Here's a reminder that I'll be performing live at the 2009 Living Dead Festival. The ONLY festival organized and approved by the original producers and writer of the movie "Night of the Living Dead". I'll be performing live cinematic horror music that will get you in the mood for classic horror. As spooky darkness approaches; the tone of the music changes too. Soundtrack music created live for the ghouls as they wait for the original cast to take the stage before the movie. I'll start around 5pm. Hope to see you there.

Rehearsals start this week. I hope to be posting some video too!

On Saturday night I had a great conversation with Gary Streiner about the 09 Living Dead Festival. Seems like it's really grown this year. It's a 2 day event with a festival like atmosphere on both days. There will be live music and DJ's. The second night will have the same stuff going on; but the big event is the outdoor screening of the movie. Gary asked if I would play live before the movie again this year. I really enjoy doing it. Live ambient electronic horror music on a spooky Halloween night! Can't get better than that. I'm planning on a slightly more involved set up so as to allow for a deeper sound. Maybe some sound samples from the movie as we get closer to the screening. Head over to http://www.thelivingdeadfest.com I should be starting somewhere around 5pm or so.

Meanwhile back in the studio to continue on the latest set of cues to send to Jingle Punks. This weekend I completed 2 really great exciting cues that should feel at home in an action game promo or maybe a History or Discovery Channel show. I've been listening closely to some of the reality shows and I think that some of the new tracks will fit that kind of thing too. "Hell's Kitchen" for example has some cue that sound like what I'm writing now.

This weekend my Dad and Stepmother came to visit for the weekend. A nice 3 day weekend given to us by Labor Day has developed into a great time! As always great food and drink appeared. Dad and I had some quality time together watching the movie "Les Paul Chasing Sound". We had several long conversations about the film industry. (Dad was film editor during the 70's and early 80's) Now that I've been writing cues for film,TV, and games, we talked a lot about music libraries of old and what as an editor he would look for in music cues. On Sunday he and I went to a golf course located on the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains and killed the afternoon with 18 holes of scenic golf. I didn't do too bad being that golf like twice a year. They leave today sometime after lunch.

I will probably go into the studio this evening for a while. I got an email from Justin and Jingle Punks on Friday asking for some dramatic moody cues for some upcoming History Channel shows as well as some game industry clients. Since Dramatic and Moody are definitely within my comfort zone. I can't wait to dive in. I have some new libraries to try out as well as some system upgrades to the studio computer. I also want to give the Reaper sequencing software a spin. It can handle DX and DXi as well VST and VSTi plugins. It also has some beat slicing ability. We'll see how the workflow allows be to work.

Well coffee is done, zucchini bread is out of the oven and eggs and bacon are about to hit the skillet. HMMMM!

Here is one of the latest reviews of the Healing Circle Message DVD that I wrote the music for. "...distinct and expressive; music was original and soothing; and the organization was good, I particularly liked the 'with' and 'without' instruction sections. I can't wait to get home and try it."

With Jingle Punks recieving my first volume of cues to include in their catalogue for licensing; started work on vol 2. The first volume was mainly orchestral, big, with haunting overtones and some action. The second volume will have more ambient as well as a mixture of electronic and orchestral cues. I really like mixing synth lines in with a traditional orchestra. The result can be a very complex tapestry of sound that can wrap the listener in a sonic landscape that neither just orchestra or just electronic instrument can do alone. The combination of orchestra and electronic instruments isn't anything new to game soundtracks. One listen to Killzone 2 will show you that. The Killzone soundtrack has been a big hit with freinds of mine and it even found itself high on my iTunes list.

This weekend was mainly about getting masters together to send to Jingle Punks to be included in their Jingle Player. After spending most of the day outside catching up on much needed yard work; the studio lights were turned on the equipment lit up around 7:30pm. There were a lot of session to get through. most of them were recorded during the Living Dead Festival writing sessions last summer and fall.

One of the things I realized I was listening for were instrument lines that would interfere with potential voice overs. since some of what Jingle Punks tracks have been used for are promos I wanted to be sure that I didn't have instruments that were in the sonic range of the human voice. It would interfere with any voice over that may be laid on the track. I was making sure that each cue was a good "bed" for what ever maybe over top. There were a few violin lines, and percussion lines that just didn't need to be. Of course one thing I struggled with was fatigue and over familiarity with the music. Ear fatigue happens more often that most people realize. I think it's like 2 hours or something. So I made sure coffee breaks were taken often! :-) Over familiarity is a big thing with me. I've been with this particular group of music for 10 months and the saying familiarity breeds contempt can also be used with music and composing. I can sometimes start over thinking what I've composed. Start messing with the recording and sometimes the notes themselves. Occasionally this constant changing ends up bringing the whole piece down  like a house of cards. Other times however I can hear something in my head that I hadn't heard before. Then I add that element and the piece becomes better. This did happen Saturday night where one cue caused me to hear in my head a chunky metal rhythm guitar line. It doubled the cello section. I grabbed the 7 string guitar ( I needed to make a low D power chord) and dialed up a nice chunky metal sound and laid it in. Nice! I did exactly what I wanted. I'm also a sucker for the rock band/orchestra hybrid sound anyway! Thank you Hans Zimmer!
To end what was a great night in the studio I checked in with Jingle Punks and saw that EA games and Starz are new clients! WhooHoo!

Sunday studio time was later than planned. However Sunday was just a listening day. Now the hard part; determining track titles! Jingle Punks reserves the right to change names of cues to better fit their customers searches. Which is fine by me anyway. Anything that would make i easier for a music supervisor to find my stuff.

Listened to the mixes in my car and in the family room on the home theater system and I like what I'm hearing. I'll burnt the CD tonight and ship it out tomorrow or Wednesday. 

Last night's master review session...

Last night's session in the studio mainly focused on determining what would be sent to Jingle Punks to be licensed. I had a pretty good idea, but needed to go back and listen to the actual session recordings. There were a few surprises like tracks muted because they didn't fit the original idea feel, but may work as an underscore for someone else. There was a lot of "Why the hell did I mute that? That sounds great?" There were plenty of "Why did I label that session that way?" There were a lot of "I gotta create a better system for labeling sessions!" There was even a session that I completely forgot about that was a great piece of music. I tried to stay away from mixing or re-mastering last night. It was tough. I did end up tweaking some stuff and even laying down a timpani roll. For the most part I just listened. At the end of the night I wasn't very tired so I fiddled with a vsti string rompler to compare it to Logic's samples for the EXS24. Not bad. I like the easy set up to divide the keyboard and the best thing? Glissando FX! Sweet if you love to write thriller/horror themes! :-)
I now have a list of titles I want to master and send off to Jingle Punks. I'm planning on a weekend session to do the mastering. Tough thing is there are a lot of "around the house" things that need done.

Some of you may know that I've been doing a bit of soundtrack work lately. I uploaded new edited version of the cues from the Living Dead Festival DVD plus I added the Amelia Main Title from my brothers short film "Amelia". As a bonus I uploaded one of the most fun pices I've written called "Old Time Horror Music". Complete with theremin Break out the 3D glasses for this one. ;-)