into a production limbo. It’s still quite a mess but this has to do for now. It is actually surprisingly difficult to rearrange advanced piano compositions into electronic pieces and find fitting sounds etc. That’s why the easiest way to make electronic songs is probably to make them electronic all the way from beginning. I’ve been sketching my songs on MIDI sequencers and cheap soundfonts but the next step on this might be to move on making virtual instruments all the way from beginning (as I’ve concluded on an earlier post). So, there will be experimentations and speculations in the future as well.