The last time I posted news was early 2016. Goodness... I've neglected my music for that long. Terrible.

Part of this is because life gets more complicated and more demanding. Part of this is (honestly) because I hate not sitting right with my partner when I'm home which means my music PC, in the office, stays mostly off and far away.

With a view to reinvigorate my music production, I've upgraded my laptop (which is a powerful Asus N552VW) with a 3rd internal HDD - Western Digital Black, 1TB. This is a fast (7200rpm) drive on which I now keep all my virtual instrument data. This way, I don't need to use external drives and I can more comfortably create music no matter where I am.

I hope this will get me making music again since, now, I no longer have an excuse. It's at my finger-tips at all times.

I had a little free time. I got the music bug again. Something got made. :3

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/678210

I'll start with some honesty: I've been using cheap, old, not very good headphones for a long time. Sure, they are balanced so they gave a good representation of the spectrum but they are by no means precise... I've used this same pair for maybe 6 years.

Then my Sennheiser HD280s arrived.

Initial reactions: Wait. Wait. Wait. What? You mean I can hear the precise difference between the bass and kick drum now? You mean that the way the voice and guitar sounded muddled was just because of my headphones? What is this sense of... space? Is that... "air"?!

I didn't believe the difference would be so great but... Man I'm so glad it is. Good news though: My old tracks still sound good with the new headphones. PHEW! The headphones are a bit tight - I have a big head and I wear glasses - so I don't know if I could use them for long stretches of time until they're a bit older but otherwise I'm seriously impressed.

So I read @Lich's list of gear and it made me realise I haven't tallied up what I actually have recently. I got a bunch of cool stuff from doing reviews on TheAudioSpotlight etc so... here goes! I'll edit if I forget something (currently still WIP). I'll add a wishlist too, so any comments on those things are more than welcome, say, an opinion or alternative suggestion. :)

Instruments:

• LTD F400 Electric Guitar
• Yamaha FG700 Acoustic Guitar
• SoundGear Bass Guitar
• Ibanez Gio Electric Guitar (was my first)

Microphone:

• Rode NT1-A

Midi Controller and Audio Interface:

• M-Audio Axiom 61
• Line 6 UX2

Mixing and Mastering Plugins:

• Izotope:

1. Ozone 5
2. Alloy 2
3. Nectar 2

Virtual Instrument Plugins:

• Native Instruments Komplete 8 (27 instruments and effects) + Session Strings
• EWQL Complete Composer's Collection Gold +1:

1. QL Spaces
2. Pianos
3. Hollywood Strings
4. Hollywood Brass
5. Orchestral Woodwinds
6. Ra
7. Choirs
8. Goliath

• EWQL Symphonic Orchestra Gold
• SampleLogic

1. Bohemian
2. Cinematic Keys

• Heavyocity:

1. Evolve Mutations 1&2
2. Master Sessions Ensemble Drums Collection
3. C-Tools

• AntiSample Cinematic Grand
• Tone2 Electra 2
• Embertone Jubal Flute
• AudioModern Abuser

DAW (Software and Hardware)

• REAPER! \m/ (Don't fear it...)
• i7 Intel Core i7-3820 3.60GHz
• Gigabyte X79-UP4 Intel X79
• Samsung Green 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz
• Crucial RealSSD M4 256G
• Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB
• Corsair Builder Series CX 750w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' PSU
• Silverstone Precision PS06 USB 3.0 Midi Tower Case

Wishlist:

• Focusrite Scarlett 2i4
• Sony MDR 7056 Monitoring Headphones (alternatives in this price range welcome, up to £130) - I bought a pair of Sennheiser HD280s in the end after Sony Customer Support screwed me over. WOW! Such good headphones!
• New speakers, currently using a cheap Logitec set. It's got me this far though!
• New bass: Not decided which yet, but I want something with more umph.
• New guitar: A mid-range (£1200) ESP with Seymour Duncan pickups and a Floyd Rose

I've finished Revelation. The song that I wrote 4 years ago and then spent 4 years learning to sing (secretly when nobody was watching) in order to complete. I've finished it, I swear.
 

Just let me tweak it a bit.

*50+ tweaks, 2 cups of tea and 4 hours later*

It's finished I swear...

But tomorrow's another day.

I want this to be perfect... Am I chasing my own shadow?

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/28025798/My%20Music/Revelation%20Cut.mp3

That's it... I passed! I'm a languages teacher at last.

I can't believe it's over but I'm so relieved!

Live listening party for Harmony of Heroes! The Smash Bros. cover/tribute album. Come listen, we're live now!

http://areciboradio.com/home

I need to ask myself an important question.

I enjoy singing. I mean, I REALLY enjoy singing and recording vocals for my songs. But now I feel like I can never go back to NOT singing on my tracks. If you haven't noticed, many of my recent submissions have vocals (of varying quality as I work this stuff out). Maybe I'll be fine going back to instrumental tracks when the time comes, especially if someone is paying me to write something, but I don't think I'll ever write another rock or metal track without vocals from now on, now that I have discovered my voice. It's simply fulfilling in a placethat I was never able to reach before.

I really got into it with my latest track, I experimented a lot too.

Not that I'm complaining!

I just broke the main fan on my PC case like a f****** moron. I opened it up while it was on because it was dusty and I wanted to clean it but couldn't be bothered to shut down first. Now I've ordered a new one but I probably can't use my PC until I have the new one. I have a decent laptop too but I can't run all my music software on it. :(

Lesson learned.

Edit: It's fixed now!

My new keyboard arrived today, an M-Audio Axiom 49, so I had a little fiddle around and made a gentle piece of music. Thanks to Step for his advice on which keyboard to get! The track itself is still very "WIP" and hasn't been mixed at all, so don't expect my usual level of work. One thing's for sure, it sounds a lot more organic.

Bigger news yet, I finished this crazy song of mine, Ego Betrayed.

This track was 2 weeks in the making and still needs a bit of tweaking, but I lost perspective on the mix and decided I might as well publish it now. I worked really hard on the vocals and learnt a new approach to singing. The music is made up for 70 different tracks (60 if you ignore the busses) so it was a beast to mix, too.

Aaand that's the news for today. :)