Music « Portfolio of Michael T. Mayers

Music

If you can tolerate some repetiveness, bad lyrics and sometimes bad timing, then here is some of the music I do. I wish I had more time to spend on it. Crunching in the games industry sucks up all my time. Most of the items here are more like song fragments or sketches (Again, due to lack of time). The average length of time spent working on each piece is probably around 4-8 hours, from initial composition to mixing. The repetitiveness comes in because of good ol copy and paste. The bad timing because I don’t practice enough. And the bad lyrics, well, I’m not a poet, and I certainly know it (I usually spend about 1 or 2 minutes on the lyrics). And the singing, uggh – Good thing I have a day job ;> Seriously though, If I spent more time on it I’m sure I could come up with something half decent. As a general rule I do not used canned loops, though there are a few exceptions.
And yes, I really do go a year or two between writing song fragments (you can tell;>). My new years resolution for 2010 is to spend some more time on da music. I am guessing a well done single song will probably take on the order of 100hrs of work. Maybe I will actually get a full song out this year.

This material has not been mastered properly.
For best results listen to it on some nice bassy headphones with a nice headphone amp. (Like which I engineered it on)

sony mdr 7506’s (They make a huge difference)

Solo Works (2010)

Skinny Puppy Dance Remix, Testure, Indian Percussion.
WTF was I thinking? …. ;>

Testxture
Testure: Original Composition: Copyright 1988 Skinny Puppy

All in Reaper, No external equipment, All “performance” in the MIDI editor (even the drums).
Just a test. Learning Reaper (so far, Reaper rocks!)

Situation

K2VX/VSynth, and Sonar 2.0
Just practicing.

Cage2010

TweakoZ And Friends (2010)

This is an ambient collage made from some recordings at our party in 2003 and some random older material.
It brings new meaning to the term “mashup”.
I will warn you in advance, it is 15 minutes long and it goes all over the place.
Much of it is random, but it gets surprisingly cohesive in a few spots and somehow a progression emerged.
Collage is fun, for 12 hours of arranging and mixing I get 15 minutes of music (if you can call it music ;>).
It started out as an exercise in dense arranging and mixing.
How many layers can you cram in and still have enough clarity to make out the pieces?
Because of the mix density, a nice set of headphones are recommended for hearing all the details.
I have a ton of old DATS to go thru, I think I will to do another..
I am a little at odds between the heavier effected version and the cleaner version, so I put both up.

WTF (Cleaner Version)

WTF, aka “for those with an unusually high tolerance for sculpted noise” or “dueling multiband compressors”

Copyright 2010 TweakoZ And Friends
Recording/Arranging/Mixing/Bass/Keyboards/Engineering – Michael T. Mayers
Vocals- Spookus Dotticus And The Wolf
Guitar- Michael Ulrick
Ambience- The Party Goers

Solo Works (2008)

Just messing around with the caps lock keyboard in Logic Audio.

Tweakmix08

Solo Works (2007)

K2VX/VSynth, and Sonar 2.0

HalloMix

Solo Works (2002, 2003)

korg triton, kurzweil k2000R, Digitech 2120 artist, many plugins and Sonar2.0

Prayers For Rain (Cure Cover)

Copyright 2002, 2003, Composition/Keyboards/Guitar/Vocals/Engineering – Michael T. Mayers
Prayers for rain: Composition: The Cure. Keyboards/Guitar/Engineering – Michael T. Mayers