Purple Rhapsody’s Blog

Don Quixote – Tilting at Windmills

Well, I’ve been a bit too busy recently to be spending much time on music however I have been trying to expand my musical horizons by integrating electric guitar, full orchestra, classical guitar, flamenco styles, etc into one piece of music.

I think I might have bitten off more than I can chew because I’m finding it very very difficult to get a decent mix. I’ve put a link below to the track on Soundcloud… please please please please comment on what you think about it. Remember that it is a work in progress but any hints, tips, or ideas on how to improve this would be very gratefully received!

Quixote (Tilting at Windmills)  by  Purple Rhapsody

Cheers,

Terry.

Too Many New Toys!

Well – after wanting the Complete Composers Collection for so long, now that I’ve finally got it I’m kind of overwhelmed! I’m watching tutorial videos, playing with mod wheels, trying out new sounds (choirs, rock guitars, gypsy violins, etc, etc) and now with all this choice how do I pick and choose what gets used in various tracks????

I guess you’ll just have to watch this space – I’ll post snippets as and when I finally get something recorded.

Cheers,

Terry.

Big Purchase – Complete Composers Collection

Well… those that know me will realise that my love and respect for my wife know no bounds. So I can’t say that I love her more than I did, however she has made me a very very very very happy musician!

It’s my birthday next Sunday and after prevaricating for roughly 9 months about whether or not to get more East West Quantum Leap software she has persuaded me to take advantage of the current 70% off the Complete Composer Collection.

I have customised it slightly because I already have the Orchestra and don’t need the Pianos so I’ve replaced them with Ministry of Rock and the Stormdrum 2 PRO upgrade so when it arrives I’ll have almost the complete suite that they produce.

The quality of the Orchestra is absolutely superb, the care and attention they take over recording the sounds and creating the samples is unsurpassed so I’m immensely looking forward to next weekend when FedEx will hopefully have delivered them.

Anyway, enough of an advert for East West and back to figuring out how I can thank my wife for my birthday present…

Cheers,

Terry.

My Music is on Jango.com?

I was surprised to find my music on Jango.com while surfing the web the other week. They’ve managed to get one of my tracks – Empty Stage – on there but I know that I didn’t upload it and I hadn’t signed up to them.

I’m not complaining! Any outlet for my music is welcome… but I am curious as to how they got my details. The profile picture they’ve got is from my ReverbNation page but I didn’t think ReverbNation would have allowed another site to stream my music…

Anyway, I’ve associated myself with the account and updated some Bio details on there but if anyone knows where they source their music from I’d be grateful if they could explain it to me!

Cheers,

Terry.

Productive Day + Album News

Hi,

Just had a very productive weekend!

Managed to finish 2 tracks – a ‘spy’ theme and a ‘monsters’ theme. My next album is tentatively title ‘Faerie Tales and Other Stories’ but I might need to rethink that as there seems to a bit of movie ideas in there.

The spy theme is based on my Devil May Care (http://soundclick.com/share?songid=6345006) track that I wrote for a competition a while ago. Listening back to it now there are so many things I could have done better… so I have!

The monsters theme started off as an idea for a spooky start followed by nightmarish percussion and orchestra but ended up as a spooky start, followed by techno style bass, and then an orchestra on top of it! Sounds a bit mixed up and I’ve yet to sort out the mixing and mastering of it so it might all change again, but I’m happy with the recording so far.

Also planned to be on the album are:

Empty Stage (http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_1365619)

In A Nutshell (http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_3059503)

In total I’ve got 30 minutes in a decent state and another 30 minutes waiting for me to arrange, record, etc so it’ll be a 60 minute album!

Anyway, back to real life now… got to do some ironing

Cheers,

Terry.

In A Nutshell

Hi,

Well 2009 is almost over and 2010 hovers on the horizon just beyond New Years Eve… and I’ve just about finished another piece of music. I’m working on tracks for my next album, tentatively titled Faerie Tales and Other Stories, and I thought I’d share a track called ‘In A Nutshell’.

The track is finished musically and structurally but hasn’t been mixed or mastered properly yet and there are a couple of pops and clicks due to an overworked laptop.

I’ve uploaded it to SoundCloud (should be a widget on here somewhere) and also to ReverbNation and MySpace.

In A Nutshell by Purple Rhapsody

I’d be grateful if you could share your thoughts on it with me.

Wishing you all the very best for the coming year.

Cheers,

Terry.

FREE version of East West Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra

Some of you may know that I used EWQL Symphonic Orchestra Gold Edition on my last album - well now they’re giving away a free version. It’s cut-down but is not time limited.

Go to http://soundsonline.com/free-orchestra to see the details.

Endless Lives now available for download

Hi,

It’s been a while but CDBaby have finally got Endless Lives distributed digitally to iTunes (globally) and also amazon in the US and UK.

They’ll also be distributing it to a multitude of other sites so check out your favourite MP3 download store over the next few days to see it it’s there yet.

Of course, the download sites only offer partial previews of tracks so if you want to listen to the whole album for free before you decide whether or not you want to buy it then visit the Purple Rhapsody albums page and listen in the player.

It would obviously make a fantastic Christmas present for friends and family and would also just make my Christmas if you bought it!

Cheers,

Terry.

Soundcloud and a new track

Hi,

As always… I’ve not been blogging enough!!!!

Anyway, I’ve discovered a new music sharing site called Soundcloud. It appears to be similar to other music sharing sites but is more accomodating of different file formats and seems to be built for sharing music (by streaming only if that’s what you want).

I think it seems like a good site to use so I’ve put a new track up there to try it out…

The new track is called ‘November Wind’ and was inspired by the currently lovely weather (!) we’re having in the UK right now.

It’s approximately 3 minutes long and is completely solo piano.

The link to the track is:

http://soundcloud.com/purplerhapsody/november-wind

Hope you enjoy it… Soundcloud is supposed to enable comments to be made so feel free to do it (I don’t know if you have to register first).

Cheers,

Terry.

Remixing a dance track?!?!??!

Well… computer music magazine are running a competition in their November issue to remix SmartBomb by Sole Claw (aka Myagi).

I downloaded the original (really isn’t my taste unfortunately) and got all the samples off the CM disk and set to work.

I think I’ll never be a remixer – my inclination was to slow it right down and make it more melodic but that just wasn’t possible. In the end I used some tempo-synced Evolve Mutations sounds to add a bit more atmosphere and life but although I think the end result is okay (and quite different from the original) I have a feeling it isn’t going to win…

Still, I’ll refine it over the next few days and see what happens… I might have a brainwave!!!!

Yo… peace out!

Terry.