Jun. 4th, 2009 @ 11:22AM
Passport - What a journey

I uploaded another song from the 2002 recording sessions for all the fans of my friend Aline's voice. This one's called Paasport. It was actually the second song I wrote in the US right after Emotions. I was contemplating my return to The Netherlands while my soon to be wife was at work. I didn't write any of the music but matched it to an existing song at home. It was an alternative rock song and not the greatest match. A few years later I picked the song back up and re-did parts of it. They sounded really cool. While doing that I also experimented with different styles. I ended up creating three different versions, rock, funk and jazz. One day I will have a real poll to see which version resonates most with people and suits Aline's vocals the best. I like all three of them, they all have their special elments. First up is the Jazz version. It's amazing how her timing works in different styles.

Enjoy!Nils

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The Sound Obsession

Some of you may wonder why I asked everyone to provide some constructive criticism on the sound of my latest upload Sugar Please.

The answer is very simple. I am trying to improve the quality of my recordings continuously. Ever since I started home recording as a teenager at least 20 years ago I tried to create the best possible result with my affordable equipment. Every equipment upgrade had to fit into the scheme of being flexible and expandable while adding something to the quality of the sound. After years and years of practising and improving my mixing capabilities I reached a certain level about five years ago. Most of my songs on this site come from that timeframe. The overall quality is good but not professional. Don't get me wrong, in order to create a professional rock sound I would have to use a real drummer and a professional studio and probably the engineer that comes with it. But as long as I am on a budget I can make minor tweaks in the hopes of getting as close as I can get to the professional recording.

Listening back on some of the tracks I noticed that when it came to balance I was struggling with the bass. I made a few adjustments to the sound when recording and most of all started playing better. Still, the whole area between kick drum and bass guitar was a little muddled and in order to hear them both volume was my last resort since I eq'ed the crap out of both already. Another area of concern were the drums in general. Even though I got pretty handy when it came to creating and using samples I couldn't quite find the sound I had in my head. I like a piccolo snare and what you hear on Bank Robber for example is the rim shot from a canned sample from my sampler.

Recently I set out to utilize a software drum sampler at home and I built quite an environment to make it happen and only pay for the software itself (without upgrading my mac, DAW software etc). I am still getting familiar with the software but I think I achieved my goal of raising the bar for myself. Now that might make me feel good but what's really important is what the listeners think. I would like to thank you all who took the time to listen and left me a comment.