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blackduckie

Age 29, Male

Australia

Joined on 1/19/06

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Posted by blackduckie - January 19th, 2016


woah woah ... this account has been around for TEN YEARS now? I guess if anything calls for some kind of update that does.

So it probably looks like I haven't made any music since 2010, which is because ... basically I haven't. Not to my satisfaction, anyway. However that year or so did see many hopeful start-up projects, some of which I spent more time working on than anything I have completed. Just for fun, let's have a brief overview:

—– "ACID VS. BASS" ————————————————————————————————

A cheap pun I'd been waiting to make for ages eventually found its way as the title of the would-be successor to Vehement Austerity, i.e. a (relatively) fast, (debatably) heavy hardcore/gabber-style track that relies far too much on reversed crash cymbals and highpassed drum loops to achieve any sense of 'flow' because I've never made an effort to give my tracks any kind of background tone or atmosphere to carry them forward in quieter moments.

Begun about a month or so into 2010, I ended up composing as far as a 1-minute introduction (mostly out of elements derived from other projects since I don't actually have the skill to create sounds from my own imagination) before the project file corrupted making it impossible to open.

—– "BLOOD DRAINAGE" ——————————————————————————————–

Another 'hardcore' track which I intended to work on in parallel with AvB. Compared to that project, this was a lot more minimal in scope with an overall 'dirtier' sound, and the structure came together a lot quicker since I was more or less riffing and making it up as I went. UNTIL. I got stuck with this idea for a melody I wanted to work in, even though the track so far had been completely non-melodic in nature. After struggling with ways to mould the track into your typical build-up-then-drop dance structure, I got tired of working on it and stopped.

Since then I've realised what a dumb idea that was, but I haven't properly revisited the project except for some minor tweaks. It's hard to suddenly pick up that stride again.

—– "ACID VS. BASS" (the REMAKE) —————————————————————————–

Eventually I found some tool that let me load my corrupted project with certain plugins disabled, but since I didn't like the meandering intro I'd written any more, I took the opportunity to salvage the key elements and start afresh, getting to 'the point' a lot quicker like Blood Rain Age had done. This project continued to survive for a while, largely I think because it was just retracing the structure of Austere Vehemence with different synths and percussion. In an effort to avoid repetitiveness without just copying the gimmick of that track (automating the main distortion filter to get weird screeching effects from the kickdrum) however, I began automating any obscure control I could find, including compression type, filters (both low and high pass), distortion preamp, flange, phase inversion, panning and so on. Eventually the layers of details became so fine and complex that it was impossible to keep any of it organised, and the task of adding more to the project became increasingly daunting, sapping away my motivation to go near the thing (I think I wrote maybe 20 seconds over the span of 2012). Here's a snapshot to give you an idea:

1451100_145320827623_FLautism.png

—– "THE MAN WITH THE MIND OF SPIDERS" —————————————————————–

An idea that came from a friend initially. Was supposed to be some kind of slow pop song with creepy chanting in the background or something, I forget. But I wrote what came to mind and started to get this really kind of subtle, understated breakbeat tune, around the tempo range of Mercury's Devaluation. But much like that track, I found  myself stuck at a part not too far in, where the sounds seem to wrap up too neatly — like I've written my way into a dead end. The only way I found to bore out of it then was to fling the track in a completely different direction, which was noticeably jarring, and I'd like to avoid making the same mistake again. So here I am ...

 

...... I said BRIEF overview, god damn.

 

But wait, that's all? What have I been doing throughout the second half-decade of this page's existence? Well actually, if I stop to think about it there's a lot to look back on. Yet somehow, it feels like nothing has changed.

I guess most obviously, I went back to school in '11 and graduated in '12. Since '13 I've been at university, learning how to program, how to write mathematical proofs, how to synthesise black holes and more. In '14 I even took several subjects relating to dramatic music composition and wrote pieces probably far more 'accessible' than anything I've uploaded here, although, with virtually no effort put into production, I wouldn't call them fit for 'publication' here anyway.

That's always been my biggest fault really. I love composing; it's something I do almost automatically every day, whether anything gets written down as a result or not. But I've never had the patience with the tools of production to make something truly worthwhile out of my ideas. I haven't stopped broadening my tastes and listening to new types of music either, but in some ways that makes it worse: there are so many ideas that could be appealing to work on, so how do I pick one thing to get good at? Fun fact: most of my earlier tracks were submitted at a time when I only had one (conscious) musical influence.

That's it. Now enjoy this helpful picture I found on some Dutch forum:

1451100_145322382291_0016229400323ea532372e8e1a02e4f36f.jpg


Comments

heres to another great 10 years man! cheers! <:)

much appreciated, fellow lain lover