Uploaded the Masters from the Conelrad Radio album and removed the demos. You can get the whole album for free from http://www.medullacorp.com. Donations to Unicef in return are greatly appreciated!

Plotting my next project... will take a while but I think it will be fun.

Dante Jones.

Right now I am spamming you all with this:



medullacorp.com is offering offering a free album download from Dante Jones and a free Puzzle game for both Mac and PC. All we ask in return is a donation to UNICEF to help children suffering around the world.

Please visit http://www.medullacorp.com for more information.

DANTE JONES - CONELRAD RADIO

Conelrad Radio is the debut album from the electronic/acoustic beats, bleeps, and dub musician, Dante Jones.

The albums influences include Cold War paranoia, UFOs, and 1950s Sci-Fi movies.

CONELRAD RADIO flicks effortlessly between Jazz influenced, fully acoustic soundtracks to deep bass, distorted electro dub, with a splashing of chip-tune from one of the pioneers for computer based music (originally publishing under the title of 500 Things...).

CONELRAD RADIO is free to download. Simply donate what you can to UNICEF.

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DOKI DOKI BLOKI - PC and MAC

DOKI DOKI BLOKI is a picture puzzle game for all ages. The puzzles start simple but don?t get tricked.

Use the number clues placed around the puzzle to work out when to paint your BLOKI and when not.

The game gets you started with some simple 5 by 5 pictures, but soon you?ll be on to 10 by 10 and 15 by 15 puzzles.

DOKI DOKI BLOKI will tax and twist your brain in the most fun way possible!

DOKI DOKI BLOKI is free to download. Simply donate what you can to UNICEF.

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This week I released the Dante Jones album - Conelrad Rad - on medullacorp.com. The album is free to download. All I ask is that you make a donation to UNICEF.

As an added incentive - there is also a free game on medullacorp.com called Doki Doki Bloki for Mac and PC. This is also free.

Please donate and I hope you enjoy either the album, or the game, or both :)

DJ.

...but I came back :) Feel pretty bad because I have a lot of new people following me and I've not had a chance to check out any of your stuff. The thing I hate about the iPhone myspace app (which I'm using right now on the MRT to the Real U HQ) is that it's so easy to accept requests and not take the time to check out the profiles. This sucks cos it's not polite and to be honest the best new music I hear is on myspace. Anyhoo - I've been kinda quiet because of work on the new game, but also because I'm putting the album together. It's so close to being finished and i've got plans for it's release which I hope will bring some cheer in 09. More on that when it's ready. Just prepping you guys cos I might need some help to spread some hope around the globe. Till then go check out The Glitch Mob. First heard them on revision 3. Go to their website and grab the album. Really awesome and it's playing now as I type. So more real soon as I want to push out the latest stuff to the world and move on to a couple of new projects. That would be an album based on Singapore (called I'm an Englishman in S'pore) and an iPhone game. Also hope to do some live shows later this year if things go well. Till then, this Dante Jones saying fuck fabulosity and embrace charity.

It's official. I've become a Mac bore. One of those guys who has used Windows for years but finally bought a Mac and realised they were wrong all these years.

Now I find myself in a weird situation. I've been making music under Windows for years and I've built up a very nice, 'go to' collection of free VSTs and such. Most of these free VSTs (and some I bought) are built using SynthEdit - and there's no SynthEdit on Mac.

This wasn't a problem. I was going to always dive into windows to do music - but... but....

The Mac Bore in me installed the Live 7 demo for OS X. I was instantly converted. It just runs so much better. No latency even on the inbuilt and seems to be able to cope with a lot more being thrown at it.

This leads me to a problem. 1: I now have fork out the moneyz for the Version 7 upgrade from 5. And I don't have the moneyz right now. 2: All my 'go to' synths and effects are no longer go-to-able.

There's another problem. Because I figured I'd be using Windows a lot, when I boot camped I threw most of the Hard Drive space at Windows... now I have to nuke everything and start again.

This is a stupid thing to have to do, but it's forcing me do something I've never done before - render stems out of Live.

I never do this, and I don't know why. Suddenly I realise that I can go wild on my audio instead of having everything running in sequencer. It also means for live performance (which I'm thinking about) I have lots more flexibility with my mucking aroundness. And I'll do a final mixdown with more automation and better mastering now I have a simple and clean track to work from. I know I know... this is me being very 'special' for never having done this before. I guess I just always panic that everything is locked down and I can't go back and all that...

Anyway - all of this is the reason why I haven't blogged here for a while, got back to people, or listened to the cool music of the people who have been adding me recently.

I'm feel today is the day to do all the nuking of partitions, and setting myself up for finish off the tunes that I hope to make up an album with. I also have the T-Virus so I'm not feeling well enough to go out and play in the sunshine.

I've a fresh XP install on my desktop for all the legacy work and the Mac will finally be 80% Mac after today - and losing my 'go-to' stuff will hopefully inspire, not crush my creativeness.

DJ.

First things first, I've just uploaded a new track called 'People Are Evil'. Please check it out!!

Been a while since I blogged – but have good reasons. As hinted at in my blog, I was working a Lucasfilm on the Clone Wars game. Well – our relationship has ended, somewhat messily and I found myself in Singapore without a visa, without a job.

The good news is I'm working again at a great company here called Real U, Lead Designing the MMO Otherland. You can see a very early preview of the game here:

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=249125

They say you should never meet your heroes. You should never work for them either. I'm proud of the work I did at Lucas and I hope the DS game does great. It was just time to move on and now, with Real U, I feel like I'm back in Kansas. Yup – it's been a very Wizard of Oz year. Sometimes it's best not to look behind the curtain :D

If you want to check out the game I just finished, GameSpot just posted a new movie.



But you don't care about all that personal stuff! You just want to know what cool VST's I've been using lately!

Let's take a look in the plugin folder!

So the chip tune remix I did of the Public Enemy track 'Bring the Noize' featured a bunch of old computer emulation synths. Predominant in the mix are a couple of C64, SID chip emulators.

The main two I use are 38911 from OdO Synths (http://www.odosynths.com/) and Basic 64 from the always excellent De La Mancha (http://www.delamancha.co.uk/basic.htm).

I have to say I mainly used presets. Some synths I love to tweak, others I just overload with addition FX to screw with the base preset. This is weird to me because as a kid the C64 was my musically instrument of choice and I would spend hours writing tunes and trying to get new and interesting sounds out of the SID. Now – I guess all this excellent technology we have has made me lazy. Either that or I just spent an unhealthy amount of time slaved over the old C64, time I don't have now!

The drums on the track came from Tweak Bench's Toad (http://www.tweakbench.com/toad). Lovely, lovely plugin! Lots of classic NES sounds mapped all the way up the keyboard.

Also featured in the track is Cosmic Boy's Icecream. This is a great little synth and my new fav for crazy sci-fi sounds. It's really simple to use and you will want to screw around with the controls to personalize those presets. It's designed to sound like Chip Tune fodder but is more flexible than your average straight up emulation.

Highly recommend grabbing a copy from Cosmic Boy's MySpace page. http://www.myspace.com/cosmicboymusic

There's a good thread on KVR if you want to try out some more. The Magical plugin is great. http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/printview.php?t=168873&start=0

You might not have noticed, but I use a lot of these synths in track that don't have such a chip tune edge. I just love interesting sounds and mashing them together.

In other (even more) news I bought a MacBook Pro (which means there will be a newer, faster, cheaper model any day now) and an iPhone.

I'm officially Job's bitch ☺ I love the Mac. I'm running both Vista (I know – I know) and OS X with Boot Camp. I am still doing music in Vista because of all the free Synth Edit plugins I use. If they were out for OS X I probably wouldn't be dual booting.

I've been tempted by a new Mac since I bought my wife a MacBook for her course last year. I always said (many years ago) that I would buy a Mac if I could run windows on it – so I guess I'm true to my word!

Love the iPhone too. I used to work for a mobile games company in London and I've always had phones that are more than phones. Frikkin love the iPhone. Love the apps, love the interface, love that finally there's something small that does all this good stuff. You should see the size of some of the phones I've had in the past!!

Till next time!

Dante Jones

I seem to find that the times when work is most crazy, and I'm my most tired, I always end up writing more music.

I guess I use music as my escape. I'm most of the way through the tracks for the album, with some unfinished pieces that need some time, but it's all falling into place.

Maybe it's a sign of how hard (but amazingly satisfying) this last year has been at work. Normally I can get to 4 tracks before I either tool down or change style.

There's been a change in the way I write in the last year that's made me go more public with my tunes. I used to have to finish a track in under 3 hours or it never got finished. I just didn't seem to be able to return to my music.

This is weird for me because I can spend many years professionally working on the same project, incrementally tweaking and refining until the thing is on the shelves. But music, never could - until now.

What changed? Not sure. Maybe I'm just enjoying the music more!

Anyway - on to our continuing adventure in the exciting world of free VSTs!

I must confess, mastering is a black art that I don't fully understand. I've tried some of those all in one mastering packages with mixed results. Probably my ignorance but I always loved the results at the time and hated them when I came back to listen.

I've tried to get better at making my music sound more polished at the final mix stage, but it's really trial and error. However, there are a few things I've learned.

1: Don't push your volumes in your basic mix. I used to max out every channel. This really leads to audio degradation as you layer everything up. Even on my distorted stuff, things stopped being so 'smooth' - if you know what I mean. Better to keep things low and push the master fader, but not too far.

2: Use your ears to EQ. Most of my channels are EQ balanced as I write, but the final mix always needs some help. Nothing too drastic - just boost the parts that don't seem to pop.

3: You don't need expensive mastering software. Here's what the master channel looks like on the 'Conelrad' track:



Live's EQ is used to drop off some of the bass and top end. I also push up some of the less harsh highs and some of the less boomy bass. I drop the gain so that the EQ doesn't clip.

I don't know anything about Hz and ting - so I just using my ears here. I also have a pair of shitty Bose speakers that boom anything. I mainly mix on headphones and then try the final track on a few different systems. I will be investing in some proper monitors soon.

That feeds into a Live's compressor. This raises the level of the track (remember I kept the volumes low in the main mix). Just drop the threshold down until the overall loudness of the track is lifted. I thrashed this track a little because I liked the way the whole mix kinda ducked due to the heavy bass as the drums come in at the end.

Next I use the excellent Barricade Pro (10 euros from http://www.jeroenbreebaart.com/).



The free version is awesome - so awesome I felt like I should buy the Pro version to give something back. The Limiter basically pushes the volume of the track even more without distortion. Apologies again from my lack of technical savvy! All I know is things sound better after they go through this thing. Pixie dust probably.

Finally I use the free version of the SIR reverb.



For yeas I had a fear reverb and never used it (figuring there was enough resident in the samples I was using). I guess I was trauma from the reverb swamped 80s :) I don't use too much - just enough to give some air. I only have two impulse responese for this thing, but like I say - I'm not big on too much reverb!

I only started using it recently with any love because I heard this amazing spring reverb at a studio here in Singapore (full of lovely vintage stuffs - like an old Synclavier - I should add) where a friend was doing some recording of an orchestra. Sounded so full - even with the sucky orchestra.

And that is your free (or a well-spent 10 euro) mastering suite.

One day I will send a track off to a pro mastering engineer just to show up how lousy my technique is - until then, maybe you got something of my 'punk rock approach' to mastering.

There are other excellent and free plugins on Jeroen Breebaart's site by the way. I particually love the TimeMachine. It's one of the best bit reduction effects I've heard. But really I suggest you grab the lot because there is some great stuff there.

Looks like 'Computer Music' agree as well.

Till next time!

Dante (don't seem to ever recall owning a droid) Jones.

Time is ticking. Busy is me. My project is in the last few days and I'm tired. Let's just say it's something to do with a guy named George, a movie that is opening on the 15th, and the same hardware that the wonderful DS-10 runs on.

I got a holiday booked in Thailand at the end of the month and I'm looking forward to doing nothing.

So - the 0404 is dead. Doesn't make a sound so I'm stuck with the M-Audio box until I can find something else!

Music making in McDonalds is going better than expected. Only problem is my laptop is old and the battery only lasts an hour (thanks to Vista) and there's no power sockets in McDs - so I can't get too much done.

I'm working on the remaining tracks for the album. The latest uses lots of 1960's nuclear fallout information films. It's kinda scary to hear this stuff now. You'll see what I mean when I put it up.

One of the synths I've been using on the new track is Dr.Drone - designed by one of the guys from Vector Lovers.



It's not free but it's VERY cheap and has a great interface. You can get some really nice bass out of this thing. It rattled the doors off my car this morning, so another expensive repair bill on it's way.

Here's a video of it in action:



It's a bargain. Go try the demo and hand over some cash!

Till next time. MTFBWY.

Dante.

I'm moving back over to my Emu 0404 now that Vista seems to know it exists. Must have been the service pack that finally arrived on my desktop. I've been using a little M-Audio box I picked up at the Mac store in San Fran for a while but it drove me crazy because it only had mic and guitar inputs, and I don't own a mic or guitar!

It's going to be my mobile box for when I'm out an about and feeling creative. My wife is going through the torture of learning to drive in S'pore (she can drive but her licence isn't valid here). This means I have 2 hours at a time to kill in Ang Mo Kio with nothing to do! I guess as opposed to McDonalds as I am, I'll be drinking coffee, stealing internet and making beats in there until she passes.

Togu released an update to their excellent TAL-DUB plugin this week.

I haven't had a chance to use it yet but I have used the old one. It's great for almost endless delays and completely free. They also do a bunch of great VST instruments that are worth checking out.

I keep thinking about getting Audio Damage's DubStation. Their plugins look really interesting but I miss not being able to demo them. I'd love to try out Dr.Device but haven't found the money to blindly drop on it yet. I really want to get some Kaoss into my works but being purely software, the hardware option is a bit of an investment to set up.

While I was admiring from afar the MS-20 controller at City Music I noticed they had the Kaossilator in stock. I asked how much and they said $180 (Sing) which seems like a total bargain, but I'm having too much fun with the DS-10. I'll post something I wrote with that later.

Okay - need to restart the PC for the 0404.

DJ