New tracks with Vocalists

I've been making new mainstream sounding songs, which I think people would like more than some of my other pieces. I've had a girl called Jane Honsend, come around with decent microphone and did a recording session, in this Blog post I shall explain my process of how I handled these sessions, and how I adapted to learning mixing of vocals.

I started a month ago putting out adverts on Facebook, Newgrounds, for vocalists, and about this time I found a website called "Looperman" which is a Acapella and sound clip website...which I promptly put out a call on there for someone to sing some lyrics I had provided. I had a call from a girl which I had worked with in the past called Jane, she is an excellent singer and we arranged for her to come to my house for a recording session. She came around and she came with a case which had a bunch of professional grade microphones which included SE electronics valve microphone, and a high end Neumann microphone (these mics were much better than my Presonus M7 cheap condenser microphone, and Art valve preamp and DI box combo). We did a song called "Talking without Conversations" which we did within a few takes, I started off by playing the basic tune on the keyboard and get her to sing along with it, but in the end we decided to sit down, create a fifteen minute sequence, which made quite a good backing track. After I had recorded and she had gone home, I recreated all the sequences, recorded in a section of live keyboard playing which I imported into the MPC and set it to loop and then layered the vocals over the top. It's turned into a light EDM track, which sounds more acoustic than my usual pieces. 

A couple of days later I had a message back from a Bryan Tig, which had listened to one of my instrumental songs on Soundcloud and had rapped some bars over it. he sent me a FLAC file of the separate vocals and one layered over the song. I remixed it to bring out the vocals more and create something which could be used on my upcoming album (which is now out!). This is the finished song:

The next song I worked on was a song which my fiance wanted me to remix, which was a song by Led Zeppelin called "Kashmir", I loaded it into the Akai MPC and then made a general like bass line out of the main hook, added layered synths and pads. Then I went on Looperman and picked out a pre made acapella, I then autotuned the vocal to give t much more better dance tone and the final result I was really happy with! Heres the finished song, its EDM, with a Drum and Bass section. Its got a sample from a film called "Dude! wheres my car" which I used on the two drop sections, instead of a silent break and drop. The song still needs a bit of work, as I don't like how the song ends.

The next song is a dance song with me singing on it which has been heavily autotuned and pitch shifted, this is one of my favourite songs of this latest project. Its a light EDM song. 

 This next one is from another person who contacted me back on Looperman, called Steely Vibe, she is extremely popular on there and is extremely busy all the time, so I feel honored to have her sing lyrics for me, this song is mainly a piano electronica song, I hope you like it!

This one is the last person who got back to me, which is called Katrina. She remade a song which she had done before but did it in a different timing for this song. This sounds like a mainstream electro pop song which is mixed with EDM, it stars me playing all sections on keyboard and it is an excellent song and the vocals fit like a glove. 

You can find this one here on soundcloud! Stars Collide This will also be released as a new single, next week!

Honorable mentions: I am not Proud
                                  Feeling Alright
                                  Voodoo you do?

Kashmir remix ft Steklo

Tom's Diner Remix

Artists who inspire me

There are a few artists who inspires me, some include Jean Michel Jarre, Gary Numan, The Electric Light Orchestra (all of Jeff Lynne's work), William Orbit, Faithless, Don Felder, Ian Van Dahl, Muse, Daft Punk, to name a few.

I will start by picking a Genre and will say what techniques and inspiration I have got and use in my music, plus links to my track in question.

My roots start with Pop/Rock music, the first band I remember listening to was Clint eastwood by the Gorillaz, the techniques I learnt from that song was how to play melodica which they used. My next major band I was exposed to by my oldest brother was Muse and I learned "Newborn" on piano and I learned the playing technique of broken chords. I was also exposed to greenday, my favourite being Holiday and Good riddance (mainly been the reason I started playing acoustic guitar, especially while singing). I was exposed to a lot of good music by my parents, Dire straits "The Sultans of Swing", Simon and Garfunkel "Mrs Robinson", ELO "Turn to stone" (i rediscovered their music a few months ago and am a huge fan). 

It was around this time I started listening to Black Sabbath and Metallica after finding one of my dads old mix tapes. I was introduced to Led Zepplin and The Doors (which I've sampled a few of Jim Morrison's Vocals, including "Texas Radio"Texas radio Remix by Stuart W (ExeDist)). Friend introduced me to Linkin Park, which I remixed "Numb" as its one of my favourite songs: Numb Remix. Later on I discovered Adele, which again I did a remix of "Rolling in the Deep": Remix in the Deep.

 In late 97 I discovered the Ministry of sound, Cream and other club favourites. I loved Trance with my all time influential song being William Orbit's "Adagio for Strings", my favourite mix being the Ferry Corsten mix, Tiesto made a version but i don't like it that much. Kernkraft "Zombie nation", Lost witness "Happiness Happening" and Snap! vs Plaything "Do you see the Light". in 98 I got my first Korg Electribe and sequencing software for the Amiga A1200 and started making my own Trance and Dance music (way before it was coined as EDM music). I found out a majority of electronic Dance songs used samples, so in 2001 I purchase a 2nd hand Yamaha A3000 and the rest is history.

I loved deep house, Drum and Bass and got into Rave music, "in the hall of the mountain king" being my all time favourite. 

Then my music taste changed to start hunting out 80's music, New wave and new age pop music, like Gary Numans "Are Friends Electric", Flock of seagulls "She ran so far", Europe "The Final Countdown". I started making New wave myself this is an example called "Freedom (That 80's Sound)":Freedom (That 80's Sound) Instrumental

I started also listening to broadway productions like Phantom of the Opera, Blood Brothers, Cats and many more. About this time I wrote a production piece called "Insania" which was used at week long drama/stage production: Insania 2015 Edition 

I have recently got into Electronica and european dance and disco music, from artists like Jean Michel Jarres "Brick England ft Pet Shop Boys", "Electrees ft Hans Zimmer", "Oxygene" and "Here for you ft Gary Numan". I've also rediscovered Giorgio Moroder, "Racer", "Chase", "Machines from Metropolis"and "24 is the new 74. I recently did a remix of "Tom's Dinner" featuring the voice of Britney Spears which is here: Tom's Dinner the Remix

I recently aquired a Akai MPC Studio and may get back into doing Hip Hop and R&B, but I will make more EDM and D&B works, with samples, cuts, recording flips and mainstream music, like some of the examples of my work (above)

JMJ Equinoxe 4/brick england remix

Into the light

Finding a job and living my life with a disability (Asperger's Syndrome which is a form of autism).

For starters;  a little about my past, myself and my employability as a civilian living with a disability. 

When I was growing up as a child of about two to three years old my parents realised that their son wasn't normal, I didn't like playing with other children at my playgroup, when I was playing peek-a-boo I never made eye contact even when the game was with mummy and daddy, I consistently cried over extremely minor things, and by the age of six years old, the local school which I was attending was worried about my social behaviour and my development. After seeing a few doctors, with one just calling a dumb and clumsy kid which would grow out of it.After about a year of this game of ping pong with regional doctors giving silly diagnoses, I was carted off to London where I went to psychology specialist which after hours of testing decided that I was one of the few in the country at the time, which was just about to be diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. I fitted the description and I was a textbook case, funny how regional doctors didn't pick on it, very funny indeed! 

At home I was put on a new diet, I was forced by my parents to socialise and make new friends even though I remember thinking what was the point of it and it was a stupid exercise, and probably a futile one at best with the severe anxiety condition which pretty much controlled and dominated my life back then. I remember that year having a birthday party with a load of kids which I had never seen in my life, dure they went to my school, but they were not in my class. When it came time to sing happy birthday, I just ran off crying, mainly as I hated the act of surprises. 

I had weird fears and fascinations, I was a avid collector of anything to do with electricity and my favourite pass time was gop outside hunting for different models of pylons (you know the towers that carry electricity to and from the power station and your homes local; substation? I believe they are called transmission towers in the US), well I took pictures, had a notebook, and took down model numbers, I then scrap booked my results. I was a scared to say this to any of my new friends as I rightfully scared that they would find me more different than I was already. Which looking back I think myself as being probably some weird eccentric which didn't fit in properly anywhere in society, apart with others like me which I found a few people when I was about nine years old with one having Tourette's Syndrome, a Dyspraxic (which I believe is somewhere between having a very functioning form of asbergers and having dyslexia) and a kid with ADHD (attention hyperactivity disorder), we were a fun a bunch, yes even today I'm still friends with them and see them occasionally.   

I also as I touched on in the last paragraph...have fears and phobias, mainly irrational fears which wouldn't affect normal people and its not a fear of the dark or a fear of snakes or spiders. My fears are fear of the light which hung off of the ceiling in my bedroom...the plug hole/grate in the bottom of the swimming pool...the fear of black colour cisterns on toilets, most of which I am no longer afraid of, but now I have an irrational fear of pylons, yes the same transmission towers from my old fascination and hobby. I also have a fear that nearly everything will kill me and a fear of crowds and public places, which is kind of a huge bummer when I am attempting to become a integrated member of society.

The other problem is my learning curve and the fact that in school I was approximately three years behind everyone else in terms of how I scored on rests as part of the national curriculum. For example I took GCSE's (Englands school systems final test which are compulsory to take when you leave school!), I had the option to bail and not do the final tests and also had the option to leave school a year earlier than anyone else and go to college to study something else instead, possibly I should have done this and learned social skills and other skills which I learned later at college several years later. The grades I got were five E's and two D's which for getting into college or sixth form you generally needed C's or above. I retook my English three times in later life scoring the same E which I got originally which is a bit of a bummer, but instead I did English at A level which I got a B in which is what is needed to get into some universities with a score like that (minus the fact that I would had to have got another six or more A levels to be accepted into even the lowest of the counties universities, but as it goes at the moment I have no need to do a university course, mainly as I think nearly ten grands worth of loans against you for the rest of your working life is a bit of stupid thing really, but maybe one day I might do it and get in as a mature student (when I can pay up front first).

After high school I went to a specialist college with other people with learning disabilities, this is where I did an apprenticeship at a local music studio for three years which I thought was cool as it was experience as working a job under my belt, I also through college connections got work a general cleaner, worked for year and a half in a car audio shop, half a year in a general store selling organic food, which was also a farm shop.So when I left I had certificites, GNVQ's, GNC's city and guilds certification for welding and job references coming out of my ears. I then spent the next month at home everyday sending in forms and applications to pretty much everyplace I was trained to work, this also included menial jobs which included shelf stacking, trolley boy at the local supermarkets and cleaners, six weeks later I was due to start a music engineering course at the local college and in that time I hadn't a single phone call or letter, note, text or slight hint that there was a job offer. I thought what had I done wrong and the thing that I now reckon had happened is that on every form I filled in there was a section on the form which stated "are you disabled" and "what disability do you, how does it affect your ability to do work", there is an apparent law in this county as a employer that they have to fair with job applicants and let in a certain amount of disabled workforce, even though if they don't accept you as an applicant they are not under onus to say why they hadn't employed you and if it was because of disability, technically its against the law but how is this law actually enforced? my guess ifs not very well.

So did a sly experiment I filled out the same forms again to the same companies, but this time using my middle name and not filling the disabled section on the paper work, and guess what by the end of the week I had half the applications back asking me for an interview, on about half those I actually got a job offer after the interview and the job I landed, I was fired in the first week because they found out I had asperger syndrome and didn't' tell them and according to the employer it was fraud on my part even though this was taken to court though my solicitor and they found the company guilty of unfair dismissal and I got a pay out. They where also brought up on discrimination charges which was what was hoping, but according to my solicitor he is seeing this happening more and more and more, and he says its nearly impossible to find employment if you're honest about being disability ad the fact you have the option to disclose it to your employer and there is no rules about them knowing!

After that fiasco, my life really changed when I started college full time doing sound design and engineering to national diploma standard, because I was still under 21 at the time social service and my parents forced me to live in a care home with 24 hour support (as my parents had a extended court order taken out on the protection of custody of myself until the age of 21, which I took them to court over and it took two years to go through whats called a family court, thats not a regular court, during the stay at said care home I was only allowed out of the house to go to college and I wasn't allowed to work, if I wasn't back at the correct time they would file a missing persons report with the local police force and they were notoriously quick to act, so basically it was like living in an open prison (and yes I was treated like a animal by some of the care staff and was generally treated like some form of criminal, locked into a institution).   

I moved out as soon as the court order was lifted and moved in with guy which I went to college with. within a year I was married to a girl which went to my high school and seven years later I am still with her, but I still don't have a job. On average I send out about thirty forms a month and haven't had a single reply in seven years. Im on DLA and JSA (which are state benefits) and it looks like unless I get a job answer or my music goes anywhere , I'm going to be stuck in a rut, yes its a easy life, but I personally hate it. I have a obsession with making music these days and that keeps me sane. Its a hobby of mine and I would like to turn it into a business, yes I love making music to generally make people happy, but I want to expand my horizons, sell my albums and live self sufficiently away from government help. As my disability goes these days, all I can say is I have adapted, I have friends which I've met myself, I go out to he town and go to family and social gatherings and unless I tell people that I've got asbergers they are non the wiser. But not saying it does't affect me at all, I still have my daily struggles and I don't think I would ever be considered as normal. My girlfriend is physically disabled and I'm called a Co-carer, so we basically help each other out and have a decent life living together, when it would be nearly impossible living on our own. 

I hope this blog posts finds you well, I've been sitting on this one for quite a while not mainly not knowing how to write it. I'm now confident I've covered all basis. If you want more information on my disability, Asperger's Syndrome there's a few good books out there to read, one good one to look for is literally called "Stuarts manual, a guide to dealing with children with Asbergers Syndrome" which is a book which is written about me, by a old friend of mine and my mothers. another good book is "Asbergers Syndrome: a guide for parents and professionals by Tony Attwood. There is the following websites you can look at this first one is by National autistic society and there is their guide to the condition which is here: Guide to Asperger's Syndrome. 

This was a brief insight into my life and struggles, if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask me anything related to this topic. Thankyou for reading.

Stuart W (ExeDist music) does a daily blog, to get email updates go to his front page scroll to the bottom of the page and enter your email address for emails when his blog posts come out. Otherwise check his page regularly.  

A few remixes I've done with MPC so far

MPC remixes week 1 and 2:

Vapour  which is a chilled dance track which was my first track I made on the MPC.

Show me your bass which is a a track I made in cubase and made the drums all on the MPC 

Sampled DnB which I used samples from sesame street and kermit the frog

Sitting on the Edge this I made the instrumentation in Cubase then chopped it and sampled it with the MPC Studio Black.

Flip it challenge Wk 2 V2.0I I made the following three for the "Pad Bank" on facebook, as they were running a competition. I'm still not happy with the results of this weeks version of the WK2 challenge.

NEW!Flip it challenge Wk2 V7.0 This is a Dance and electronica tune I made called "Into the Light"

Flip it challenge Wk2 V4.1 This is the fourth version I made which is a fast paced D&B song

Flip it challenge Wk 1This is Week 1's challenge entry, but I got it a day late so couldn't enter.

Accordion session remix I did a session recording on the accordion and ran it into the MPC and re-recorded it. This is the resulting song which I made.

Melodica session remix The same as before but with melodica and me on vocals,

Pure DnB This is another fast paced Drum and Bass song, with me on vocals (chopped and processed).

They came from mars This is from a free sample pack I received free of charge so I used the samples and flipped them using the MPC Studio, this has vocals by me on this record.

Kick the Licker Is another DnB song which I made completely using the MPC software, which came with the unit, opposed to Cubase ( which I just use the MPC now inside Cubase as its easier to use)

New albums and free album giveaway!

For those who want to try my music out we have a limited amount of Bandcamp store codes to give away, this is for the following albums "purely sequential vol 1" @ Purely Sequential and "The Fat keys collection vol 2" @ The fat keys collection If your interested just leave a comment and I'll get back to you! 

We now have stock of the following albums for sale, The Fat Keys Compilation which retails at $9.99 for thirty five tracks! (or they are available separately for $0.99),  EDM Your Heart Out! (New release!) which is $6.99 and then there is Purely Sequential Vol 2 which is $9.99, which contains some newer unreleased works.

My new Single is out as well which is called Do You Love Me (Take Me Back) which is available for under a dollar!

I have a new album out in February called Dystopia which is a musical story about a dystopian future.  

I now also have my new and improved website up so you can visit on Wix.com which is @ Exe.Dist's website

There is also a load of new songs up on my soundcloud account which are mainly drum and bass and EDM music which is @ Exe.Dist's Soundcloud page

Baby steps towards the music industry…

5m ago

• adsense
• adwords
• akai
• facebook
• google

So on this page I’m going to discuss what I’m doing now to take off with my music and what I’m going to do in the future to boost my response. As well as tell you about what’s worked for me in the past, what has barely worked opposed to not working at all!

So for starters I’ve my cutting edge product, which is years of study, tutoring and behind the scenes magic. My product in this case is EDM your heart out! and another album called Dystopia. Both contain unreleased material with enough popular material on the disk that’s also generating a following on YouTube, Soundcloud and Newgrounds. I have my social media connections all ready to go including hundreds of friends on facebook with some people willing to repost things if they really stick out to them. I have my distribution platforms ready to go as well including Bandcamp and CDbaby, I’m just waiting on one site called Fresh tunes which apparently is notoriously hard to get your music on there as they mainly deal with music transfer to iTunes and spotify, so the tracks have to really mastered and really polished (they are a free website, but they make their money by selling you overpriced mastering on you album for around $10 per song (my local mastering shop that I sometimes deal with charges the equivalent of $35 per hour where they can process a whole twenty track album in that time…)

I have a facebook fan page where I have a small but nominal following of my music, which is around thirty people on the page, which isn’t bad judging by the fact that I’ve only had the page up for the last three days. I have a YouTube channel which on a good day I may get five to six hundred views per day and the minimum is around a hundred per day, which for my thirty subscriber count, is not a bad amount of daily traffic! I know you’re probably now screaming at me why I’m attempting to sell an album with only thirty subs.. well my thirty subs have taken me three years to get to that level, now it’s time to think outside the box, pull in traffic on my webpages, blogs, albums and fan pages via other sources, this comes to a way I can go to pull in more web traffic, bur at the same time an area which hasn’t particularly worked well in the past, and that’s advertising!

It really depends what platform I decide to post adverts to what reach I can achieve and what would be the final result…In the past I’ve tried advertising through YouTube (Google’s Adwords), I created a clear and concise marketing video with a thirty second remix of the best of the best of my music. For about $40 I~ got two subscribers, one whom promptly left after a week and one who is subbed nowhere day’s but I know they never watch my videos! My advertising video got a two thousand views, but that’s pointless as it’s an unlisted video and that is not connected to any other video as a result meaning the video wasn’t linked to other videos on my profile and hardly anyone clicked from the advertising video to my profile, so in my eyes it was a complete waste of money as the bounce rate was so obscene no one actually was paying attention to the important information which happened in the first ten seconds of the advert and I guess people were just ignoring ad, waiting to click off of it so the could actually watch the video they clicked on in the first place. bummer. I stupidly set up a text advert to take people to my Facebook fan page three weeks ago and within half an hour it had two hundred clicks to my page, cost me ten bucks and again had about a 95% bounce rate, in other words people clicked the ad and within a couple of seconds had left the page! So this rules out me ever using google Adwords ever again! as it plainly doesn’t work on both video and text based ads and is pretty expensive!

But next week I’ve got a new plan, and that is…I’ve set about $30 aside for a another Ad campaign , but not on Google this time, I’m going to try and boost my posts on two sites, one site is CDbaby were I can get a prime space banner ad for my album for a tenner a day (the only hitch is there is a week long waiting list) or the site to use is Facebook advertising which from my research seems to be slightly more expensive than Adwords, plus you have to pay up front, and y0ur only limited to the one website…that is facebook. but my research points to people having better results with the internal advertising and more people at least clicking on the ad which are already interested in the genre type, unlike Adwords when it could be any random person which clicks on your advert!

Hopefully by boosting my edm and dance page with people who are already interested in the EDM and Dance genres I can maximise my gains and get my band’s name across the fact that I’m selling music and hopefully, just hopefully it might end up with people liking my music and may produce maybe at least some sales of singles, an album sale would be nice but I’m not aiming that high at the moment, mainly if I only push the more expensive product from day one, I and you would crash and burn, as people generally like cheap things and my music singles are available right now for the nominal price point off .99 cents which people are more likely to buy than the whole twenty track album which retails at $9.99 (even though in the long run it’s cheaper to buy the album as my twenty track album average individually would obviously cost you just under $20, so effectively if you buy the album you’re effectively getting a 100% free more tracks, but as people generally like cheaper things for instant gratification in short term they are more likely to go for the single, weird huh! (I got that from a phycologists article which I was reading somewhere).

So these are a few things which I’ve tried, I guess another I can make is self promotion in person, so i.e: playing gigs (which are like getting blood out of a stone around here!) An other tool maybe to upgrade to WordPress pro and actually get my domain and website that I can put a shop on and links and videos of my popular music! Many things to try, but I do know that you have to spend money to make money, but wasting on false services technically is fraud; you know if I did it….how google adwords gets away with it I don’t know but I guess it’s the whole problem with the underdog against the giant.

Anyway enough of this talk, I’m, going o finish off by posting up some song videos which I created from new sampling techniques which I am currently learning as part of the learning curve of owning a new Akai MPC Studio! They are heavy EDM verging on Drum and Bass flavour, I hope you have enjoyed reading this article which I’ve written and you also enjoy my attempted remixing skills! *nah it’s not that bad, they do need some work to them but they are masterpieces in their own right! Just slightly experimental;

The first one for your entertainment! sample flip no,1

and the second one: sample flip no. 2

Testimonials with old teachers, mentors and colleges.

These are testimonials from some people which I've had the pleasure to work with in the past. 

I worked with stuart when he was Unchained Exe.dist which was his band's full name back then, we worked in studio, on set, gigs, you name it we've done it. Stuart is a musical legend in his own right...Daniel Savage (Studio Tech). 

I work with Stuart currently and his way around the studio, the equipment and being able to find the right sound is refreshing. It's an honor to work with such a smart geezer, I wish he could make more himself in the industry as he really have talent....Davis Loman (lomax studios; Stuarts employer).

Stuart was always such good student, one who really knew his way around his choice of instrument, be it the accordion, melodica, keyboard, trombone, he always knew some quick and efficient way to come up with a original sounding solos or backing tracks, I've never had a student go so quickly from song on a scrap of paper, to the computer and he'll have it on a disk in ten minutes flat ready to jam to. A class....Gennaro Javinnovi (Theory, notation and piano accordion teacher and mentor to Stuart)

I've worked on numerous, on local drama and music productions, with Stuart. He has this brilliant insight and vision, he can dream up directions, sound, music, character design and Lighting cues, he really is a one man army, I director at heart and a force to be reckoned with. He did exceptional works on our drama production of Momo and the time assassins, instead of doing over technical lighting cues and musical work which would have been over the top he adapted the scripts, with his inner timing of all the cues and SFX/music and made it happen nice and smoothly, would love to work with him again any day of the week. before I forget I loved working on his personal mental health oriented drama/musical, Insania, brilliant production, I will remember that and treasure those memories always. ....Geoff Carpenter.

I for start loved Stuarts sense of humor which got us through the production of "The inner life", that was a really hard album to produce and took us seven months been locked in, in a studio nearly everyday and even though I felt the pressure, Stuart didn't crack a frown even once, let alone fly off on one, like any normal person would have with are strict guidelines and timetable. He just ploughed through the work given to him, found the correct sounds with the synths, keyboards, suitcase piano, stomp boxes, the hammond with the drawbars and it numerous settings. The meetings with the heads of the studio team once to twice a week. His composition and keyboard work was second to none and his insight was certainly part of his overall persona. He certainly has his own style and I'm happy to see he's launching new material, I would get behind him every step of the way if I had the time of day, but not any more with my job position at daws studio (part of Algee music, which is now part of the EMI publishing group). I still see stuart and mr loman some weekends and we are still excellent friends...Brian Crossman

Out of everyone above that I've worked with, I would like to make a personal and extended thankyou to Mr Davis Loman, my long time friend, manager, my boss. If it wasn't for him ad the job which he employs me for and the hours he gives me (ultra flexibility), I wouldn't be able to produce the music I do, be able to find the time to launch albums and go to gigs, as well as be as flexible with everything which has gone down in my career in the last couple of years! But thankyou to everyone that has sent me messages of support, you really keep me going!

The MPC my new toy and effective tool!

For Crimbo I got a new toy and that was an Akai MPC studio black edition, see what I found out and learned.

 

So I basically wanted this new piece of studio equipment which I've been eyeing up for many years, no actually what I was eyeing up was a Korg Electribe sampler and drum machine.  The electribe was a pretty cool piece of kit, for around £400 you got a box covered with buttons, which you could sample sound on, carry it around with you (but you needed a power adapter so it was hardly portable), but you could do a load of cool things with it excluding  hooking it up to a computer and interfacing it with your DAW or sequencing software, which I kind of needed this functionality (I found out you can run it in Cubase (my DAW of choice), but only by MIDI with reduced functionality. This is whe I dropped the idea of getting an Electribe and getting something which A.) could sample or run WAV or MP3 files on it, B.) be able to assign the said samples to a pad so you could play in your samples live, C.) it couldn't break the bank (any way my parents had agreed to spending up to £300 on me if I sacrificed my B'day present, so that was fine with me), D.) it had to possibly hook up to and interface with my DAW as a VST or controller. I had the choice of the Native Instruments Machine, which was a cool interface with coloured pads which kind of reminded me of some corny 80's disco floor, there was the Akai Professional MPC Touch which was a sampler and drum machine with a touch screen. Little known to me there was a cheaper alternative called the Akai Professional MPC Studio Black which suddenly appeared in my email box one day from a advert from a company I had purchased studio equipment from before called GAK music. I didn't see it when it arrived and very nearly got my parents to buy a Korg Electribe from the previous generation. which on ebay for about the same value as they were brand new nearly ten years before! I was fortunately asked by my parents "is that your final answer" wait a minute I'll wait a day before I get them to order this unit.  during the next morning I was about to message my mother on Facebook to seal the deal, when I came across the email from GAK, I opened it and discovered the MPC Black, which came with software, so the only question was raising the money for the difference which might have been £40 ut my finances being as precarious as they had been for the last six months it was a lot of money, and anyway my girlfriend was watching my bank account like a hawk!  did however manage to slip the money to my parents and the rest of the story was between me and the excruciatingly long wait until christmas (which was a couple of weeks).

I guess I could have got the native instruments machine but I already had all the software that it came with and it was about £500! with the controller and the software package which I didn't need and at that point of time they didn't sell the controller separately, which is a bummer as they do now as they launched a new pad after christmas! bugger Oh well as the Akai MPC came with 9GB of samples, two soft synths and three drum machines which was well worth the money.

I received it, got it home, opened the wrapping paper and opened the box, plugged it in then downloaded everything required which was a pain in the backside as the only setting in the installation was installing everything on C:\ drive!  and my C drive is made up of a partitioned SSD PCIe card which is rated at 126 GB, and I run windows 10 which takes up most of the C:\ drive and then there is Cubase as again the only place you can install that is on the C:\ drive and that's Cubase 8.5 ad that takes up an obscene amount of space so now I'm in the position that I have to dump my documents folder every ten cubase or MPC projects as they again can only be saved on....yes you guessed it! C:\ drive which is a royal pain in the bum! and no I can't do anything about it, unless I buy a new HDD and reinstall everything!

So bow I talk about the learning curve which as I've never used a MPC, pretty difficult. I've used hardware samplers in the past so I know how to sample things, chop them up and process them into something I can use, but the MPC is a slightly different ball game and its taken me about a week or so to get around the controls while there's still a load of buttons on the controller which I don't have a clue what they do and I've only learned so far how chop the samples up[ assign them to a pad and apply some effects. I will promise I will read the manual some day but eve that is slightly daunting as its several hundred pages of pretty mean text...on the computer! Don't get me wrong if I had a paper manual I would have read by now as bedtime reading material, computer manuals are different as I don't want to sit at the computer each night and read a paragraph or two, as it would just prevent normal sleep!

I'm most effectively using my MPC Studio as what's called a VSTi which is a integrated software instrument which works in a DAW (which stands for Digital Audio Workstation), I'm mainly doing this as the software it comes with, even though it is technically a DAW, it#s not a very good as its buggy, crashes regularly and is obviously not written very well! The VST functionality is fine which is weird as it effectively the same software, just running inside cubase (which you would have thought would have made it even more unstable. weird really, but as a VSTi it works really well).

I've used the MPC in most of my projects now since Christmas, I've divided the major ones out on Youtube and created a playlist of the MPC titles which I will post below, I am getting better at writing MPC based material, but I've still got a lot more to learn! I've got to come up with some decent patterns so it doesn't feel choppy which a few of the songs I've written kind of sound slightly, I've got to try to create more seamless mixes, but only time will tell!

 MPC playlist (YouTube)

Accordion dance number 2

This is my fifth attempt at making a complete tune on the MPC, this is quiet experiemental at this stage and is EDM/Dance but at the same time its not and probably is an unknown genre to me if it fits a category at all! This is me sampling me playing the accordion and my melodica. chopping it up and resampling the tune (about three times I resampled it, remixed and chopped it up again!), I mainly used Cubase and ran MPCs software as a VST, with the exception of the sampling phase were I used the stand alone version (as it's easier to operate that way). If you like this please leave a comment on here or on YouTube as i'm unsure if this tune would go down well at all and if it's to avant garde! I made all the samples on this song and programmed all the patterns myself.

Playing the Accordion

Accordion music

This is a electro blues song of mine, on squeeze box.

This my version of the Tetris theme, on accordion.

This is my version of the Bubamara, from black cat white cat.

This song is my own composition called "chamberlain".

This is a accordion and organ piece called "Summer time jig", sounds like Beirut

This is a cover on accordion called  "Grup Ayna - Ceylan"

This is my take on the gypsy funeral march, it is a round and a very good accordion song, which was taught to me somewhere up in gloucester! 

This is "Stuart plays blues on accordion" which has a eastern european vibe to it. 

This is a Dance song which was taught to me by the accordionist of a band/group called the Larie Fairies, Michael. Sounds very egyptian. 

This is the beach time rag which is a summer song I produced on accordion. 

This is my composition called "The Journey Man", with harp and accordion.

This is a cover of Daft Punk's,"Veridis Quo" on Accordion. 

New album titles now out!

This is piano compilation album called the Fat Keys Compilation






This is a EDM compilation called EDM your heart out!

A new track made specifically on the MPC Studio

MPC creations! 

I made this track using the MPC Studio as a VSTi in Cubase, I hope you enjoy this...its drum and bass 

Releasing music on distribution platforms.

Selling my music on a distribution platform. 

A few years ago I came to the point that i had a stack of music and nothing to do with it, so I picked out the best bits and stuck them on a free website owned by Wix; there I made a music player with a few tracks to download for the nominal fee of 99p (my research said that's what new music on iTunes go for, so I priced it that way). In about six months of plugging and updating the site I had sold a couple of dozen songs and upgraded the site to be on my own custom domain and get rid of the adverts and get rid of the "wix" logo, as well as give me more flexibility in how I ran and designed my website. Unknown to me at this time, Google was just about to change their search algorithm, which changed how my site appeared in the page listings; basically if you typed in "Unchained Exe.Dist" into google before it came up near the top, afterwards it was pushed down about eight pages with a load of pages with snippets of the search term you typed in. So subsequently my views plummeted and I lost interests from new people. I could have gone up the listings if I paid Google once a month in ad costs, but with only a few sales at this point I didn't have the money to do so. 

Then about a year ago I put my new music in albums and stuck them on Bandcamp, again I sold a few dozen, mainly to family and friends, but bandcamp has a rule that you have to earn up to X amount to get your money given to you which was more than my sales and if I sold music to myself I could run the risk of getting banned and losing the money. Even now I have the money sitting there with no access to it which is a bummer. 

I obviously run a YouTube channel and its a free source of music of mine to people and a lot of people have said to me what is the point of making albums to sell when you can just go to Youtube, use a program on your home computer, then rip it off and put it on your mp3 player. This when I started putting some of my music on YouTube and storing other really good tracks for newer albums to boost sales interest. But doing so has put pressure on me to post good enough music to YouTube to maintain my hundred views a day, plus music exclusively for Newgrounds, soundcloud as well as create exciting new music to sell, which is a mammoth task. Especially when I work four days a week in the music industry, to live and support my disabled partner (which I co-care for). 

So this week I've launched four new albums on CDbaby, where they take a cut of the profits but they actually help you promote your music, as well as giving you HTML links to put on Facebook, wordpress and this site, as you may notice there is now a player on the right hand side, which will allow you to play clips of my unreleased work, as well as my new single. Bandcamp and Wic ever allowed you to link to other sites apart from on facebook (where I don't really have to many connections and it costs a bomb to advertise. (I suppose google ads are expensive as well)).

I have five new albums in the pipeline for release this coming year and will continue to plug my work on as many platforms as possible to gain more interest in my work. I just am slightly fearful that I will annoy someone, but I guess you can't please everyone. 

The following links are for my new albums: 

The Fat keys Compilation, which is mainly keyboards, pianos and organs:

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/exedist4

EDM your Heart Out!, which is Dance, Trance and Electronica: 

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/exedist3

 Do You Love Me (Will You Take Me Back), is a love song with me on piano:

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/exedist

Purely Sequential: which is mainly a compilation of electronica: 

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/exedist2

There are the following to look forward to that will be all unreleased original material: 

Dystopia (penned for release on the 25th Jan 2017),

The Fat keys Collection 4 (will be released in May time), 

My Girl compilation (which will be out next week, 

Exe.Dist The Rock Collection. (which will be out just before Dystopia!)

And finally: Sitting on the Edge of the known world (which will be out in the summer time).

New material in the works

Watch out for the new album of fresh material a partnership, between Transquanta, Exe.dist and Lomax productions. A new art project, a musical story of  a dark dystopian future coming out  25th Jan 2017. New unreleased material on a new album called "Dystopia". Available at CDbaby.com, wix.com and Bandcamp.com (pre-orders are available from the 15th jan onwards. 

This new album is the brainchild of Stuart Wright and Davis loman, working in partnership with Lomax studios (which have produced the last eight albums; Transquanta "Transience by Transquanta", The Fat keys collection 1, 2, 3 (plus the The Fat Key's compilation CD which will also be made available this time next week for the reduced price of $7.99 for a limited time only), Purely Sequential and EDM! Your Heart Out. 

This new album will be Dark Electro and Electronic Industrial Styles, which uses sound similar to those used by Vangelis, Jean Michel Jarre and Gary Numan. Its been created on state of the art studio equipment which most of it being old analogue equipment from the 60's to the 80's, including Rupert Neve channel strips and Processed with a 60's helios valve console. Most of the masters will be taped on to reel to reel to give it and retain a 60's analogue sound. I have been constructing the samples which will used as part of a eight month project and are going to be arranged semi-live to keep most of the songs sounding natural, keep their warmth and sound quality that digital conversion usually destroys. I'm using state of th art 90's samplers like the Yamaha A3K and the Akai S6K series, and the samples have meticulously sampled, cut and layered to create the deepest effect that is sonically possible, techniques which hark back how Gary Numan deals with samples (and i'm using similar equipment to try to keep the sound authentic). 

A week before release there will be album taster track uploaded to YouTube with links available to where you can pre-order the album or tracks when they hit the market. If you get into pre-order next week you will get the album at discounted price (limited until when the album come out). 

This album will run like a story and the track list is as follows: 

2. Main intro and narration,
3. Malicious Superpower,
4. The War,
5. Nuclear winter, 
6. Dystopian peace, Dystopian Peace on YouTube
7. Peace part 2, 
8. Dark Dystopian Rock,
9. Dystopian Dreams,
10. Optic State, Optic State on YouTube
11. Institutionalized, 
12. Escape into the Abyss, 
13. Overture (realisation). 

It sounds excellent so far and there are popular tracks there, indicated on the list that I had on YouTube for a while, so if you get a chance give them a listen and you will get a general feel for what's to come, in this dystopian future. ^ Links are above ^ 

My camp address for this album is here: Bandcamp: Dystopia the album

The linked sites will be updated daily or when new information is available. Thankyou and good night, everybody. 

   

New album and singles been released!

New album and single of Exe.Dist being released on CDbaby.com, details to follow... 

This new Album is called Transience  by Transquanta (which is my old band name), Which is a mishmash of different genres including rock, pop, EDM, Trance, drum and bass and much more!

This album is currently three years in the making and will retail for $9.99 (which I don't think is too bad for a large album). 

This album includes 30 songs some old, some new, some popular, some obscure. But they are good sounding songs and were all composed by Stuart W (me) and mastered by James B. 

The single i'm releasing is a high quality remaster of "Do you love me (Take me back)", which was a popular pick on YouTube and has been recommended a few time to me in correspondence with different people. 

Both should be online to buy and download from friday the 13th January 2017 and the single is currently priced at a buck ($1). 

I hope this goes down better than my last album release that only sold a handful of copies and I ended up losing quite a bit of money over; But that was with launching a album physically, this time I'm only doing digital downloads to gauge popularity before diving into manufacturing again. 

All file downloads will be CD quality mastered copies which should operate on all systems.

I've also now got a WIKI page which is at this following address: Exedistmusic.wikia.com

This is kind of like my new music filing system, as my Youtube has got a bit cluttered, and on the Wiki it has individual track information and different pages divided into genres. Theres also a full history on there, links and contact information. So it's your one stop place for anything Exe.Dist.

I hope you are enjoying my blog and if you have any ideas or questions don't hesitate to ask me anything at all. 

New releases (Exe.Dist charts)

1. Drum and bass tune "drum with me" 

New music in progress and the reason I'm making it.

Music is my life:

This song is about me struggling to get on in the music industry and the hurdles I have to cross, and the fact it's starting to destroy my passion. It starts off with a piano and builds  up adding bass and synths, then it comes to the first chorus which goes "Stop doing this to me, music is my life don't take it from me", which I think is a catchy tagline. the tune was inspired by "Alan Walker's-fader" which has some nice piano work and complimentary synthesis, while my tune won't be as heavy, it will still retain some kick.

I've taken the drums on this one from loops, then added on top with my MPC and re-recorded hihats and snare lines. The bass is provided by Serum which has a very good acoustic electric bass sound, which is very realistic. 

I'm currently writing lyrics for this song and it should be out tomorrow if he mastering process is successful, and i can get the overall mix to sound good. This will in a electropop style, verging on EDM fusion, with some hints of pop rock.

I'm writing this song as it's getting increasingly difficult for me to get new views on my music and it's kind of pushing me towards packing it all in and finding something else to do with my life. This I don't want to do as I enjoy what I do, but I kind of want some kind of recognition for the effort which I've put into my work, and the fact that I know my music is likable and  some of it is mainstream studio grade works.

That's all for now hopefully the track will be ready for tomorrow and I'll post the links when it's up.  

I've been buried on Reddit?

So I started a new Reddit account, and this is what has happened!

So four days ago I decided to give Reddit a try (the same time that I signed up for a few websites to try and promote my music. I signed up to reddit thinking its a place where you can share anything? WRONG! according to the fair use policy, if over 10% of you total posts are about you, you get marked as spam and all future posts are buried and hidden from the new posts list. This has happened on all posts that I've created since this morning including a motivated motivational story I scripted this morning and three Drum and bass pieces I posted to the /Drumandbass, which I might add were different artists work and nothing to do with me, I just thought they were interesting. I didn't have a clue that Reddit operated in that way, and if I could roll back time I would have chosen never to create that account as it's now a useless tool to me as i needed it for exposure. I guess I still have this site where I'm at l;east getting some traffic, some thumbs up but unfortunately no feedback as of yet, which is kind of why I set up this Blog thing, so people could interact with me and help me expand on my horizons. I also joined a site a called Wordpress today again its a blog and kind of like webspace, but very limited workspace at that. I have a website on wix @ Exe.dist on Wix which I haven't updated in two years as it wasn't worth it and provided no additional exposure.  I have a page also on Bandcamp which is cool and has a load of my music on it for paid download, but have ever sold three albums in two years and ever have that much traffic. Exe.Dist and Transquanta on Bandcamp

If anybody has any clue how I can further expose myself and Exe.Dist as a whole please comment below. thank you for reading

Equipment in pictures.

This is my equipment with pictures I can find on the web, so to keep this interesting. 
This is all Equipment which  I own in studio, either purchased new or second hand. I will try to add pricing as I go along (this is an edit I've been asked to do on another site, so I will give you current pricing if you purchased these items today, many of these items have held their value pretty well. Pricing will be from ebay and GAK (p.s: the Heco lab2 speakers are not available anywhere due to their rarity, but have an approximate value to share/plus I'll put the new price when they were available in the early 80's. These speakers were actually given to us by a customer which couldn't pay for his studio time, and to honest we got an amazing deal). But anyway here is a list, with pictures, pricing and description of what I own in my studio and living room (the play back room!)  


Firstly Keyboards: Yamaha Tyros Workstation: This is a 61 key keyboard, with auto accompaniment, Vocoder (voice changer), extensive live effects section (there is a jack on the back so you can plug a guitar into it and run it through the effects!), it has a 16 channel MIDI recorder and a quite extensive synthesiser and control adjustment facility (via a computer). I purchased mine for around £900, which came with a stand and a 2.1 surround speaker system! as well as all brackets to mount it to the keyboard.

Then speakers: KRK Rokit G3 6's: I bought these about five months ago and they are great for there completely flat frequency response and non colouration of the sound. They were recommended to me for electronic music and they excel at dance and trance music and have the ability to crank the bass up for playing back drum and bass sounds and samples to great effect! They cost me £150 each, which isn't to bad for what you get. They are around 65 watts and have a built in amplifier and have been notably used in the main london studio of Amy Winehouse.

Heco Lab 2 Reference speakers:
These are two pairs of Heco reference speakers from the 1980's which were sold for a year and half and then mysteriously discontinued, there is nothing wrong with the units and are some of the best reference speakers I've ever come across; and I used to work for three years in a professional speaker, surround sounds and component systems shop in my hometown, so have a good ear for quality speakers. These were in excess of around £3000, each! when they were sold in 1983, they were purchased by this dudes dad for five grand in a clearance sale, which he got two pairs of these speakers, plus a 18" 200 Watt subwoofer (which we also now own). These speakers ere a git to get in the house as they weigh in excess of 100 KG each and are nearly as tall as me (I'm 6' 2"). I came across one of these puppies on a auction site a few months back and it went for £1,800 which ait bas since they are over twenty years old. Ebay has never seen a Lab 2 or above (yes this is the small series of the Heco Lab line up and subsequently the cheapest!) These also came with a Nakamichi amplifier, which is near;y he next item on the list. Next is two book shelf speakers!

Kef Cresta 10 Reference speakers:

These are my first pro speakers which were given to me by my father back in the late 90's, they are 100 watt each and they pack a heck of a punch. I think they were about £200 a pair back then, although you can find these for around £30-50 on eBay nowhere days.
  

Amplifier: Nakamichi PA-7 x2

This is another oddity of my collection, these amps were received at the same time as the Heco Lab 2 speakers (Above). They were around £7k when they hit the market, they were bought by the same dudes dad for about £4500 for the pair, but with the Heco speakers (so that was one expensive purchase!) these apparently according to the manual have about 126 transistors per channel, which is a bit pathetic by today's standard (since you can get chips with several million transistors packed into them these days, but back then this was a marvel of technology! You can get the same unis on eBay nowhere days for about £800-£1200 depending on condition and if you want the Caps to work or have a electronics project to do? (like one of my units powers on but has no sound, and its probably a bad cap causing the issue, so that's in for repair in the next few weeks!

Then onto Daw equipment and control interfaces:

Cubase 8:

Cubase Elements 8 is my DAW choice (DAW stands for Digital Audio Workstation), this is my primary sequencer, arranger, sampler, sound processor and mastering system (even though we have a separate computer with steinberg Wavelab installed on for mastering of my projects. When I went to college I trained in cubase and protools, I like sequencing things and Protools is great for recording things like instrumentation, but not very good for sequencing. So I trained heavily on Cubase so that's the program I went out and purchased when I left college and have kept on upgrading ever since (whenever the pricing is right, as cubase 9 is out now but the price hasn't sufficiently come down yet so I'm not prepared to upgrade just yet. This is kind of the main hub for all my virtual instruments and I tend to switch it on instead of standalone versions of VST's because if I want to make a song it's seamless! My version cost around £200

Akai MPC Studio:
Thi sis my toy I got for Christmas with a bit of money from my parents and a bit of money from sample pack sales. It comes with a 16 pad controller and a DAW to program everything with. It's mainly used as a drum machine now in my setup, but can be used to chop up samples and songs for use in other productions. This cost £330 from GAK.

Accordion:

Weltmeister Diana 120 Bass:
This is a 120 bass Accordion with five couplers on the treble side and five couplers on the bass side for sound selection, it belonged and was purchased by my grandad and was given to me in inheritance when he died. its been valued for insurance at £4000 and has been revalued at the possible place of origin (one of the only and mai accordion sop in the UK, Allodi Accordions in London) This one has a custom faceplate on it and just the faceplate which is gilded with gold mesh, has been valued at about alf the original price of the unit. Accordions aint cheap but this one ise pretty expensive as they go. But it's what's called a triple reed instrument (so air blows through tree sets of reeds per sound, so the max number of reeds operating at the same time can be nine sets of reeds), so this Accordion sounds absolutely amazing!

Soundcard:
This is my soundcard which came with a powered condenser microphone, headphones, cables, and software which I think was a light version of ableton live which I never downloaded as I don't particularly like using that software very much. This was a very good kit and was bought for £90, which is a bargain!

Samplers:

Yamaha A3000:
My favourite sampler due to its key mapping features and psycho acoustic effects! I've installed a small hard disk in mie and its racked up and sees use most days.

 

Akai S6000:

This is my old Akai sampler which I've now kind of replaced with the MPC studio, but will still use occasionally. This has a lot of features on it. and its an excellent sampler. But my unit may or may not be sold as I may not use it anymore, i'll see what happens?

VST'is

Nexus:
One of my favourite Dance and trance synths, one synth that I know Avicii uses.has excellent piano sound on-board and the trance gate is not to bad of a feature. major con is that you can't make your own voices.

Serum:
This si very good at Dubstep sounds and is partially sample based. The pads are pretty wicked!

Kontakt 5.6:
This is a samples based synth and a very good one at that. I have a piano which is like a real grand piano for this sampler and I have a wicked orchestral sample pack with violins, brass and harps...
Like my outboard samplers I love making new samples and key mapping them into Kontakt, to put into my tunes! I like the ease of use!

Diva:
This is my new synth which so far is good for lots of different kinds of EDM and have several coice packs to trawl trough so I may do a demo and review of this soon!

Sylenth:
Again this is one for the synths I got for christmas, so far it's been good for my trance music, but I for my full in depth view s you will have to wait until I do the testing and demo video.

Hydra:
This is a really retro VST as VST's go,m very good for Drum And bass and things you want grimy sounds on.

Sub boom bass:
I use this primaily for my D&B projects as it is very subwoofer friendly and adds lots of bass to my EDM tracks. This is a fairly cheap VST as they go.

Predator:

I got this for christmas, as it was cheap so wait until I do a review on this puppy!

VST'es

Antares Auto tune:
Very good at re-pitching vocals. Cher and T-pain used these kind auto tunes but back then they were hardware retuners

Ozone 7:
I use this for mastering nearly my songs, very good for giving my tracks added shine!

Audio Thing-Exciter/Valve emulator:
Good for adding warmth.

Voxengo Voxformer:
Another vocal processor, but this one can remove a lot of vocal mistakes like hisses and plosives.