Another one for the music producers out there :)

Just launched my third commercial soundbank on my Arksun-Sound website, this time for the U-He Zebra synth.

If you're after an out n out trance collection of sounds then this probably isn't for you (Adam Van Baker does a great trance soundset for Zebra).

but if you like a wide variety of different sounds, all with that 'Arksun' flavour then please do check it out.

I've now added flash mp3 streaming on the product page so you don't have to download the mp3 examples first.

More details at:

http://www.arksun-sound.com

Enjoy :)

This blog was actually a response to a thread from Trance.nu.  It only seems fitting to paste it here in case people were wondering what the hell I've been up to!

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Thank you for the lovely comments people. It has indeed been sometime since the last single release, partly because of a shift towards the world of sound design, partly because I'm my own worst critic when it comes to new material (I'm never happy with anything).

Add to the expectations of greatness post Arisen which only adds to my own personal demons.

I have been putting out some small ambient pieces of music on my other myspace page, a way of releasing the musical tension in the meantime.

But yes, sound design has taken center stage for now, working very hard on a soundbank for the Zebra synth at the moment.

Will there ever be another trance track from me?. Hard to say, I'd like to think so. Certainly I've no intention of announcing an end to my trance career, though I acknowledge it has been over 2 years since my last trance release and the scene continues to change and grow in new directions.

Certainly I want to make at least one more epic style storytelling piece of trance music, so watch this space....

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Just to add to the original t.nu post.  I don't know why I've been soo fearful of even attempting an Arisen followup, but there it is. It's like.... hmmm, like I'm too afraid to even try to make a new track, because I'm already convinced I can't get anywhere near as close as to what comes into my head, despite my years of experience.

Common sense dictates that I should just say to hell with it, be damned what I or other people think and just force myself to knock out a trance track. Give myself a deadline, two weeks tops and thats it!. But I just can't seem to work that way, believe me I wish I could.  I remember reading on one forum someone even suggested it was a deliberate tactic of mine to make sure people didn't get bored of my sound. lol. Believe me i WISH I could release more tracks.

It's just a personal barrier I have to break through. Maybe I really do need to move my focus onto new things, I don't know. But I'm NOT announcing an end to trance producing yet, just...... well, call it a vacation :)

Dear fellow music producers,

Today I just launched the 2nd soundbank release for my Arksun-Sound website.

This time its a collection of 128 presets for Rob Papens Blue VSTi/AU synth.
For more details, audio demos etc, please visit the website at:

http://www.arksun-sound.com

Please note you'll need to upgrade to the latest ver 1.8 of Blue to use the demo bank/full bank.

I hope you enjoy the sounds :)

This is one for the fellow audio nerds out there :)

I've just launched a new website called Arksun-Sound.

On it I plan to be selling soundbanks for soft-synths.

My first one available on the site is for Lennar Digital Sylenth1 VSTi

On the site you will find a couple of audio demos to show off the sounds available, as well as a free minibank of 16 sounds from the full 128 soundbank.

Hope you enjoy it and find the sounds useful in your own productions :)

http://www.arksun-sound.com

Ok, this may be a silly move and perhaps I should just keep everything on the one Arksun page, but I've decided to use my other Arksun Myspace Music page  (in my top friends list now)

http://www.myspace.com/arksunmusic

As the new home for anything ambient that I make (or have made in the past)

I don't know if this will work out but. I need a break from trance. Feeling too much pressure in this area for the moment, the only way I can create freely is doing what I want/need to do, not guided by any specific formulas, such as the construct of trance.

With this in mind I hope to piece together a whole album. This will be my first proper album release. Which label is undecided, possibly direct to consumer via mp3 site, or an online label.

In the meantime, there were some tracks I had made a while back, ambient/soundtrack type pieces I'm still proud of, that I'm thinking of making available to buy on say, a site like audiojelly. Just as a way of testing the water. Undecided about that one.

One thing is for sure, I'm going to make this ambient album. I need to, otherwise I'll go stir fry crazy!

Ok, so someone posted in a dutch trance forum that apparently I was in rehab recovering from excessive use of drugs.

I'm very happy to report that yes, I'm taking six pills a day now, but no, they're not the ones with smileys on them or a mitsubishi symbol :)

I should really update the health situation, I'm off the steroids but have to continue taking the Asacol pills for the foreseeable future. Health wise, well i'm pretty much back to normal, though not completely normal. Kinda hard to describe but, it's always in the back of my mind that my Ulcerative Colitis could relapse at any moment.

Music wise, a breakthrough, I've finished a remix, a remix of Kirsty Hawkshaw beautiful track 'Meteors'. It may be some time before it surfaces to the public so, I don't know when will be the best time to put up a clip. But it just feels great to actually finish a track!, in what has been a really horrible year for me (continuing to be bad because my dad's in hospital now too... what a year..)

I think I might shift my focus off trance and onto ambient for the moment, see what happens there as I take the idea of making an albient album much more seriously.

Was in two minds whether to post this one, but this myspace page is meant to be a more personal reflective space for me to open up and its certainly nothing to be ashamed of I think.

For the past 4 weeks I've been very ill, basically food was passing straight through me and I wasn't getting better. Got to the point I was passing a lot of blood all the time and my weight was dropping at a scary rate. Needing the toilet pretty much every 40 minutes throughout the day.

In the space of those 4 weeks I lost a stone (14 Ilbs for those non-UK people) in weight. Now anyone that knows me knows I'm a pretty thin guy normally anyways, so this was bad, I felt incredibly weak, my body wasn't taking anything in.

First I was prescribed antibiotics, which did nothing, as this wasn't a bacterial infection. Eventually I managed to persuade my GP to pull a few strings and get me checked out at the hospital ASAP because I was really feeling weak.

I ended up getting an appointment the next day (last friday) at the Endoscopy Unit.  There I had a Colonoscopy. With nothing for the pain it wasn't the most pleasent experience I've ever had I can tell you!.

Whilst I'm still waiting biopsy results to be 100% sure of what I have, the doctor after going through the procedure was pretty sure what I have is Ulcerative Colitis.

Similar to Crohns Disease, both have no known cure, I'm stuck with this for life.

It's quite... hmmm, I wouldn't say it was a huge shock but a very surreal feeling being told I have a disease with no known cure yet. Was sitting outside the hospital afterwards in the warm sun, holding this large information pack feeling like I was in a dream. This kinda stuff happens to other people, not me. Right?

I've been given drugs to bring it into remission and then I should be ok, but flareups can occur randomly in life in which case I'll need the stronger drugs again (Steroids, of which I'm on a heavy course of right now to reduce the inflammation).

There may come a time they stop working too and surgery is the only option, I'm trying not to think about that now.

The crazy thing is in this country these UK doctors place very little on the importance of diet, and you'd think when involving the digestive system they would. Very different to other countries around the world. So I know that I am going to have to adapt my diet based on lots of information I'm gathering from fellow sufferers and other sources, to minimise the need for heavy drugs in future when flareups occur again.

It's now day 4 on my steroids course (having to take 8 pills a day.. yes... 8, for first week, then 7 pills week 2, 6 pills a day week 3 etc etc).  On top of that another kind of drug designed to reduce chance of flareups. God knows how long I'll be on those.  So far thankfully I dont seem to be having any bad side effects from the drugs, other than my appetite has gone through the roof, thats common with this type of steroids and in some ways is a blessing because I need to regain the weight.

Whilst it'll take some time before my guts completely back to normal. Already I'm noticing quite an improvement. The bleedings stopped and my visits to the bathroom are already approaching normal levels. Body is finally absorbing nutrients in the food once more. In the meantime my blood will have to be tested and monitored to make sure the drugs aren't screwing certain things up and probably a few more visits to the hospital.

I might go to Italy for a bit to recoupe with family there, sun might do me some good :)

Please don't ever take your health for granted people. Certainly the biggest lesson for me, we feel young and invincible but we don't stay that way. So take care of yourselves to enjoy life at its best for longer. Trust me its worth it.

A huge huge thank you to everyone that was kind enough to vote for my Arisen track on the 2006 A State Of Trance Top 20, reaching no. 5 on the list.

Thank you, so much. :)

I'm deleting all non-personal (ie copy and paste job) comments that show up on my page. It just keeps things more tidy and personal.

In return, I never spam anyone elses page, I only ever make personal comments relevant to the person in question.

Thank you :)

So here I am, waving goodbye to the 20's and hello to the 30's.

Apparently the 30's are the new 20's. So why do I feel down at the start of this, my birthday.

It's soo stupid I know, its just a number, why do we even think of age in terms of sections of ten years, can a persons lifestyle, prosperity, status, ability and health be conveniently sectioned off into distinct decades?

...and yet, because we count our age in decimal places and live in a society combined with a media that defines us by decades of age, it suddenly hits me where I am, what I've accomplished, what I haven't accomplished.

All of a sudden it feels like I've accomplished nothing. I feel I have soo much to give and express inside, but I've barely even begun to realise my dreams.

Am I a faliure because I haven't conformed to the stable normal 9-5 life and settled down?, or am I a success, because I chose the hard option of following an art, a dream. To be unique, to be different.

Time will tell...

It's just a silly number, right?

Old as you feel (or the person you're feeling)

Going to be a quiet day for me today, though I'm celebrating with friends down at Turnmills this friday oct13th @ Turnmills club in London. It's going to be one crazy weekend.