Enthroned Within Announce Album Release: End Of July/August 2010

Enthroned Within Solo/Collaboration Update. Album name announced.

I’ve finally got the concept down for the album I’m creating as a solo project under the band name: Enthroned Within.

I’ve decided to collaborate with some friends to aid with a few tracks as well as potentially put a few layers of guitar to aid with the overall sound distribution.

I’ve been trying to get the sound levels balanced with putting a bass through a guitar amp. Although it’s interesting, it’s not enough to get the levels for anything commercial.

I hope with help to get it mastered and remixed in July.  With luck, it ought to be ready for an August release. This is very tentative, but I’ve got a date to work to now!

The album has been entitled, “Synapze“. A synapse as well you ought to know is the the space between neurons and therefore the place where thought is created. I added a Z  to differentiate it the word purposefully:-p

During June I’ll be laying down the last lot of vocals and borrowing a guitar to balance the sound levels.

Album Concept and background

The concept for the album takes on the idea of personal liberation, both politically and psychologically.  The concept is that bad politics and politicians are entwined with our own morality. Their actions are complicit to ours.

Our inner demons and our struggle to get rid of them is tied up in a struggle for personal freedom.  So, there’s a connection to personal and political freedom and one is transposed onto the other.

All in all, it’s similar in tone to my own appreciation of Floyd’s, The Wall. If I’m able I’ll be adding on some incidental effects of my own making. I’ve other  friends who have agreed to aid with a proper video. At present it’ll be for one song, Hate Breeds Complicity.

Background

For me it’s more an experiment in how far I can take the bass guitar, music production and home recording. No visions of fame and fortune, although that’d be nice. More than likely I’ll be using Reverb Nation’s distribution. I’m using Riffwork’s to do the first level of production.

I’ve kept names of the collaborators from the posting until it’s more concrete.

Style and Influences

If possible, I’ll be working with a friend with producing the end mix for the album. I’m trying to find a Tool and Fields of the Nephilim-esque guitarist. {If there’s any Tool and Neph’s lovers using Riffworks, I’d be happy to collaborate. Please comment at the end of the post with contact details.}

The tone is gothic more through vocals and progressions. It’s Tool-esque and proggy as that is my adopted style.  I’ve been stuck with Riffworks and the drums can only work in 3/4 or 4/4. Originally, songs were written in 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 11/8 and 13/8. I’ve worked my hardest to get the songs to work within the program. As such, some of the guitar/bass sounds seem to be very weird on the album.

Anyone who’s known my music since the early days of Cantrip [late 80's early 90's] will know my style was developed around the same time as Tool with Rush as the main influence. However those guys are famous and well known, and Cantrip died when I went to university.

If I can’t get any guitars on the album, it’ll be probably the first drum and bass, prog gothic metal album!

I was just surprised how much stuff I had written. It’s just over 17 songs in 3 months. 2 songs have been lifted from other bands that have since passed. I would like to thank Luis Fontes and Jean-Baptiste Seguin for their input on Body Modification. Both will be credited on the album.

A few riffs from Within Without are entirely my own however it was produced originally in 1992.

I’ve got working titles fixed up, marked with {WT}. The other songs have been laid down already.

Synapze track listing

Here’s what’s planned to go on the album. Note: The track listing isn’t  in chronological order.

1. Intro {WT},
2. Hate breeds Complicity,
3. Sisters:  Love and War,
4. The Antecedent{WT},
5. The Precedent{WT},
6. Blood on my Hands,
7. Within Without,
8. Body Modification,
9. Aches of Memory{WT},
10. Betrayed,
11. Raw Hope,
12. Witness,
13. The NeverEnd {Album Version}
14. Yesterdays tomorrow,
15. Ripped to Pieces
16. Everything is Connected{WT}.

2 Bonus tracks to feature on Synapze

1. Solace is Beauty {COLLABORATION}
2. The NeverEnd {COLLABORATION}

I’ve got 2 collaboration songs I’ll be putting on the album. One is a duet called Solace is Beauty and another is The Neverend. The latter will be in 2 versions, one with a talented vocalist and guitarist.

The Neverend will feature my own vocals for a concept  album version. In the end, it’ll be 2 versions of the song.

Solace is Beauty will feature guest female vocals and the aforementioned male singer.

Production help

With luck I hope to get the album up to good pre production levels, outputting in 32bit Wav Files with 512k latency, I expect some quality sounds.

A friend has agreed to work with me. If I am to make any money on the album [potentially online radio station plays] then I’ll be sharing the profits with any collaborators.

Thanks

A special thanks to all who’ve supported me so far. Credits and dedications will appear on the album!

Riffworks: New drum tracks and a newer version on it’s way

According to Sonoma there’s some cool changes in Beta that’ll soon be launched for Riffworks. I’ve had a few bugs as recent, but between that and other sequencing programs, I’d say Riffworks is pretty stable. I’ve not been totally buggered yet mind.

A few things I did like is one of their new RiffWorks InstantDrummers of Discrete Drums fame:

One of the newest drums is 6 Cylinder (100 BPM 3/4) which will be mine. I’ll push up the BPM mind. I hope it’ll fit well into their other 6/8 sigs which I like.

There’s also Vortex (143 BPM 4/4), not listened to that, but I daresay it’s cool. Both drums work in RiffWorks Standard & RiffWorks T4!

IKMultimedia Amplitube and Stealth Pedal review: How to play live without a guitar or bass amp!

The stealth pedal, outputs to stereo or midi. It could save your musical life.

IKMULTIMEDIA ROCK WITH THEIR AMPLITUBE PRODUCTS.
NO NEED TO TAKE YOUR AMP OR EFFECTS OUT OF THE HOUSE AGAIN.
PLUG INTO THE PA, AND WITH THEIR LOW LATENCY PEDAL, YOU´LL SOUND LIKE A ROCK GOD

If you´re recording at home then you could be saved by taking along your notebook or laptop to a gig. This is especially so when you´ve got an amp you rely on to give you the sound you love. I´m presently using a product that, could save your life, your sound and maybe your reputation.

So, then you´re asking, this doctor can save all the top 3 to make me the next god of rock! Indeed, yes!

What´s he using then, I hear you muse?

THE STEALTH PEDAL

I´m using StealthPedal that is an Audio Interface/Controller that looks like wah-style pedal. Often IKmultimedia throw in a lot of prepackaged processors, amps and effects in a okay resource intensive program. It plugs direct into your PC via USB. There´s 2 inputs, 2-3 outputs plus a volume switch on the side. Installation and getting it verified can be a little tricky if you don´t follow the instructions. You can buy other pedals from them for switches and expression pedals and have them all lined up in a row. The pedal itself is a brick. It´s better built than a crybaby, but think the same quality and a bit more weight and you´re there.

The cool thing is you can get their product to run on 5 pc´s. So, do your work on your main PC, save it to another PC. Get another code and use it on that PC. You only have 5 activation codes. These are all relative to your PC. It probably makes a code relative to your MAC address so it´s harder to copy. Still, it´s nice that they allow more than one installation on more than 1 pc.

If you have to reformat your PC, it´s not a problem. It will work again with a reinstallation. This for me is a winner. I mean, with Macromedia and Adobe products it doesn´t register locally to the machine. So, if you have to reformat their products say its already been activated and you have to go through a support based raping to prove your innocence!

Amplitube 2 Live

When you buy the stealth pedal it comes packaged with some free software. Mine came with a free version of Metal and SVX. They normally give away 1 extra free, at times 2. I got amplitube 2 live and then SVX (for the bass) free.

So, you´re asking so what! Well, let´s have a look at some of these products.

Yes, you not only get amps, but programmable PEDAL effects. When used with a basic switch pedal you just have your presets and click them on and off. You can copy effect types and then change per song. If you´re really funky, all you need to do is tweak a part and have countless variations by clicking forward during the song. This relies on you having your PC connected to the pedal live during the performance. But if it´s a crazy small, black notebook, or a mac, then it´ll add flavour.

A bassists best friend, Amplitube SVX

The main difference is that the output can go DIRECT to a PA. With the low latency of the pedal plus the amp effects it´ll give you the sound you require. This makes it excellent with having ALL the effects, going through the amps you like, then rack effects for some extra punch. If you prefer to have a warmer effect for a ballad, then you could use their valve amp effects. Pretty neat ain´t it?

For me, one of the winning parts with Amplitube Metal is that it has different microphone models for singing . Throw on a few effects and you get the sound you love. Hey, I´m trying out a new project with a Marilyn Manson kinda voice. Add an octaver pedal for some really funny effects. Beautiful.

Setting up the amplitube products for the first time isn´t that hard. As with all midi inputs to sequencers there´s a steep learning curve but IKMultimedia´s customer support is quite efficient working things out. Make sure you load up the VST plugins as well as the program when you run it for the first time! It´ll save a lot of headache later.

For home recording IKMultimedia have a deal with a company that interfaces with a drum kit. There´s a basic program called Riffworks. There´s riffworks free and a full product. It was going for like 70 euros, 99 dollars at the time of writing. They too have sales on so check em out. I´m broke, so I went with the free version.

Here´s a sneak peek at the GUI!

In effect there´s a link at the bottom of the page to input your instrument using the pedal, called Audio Set up. Or you can play live over your PC speakers, which I prefer to do.

The great thing about Riffworks is you can set different time signatures and tempos. There´s a great metronome you can use to keep in time.

They recently said you can improve your time keeping with the product. I´d agree with this. My time keeping is tight, but if you´re going into a studio you can benefit from learning tempos. It´ll save you in the long run, probably make you ad lib a little more and improve your creativity. Finally, it´ll mean just 2 or 3 recordings of your riffs, rather than repeating away ad infinitum costing you valuable home recording time, stress and buying another pack of cigs!

The only bummer is that if you play in really strange time sigs, like I do, you will find that the snare hits in a weird place.

So, if you have a bar set up of 8 bars, and you´re playing in 5/8, then it´ll hit the 4th, then the 8th, then the 12th throwing you out a bit. It´d be nice if you could program the hits for a 2 and then a 3, for this time signature. Still, for metal, they have some 6/8 patterns that´s keeping me amused. God knows what I´m gonna do with the 15/8 time sig!

In my experience, you need to turn up the insensity switch. If it´s just on 1 you won´t hear at times, the snare only the hi’hat and bass drum. There´s another cool option to add in variation. So you can set up one bar that´s basic, then set up another bar that´s varied. This is great for more creative numbers and adds dimension to song creativity.

The difference between the free and the advanced products is the output and sound quality. You can output in .wav and mp3 and with the free one. For the more advanced home recorder, the amount of layers, and quality of sound comes higher. Here´s details from their site.

	RiffWorks T4	RiffWorks Standard
RiffWorks Layers	4 Layers Plus Drums	24 Layers Plus Drums
Layers while Collaborating	24 Layers Plus Drums	24 Layers Plus Drums
RiffWorld Free Membership	Yes	Yes
RiffCaster Song Posting	Yes	Yes
Mix song to .wav : for burning to CD Mix song to .ogg: for sound player applications Mix to Riff: bounce multiple riffs down to one layer in a single riff RiffCast to .mp3 : Download MP3s of your songs on RiffWorld.com	Yes Yes YesYes	Yes Yes YesYes
Export Riffs to .wav	No	Yes
32-bit Recording	16-bit only	16-bit & 32-bit
32-bit Mix	16-bit only	16-bit & 32-bit
Included InstantDrummers	1 (demo)	9 InstantDrummers ($90 value)
REX Player	No	Yes
ReWire	No	Yes
Screen Resolution	1020	1020 & 1125
Bundled Plugins	AmpliTube® Duo LE & Studio Devil BVC	AmpliTube® 2 Live ($90 value) Sonoma 7 VST Plugin ($50 value)
FourTrack iPhone App Import

IKMultimedia Review Conclusion

All in all, the stealth pedal is a great piece of kit. With the bundled software, plus their very good offers, it could be an asset to take to any concert not only to use as a multieffects processor, but as a portable amp incase yours actually dies. If recording in a studio you can create a sound you desire. This is important if you have a sensitive ear for the right feeling you need. Leaving it all up to the sound engineer might indeed effect the tone you wish to create with amp effects.

There is a steep learning curve with the Stealth Pedal when interfacing with sequencers. However, all in all, the results are very impressive. I liked IKmultimeda´s registration for the products which gives a musician freedom to install on other PCs that a lot of other products do not do. There are similar and free, maybe even cheaper guitar effect modelling software on the market. However, I´m recommending this product due to it´s low latency output.

Some of the products mentioned.

AmpliTube 2

• Amp & Stomp modeling
• Post effects modeling
• Separate Pre, EQ, Amp, Cabinet and Mic modeling
• 20,000 different amp configurations
• Stomp, amp and post effects included
• Includes AmpliTube X-GEARplug-in and standalone

AmpliTube Metal

• 5 Power-Amp models
• 13 Cabinet models
• 6 Microphone models
• 14 Stomp Effect models
• 9 Rack Effect models
• High-precision Tuner
• 2 Guitar rig chains
• Metal presets immediately recall the entire rig used
• Includes AmpliTube X-GEARplug-in and standalone
• Plug-In and Standalone version

AmpliTube X-GEAR
Expandable guitar/bass amp and FX modeling system

• The first fully modular, customizable and expandable amp and FX modeling software system
• Provides a single host interface for all “Powered by AmpliTube” products
• Full mixing and matching between all the modeled gear
• Allows complete integration with StompIO audio interface/floor controller
• Plug-In and Standalone version

AmpliTube 2 Live
Guitar Amp & FX modeling software

• 3 Guitar and Bass Amp Models
• 5 Cabinets
• 9 Stomp models, plus Spring Reverb and Gate
• 2 Microphone models with selection/position controls
• Full-MIDI Control
• Built-in Tuner
• 128 Customizable User Presets
• SpeedTrainer
• Includes AmpliTube X-GEAR plug-in and standalone
• Plug-In and Standalone version