Woah.

Firdaus blew me away with his version (with vocals) of One World, posted just a few days ago.

Listen!
ONE WORLD (Firdaus on Vocals)

I say!

He’s done a very nice job doing a this remix. He’s edited the start slight. I know, ‘cos I played the song but you probably wouldn’t have detected it.

Firdaus was worried that I might be unhappy or something; that he might have messed up my song. Dude, why would I be. It’s all in the spirit of collaboration.

Besides, the song is released under the attribute-SHARE-ALIKE-noncommercial creative commons license.

Good or bad mash-up, I wouldn’t have minded.

BUT IT IS GOOD, and I. Am. Simply. LOVING IT.

I’m bobbing my head as I listen to his version. It’s like, he GETS what I was trying to convey through the song and the choice of title.

One World.
One Family.
One Life.

His vocal melody aptly expressed what I had in mind but wasn’t able to sing. AND THEN SOME.

Man, I’m having the goosebumpy feeling.

Mash-ups like this is precisely what I (and I’m sure Adrian as well) had hoped to achieve, when we decided to release music online.

Thanks, Firdaus (and also to those who bothered to listen and leave comments to the song).

One World.

~Ivan

This is my new song and I’m a-loving it!

ONE WORLD

I am super happy with this song. I seldom say that I’m pleased with my compositions, or playing or mixing. But this is one of the rare times I really cannot complain.

It was a fun song to compose and play as well. The mixing took a long, long time. About 4 weeks, ‘cos I worked on the track on and off.

This is the version without the lead. Try jamming along with it and create your own version (Creative Commons license applies):

ONE WORLD (minus the lead)

Total of 19 layers (including the four layers for the lead). Quite a complex song by my standards, so much so that I craved for more computing power and RAM (my 2GB was not sufficient).

The lead melody was composed, recorded and edited in one session. Over 12 hours I think. I was on a roll and didn’t want to stop. Many takes and edits as usual (my ‘live’ playing is nowhere as smooth as what you hear).

First I recorded the rhythm track (A/ E/ B/ C#m) and then added the drum loops. The drums played a very important part in this song because it gave the whole upbeat feel. You can see from the screen shot that it’s a layer of three loops, and each layer are heavily spliced with a mix of quite a few loops. I sampled the GB loops and picked out those that gave me the drum notes I wanted. Then spliced them in. This took quite a bit of time.

Then another major part was spent on the bass (three four layers). In truth, it was due to this song that made me go out and buy a bass guitar! Then I watched some YouTube videos to learn how to play it (I played it like a guitar at first). Apparently the YouTube lessons paid off! LOL

I discovered that by combining two amp effects, I could make the guitar sounds much more solid sounding and/ or crunchier. Here’s one example of the lead guitar effects:

OK, I hope you enjoy this song.

I consider this my signature song for 2008.

[UPDATE: Check this out!!! Firdaus does a mash-up]

~Ivan

I don’t know many Singaporean rock musicians personally. But I happen to know Linda, Lunarin’s singer/ bassist (we got acquainted from a library-related event).

So anyway, I emailed Linda about the song, “Here And Now“, since it wasn’t that bad.

She obligingly listened to it and emailed me her comments. So nice of her to do so! Here’s what she thought about the song (posted with permission):

Ok, I took a listen to this last night and have listened to it again this morning.

Overall the sound quality is great! Will certainly ask you for tips next time when I set up my home studio.

In terms of arrangement I really dig the mid section part onwards. In terms of the intro, I thought perhaps the two guitar parts could balance out a bit - I thought the background rhythm guitar could be a little jarring at times. But once the song moves on to the next movement - now that I really dig! And I am beginning to realize the mid section is quite “your sound” and is what I like about your compositions so far.

Thanks so much, Linda.

Encouragements like this one… priceless.

~ Ivan

Did these songs over the last two weeks. Both were mashups, courtesy of two blokes from Songcraft.

This one’s with Chris, titled “We Are”. I added in the lead guitar and bass parts to his original recording.

And this one’s with Firdaus. It’s a guitar instrumental version of his original composition, titled “Summer Days, Winter Nights”:

Both songs were great excuses for me to practice on my new bass guitar!

~ Ivan

Mmm… I like the melodic feel to this bass lead.

This guy’s good.

And these two are like… WOAH!

~ Ivan

Worked on this for a few weeks. My attempt at an angsty rock guitar instrumental. After about 14 versions, I came up with this:

HERE AND NOW - 2008

Chords: Em/ D/ A + C/ G
Tempo: 90 bps

I’m not 100% satisfied with it. The sound engineering can be improved. The playback volume is not as loud as I want it to be, and I think the overall bass frequency can be adjusted better. But since I’ve reached the limits of what I know, this will have to do.

Started with a distortion guitar track (rhythm part), which expanded to include more guitars (lead and rhythms), then synth, bass, drums etc.

Then I let Adrian listen to this version (#10):

So I took his comments and continued working on the piece, especially the lead. In the end, I decided to retain the initial lead melody, but I revised the middle part completely. You’ll probably hear a marked difference between version #10 and the final one.

This piece has 19 layers (my Macbook Pro’s 2GB memory wasn’t enough to cope, so I had to lock some tracks).

~ Ivan

Learned about this Singaporean artist, Faith Yang (via Jerron, who posted to the folks at Songcraft).

Jerron added that Faith Yang was formerly from “2Gals” (”两个女生”) that did quite well in Taiwan & Singapore in the late 1990s. I found this article from Channelnewsasia.

Faith Yang (not to be confused with another “Faith Yang” who’s implicated in a drug scandal) was interviewed on Podcast.sg recently (if you’re confused why the DJ started by talking about jewelery, Cavemen and Christmas trees, you’re not alone. But listen on).

In the audio interview, Faith explains more about Rebirth (www.rebirth.sg), a collaboration/ production house.

From this post:

And I am happy to have founded this audio production house. Other than that, we hunger for our own creation freedom and space as well. We invite other talents to work with us on the visuals side of things. We call ourselves, the ‘Rebirth’.

This page says “We love to work with others”.

Um… Adrian, you think Faith will consider singing for one of our songs? LOL

Faith just launched her first single titled “Simple Living” (you can hear samples here).

She’s got a nice voice.

And marketable looks.

Recipes for success.

I like the track that is featured in this post (starts off with a piano piece, and then the distortion guitars coming in). It doesn’t seem to be featured in the samples though.

The CD retails at SGD$11.90 and can be purchased online

Will I buy the album?

Let’s put it this way… it’s like some of our reviewers saying they like our SeaStars album on the whole, but they probably won’t buy it ‘cos New Age isn’t really their thing. Ah, but to compare SeaStars and Faith Yang would be to compare two proven amateurs with one proven singer/ composer!

In my rambling way, I’m not saying it’s a flat no. I may not be ordering the CD right this instant but l’ve subscribe to her blog. If her blog posts make a connection with me, and if her songs continue to be as good, then I’m sure it’s a matter of time that I make that purchase.

Anyway, good luck with the CD sales, Faith Yang. I’m happy to see a Singaporean artiste creating her own opportunities, and making her own brand of music.

~ Ivan

This is an instrumental version of this song (published in my personal Art blog). I’m releasing this as part of the Starfish Stories collection.

JUST WANNA BE WITH YOU - GUITAR INSTRUMENTAL

I’d stripped away the vocals from the earlier song. Then added “live” guitar tracks, drums, bass, incidentals like Piano and Phased Sitar.

I feel that this song is quite complete. But maybe Adrian or listeners here might think otherwise (I’m open to suggestions!)

~ Ivan

Yo Adrian, check him out!

I have his album from years back. But first time I’ve seen his 20-string Harp-guitar up close and seeing him play “live”. More of his music at Last.fm.

~ Ivan

My friend, Ollie, pointed me to this musician, David Greer, at www.davidgreer.net. Says he’s a singer/songwriter from Montgomery, Alabama.

One of his songs automatically loaded and started playing when his website loaded. Normally I hated that but this time was an exception. It was his singing, the arrangement, the sound of the instruments, the sound engineering… whatever.

It was excellent stuff.

I downloaded all the songs. Took quite a bit of time but it was worth it.

Being a free-thinker, I’m not into any particular religious-inspired music of any kind. Actually, it’s more accurate to say that I enjoy all sorts of music if the melody and tune gets to me.

David Greer’s music does get to me.

He’s got a new fan.

Subscribed to his mailing list.

Can’t wait for more.

~ Ivan