So I see my last releases got basically no views. I know I don't post often but I wondered why I might have scared people off. I will try to build up my channel again, but see what happens, as if I ain't getting any useful views there is no point in making music for this platform. I know theres a crisis going on but I would have thought it would have been the opposite and there would be more people online. Just a thought. I know melancholy and depressed nature stuff doesn't attract any views and I will apologies if my output has been depressive to people, or maybe its the mixes and the fact that I've been using a MacBook Pro with Logic, new headphones and a new set of FX to make music so it sounds different. It's not my fault that my SM58 is 30 miles away and I can only use the internal microphone. Anyway it doesn't really bother me as have been using this platform to get my music more internationally recognised and also I can use it as a file system to store and review my own works.

But anyway I'll be back soon with another song & dance, plus I can see if anything else changes.

A Ray of Light.

Revision 4

Coming soon is a ray of light,

Stay at home and you’ll be all right,

Going out causes unneeded stress,

Better to do something artistic between your rests,

Keep pushing forward and we’ll get through this

The people not listening are going to be missed,

Life will always find a new way,

Just for the time being we need to stay,

The clouds are breaking and the skies are coming through,

Imagine the free plains and the Canadian moose,

Running through the land and roaming free,

If we keep on waiting, so will we,

We’re a close nation now breaking the mold,

It’s called social distancing, do what your told,

If we listen to the planet we shall be free,

Less pollution, but more air from the trees,

Don’t touch your face and please save our land,

If you’re back from going out, just wash your hands,

Save your family from being infected, as its just not nice,

You’ll be more sorry than a bout of hair lice,

You could save some dosh from not buying toys and junk,

There are just no exports, not even from the Trappist monks,

All caused by the rise of this eastern disease,

To keep yourself safe, stay home and do what you please.

By Stuart W

Well I am remaking the same chord sequence as the song I released last year called "Give up the Fight", trying to put it in a more positive light. It will be called the Explorer, but I think it sounds slightly depressing, but with hope and maybe a touch of curiosity towards the end (but that could also be frame of mind).

There is a second piece which I am working on called "Ray of light", which sounds better.

Will post an update when I am finished composition and lyrics.

Take care and stay safe people.

New release made solely using Logic Pro X on a MacBook Pro. Microphones probably not as good as my SM58 but this is all I've got to work with.

The song

Lyrics:

Optimism by Maxxpump

Verse 1:

With all the problems in the world today,

I smile at you and they all go away,

I want to go outside and play in the sun,

The news just came in and sucked out my fun,

We feel the days are phasing into one,

It’s not our fault it is nothing we’ve done,

Looking to the Future when we are free,

So much fun for you and hugs for me.

Chorus:

In the end we’ll all survive,

Going forward away from the light,

Lets join together in unity,

Online on Facebook and Skype for free.

Verse 2:

Now we are living in a anxious nation,

Nobody on the buses and no one at the station,

Employment has hit a record low,

Recovery is important but is going to be slow,

But the end of the tunnel is coming near,

I can get back home and talk to my peers,

But unfortunately my love is miles away,

I just want him home so we can stay.

Mid eight or verse 3:

Stress and anxiety is catching up with me,

Just doesn’t help there’s all this negativity,

I wish the doctors and nurses well,

Their lives are on the line till the finishing bell,

Six weeks may go by or even a year,

For this virus to go away and not to be near,

Optimism is the only way to go,

Otherwise you’d be feeling lonely and low.

Composed, arranged and lyrics by Maxxpump (SMW/Exedist)

Optimism by Stuart Wright

Verse 1:

With all the problems in the world today,

I smile at you and they all go away,

I want to go outside and play in the sun,

The news just came in and sucked out my fun,

We feel the days are phasing into one,

It’s not our fault it is nothing we’ve done,

Looking to the Future when we are free,

So much fun for you and hugs for me.

Chorus:

In the end we’ll all survive,

Going forward away from the light,

Lets join together in unity,

Online on Facebook and Skype for free.

Verse 2:

Now we are living in a paranoid nation,

Nobody on the buses and no one at the station,

Employment has hit a record low,

Recovery is important but is going to be slow,

But the end of the tunnel is coming near,

I can get back home and talk to my peers,

But unfortunately my love is miles away,

I just want him home so we can stay.

Mid eight or verse 3:

Stress and anxiety is catching up with me,

Just doesn’t help there’s all this negativity,

I wish the doctors and nurses well,

Their lives are on the line till the finishing bell,

Six weeks may go by or even a year,

For this virus to go away and not to be near,

Optimism is the only way to go,

Otherwise you’d be feeling lonely and low.

I would normally do a vocal, b ut I have no hardware or microphone. so heres the lyrics. Enjoy until I can get back home and record this properly.

I hope everyone which logs onto NG is safe and well. Obviously unless you are living under a rock, the world has been hit by the second strain of Covid19/SARS-V2.0. I am safe with my parents in a smaller town outside of Brighton. My partner is currently stuck in Canada, with no flights till the end of April back to the UK. Seems like the UK is having another COBRA meeting tonight about adding Curfew to the current emergency laws in effect. We are not allowed outside unless its for half hour exercise or going out for prescriptions or essential food. We are not allowed to see friends or socialise. I apologise in advanced if this has been said to death, but this is the first time I've logged in in a month. I feel like I'am under house arrest and I have done nothing wrong. I'm saddened by the fact I may not see my partner, my love of eleven years for at least six or eight weeks (as he's in danger of catching something on the way back on the flight).

Emergency law was passed in the UK last Monday and our in force for two years.

I am working on a song called "Optimism" which I hope to get out in the coming weeks...Im on a MacBook Pro, on Logic Pro X, I've never used a Mac and I've never used Logic. So I will get this out when I can. I also didn't bring my microphone and sound card. This song has appropriate lyrics to the current climate. I might just end up practicing it on Piano and recording live for YouTube.

Anyway everybody take care and I hope not all the population is going to end up with ASBO's

So I've done it again, but after quite a while to come up with something special and unique.

So this afternoon (GMT) I released a new song called "Mu Ultimate Sadness", which is based off of my my feelings towards to this emotion, and how it makes me feel.

I wrote this songs chord sequence just after Christmas as a way of testing my new second hand Roland Juno-D. I didn't know what to do with this sequence and just kept on adding new sections on to it, until I ended up with a beginning (intro), Verse, Chorus and ending. I arranged this song a few times in the last fortnight, but didn't come up with anything which pleased me. I wanted to make something unique and something which was in a style which sounded powerful and I hadn't worked on before.

I think I wrote six different projects and tried arranging them so I could try and put lyrics to it. But last night I came up with a new basis for a new track, put a few lyrics to it which my partner seemed to really like. so after saving up and getting back to work on it this afternoon (which is unusual for me as I usually start projects and finish them in one session, not returning to the work ever again). I worked on the second verse and recorded it. I added a few string sections to it and pizzicato strings. My original base from yesterday contained a mixture of the Solina V2 and a Mellotron sample in Kontakt 5. I reinforced it with strings from Xpand2! (which I got with my Control 49 MIDI controller keyboard). The last thing I added was the drums, which again is unusual as I usually write drums and percussion first, before any other sections.

I practiced the vocals for about a hour. I wanted it to sound more like spoken word rather than singing, but you get what you get, as I'm not a trained vocalist.

I have already had quite a bunch of nice comments regarding this song. Hopefully people on here can give me some constructive input.

Even though I made this core of this song on the Roland Juno-D, I didn't use it in the production of this song. I mainly used the MIDISport MIDI interface by M-Audio to control the internal VST's in Cubase and sequenced by hand the rest.

Even though the Juno-D is a good keyboard, I am now finding it is very limited to what sounds you can make from it. My Birthday is on Sunday and I am getting £120 from my parents and some money from other family members. I am going to save up about £150 myself and am going to buy the Behringer Pro-1 Analogue Synthesiser. This is a clone of the 1970's Sequential Circuits Prophet One, which is a two Oscillator synth, with filters, ADSR on filter and amplifier, this Behringer one has a sequencer and arpeggiator, and many different combinations of modulation. The Behringer Pro-1 has now keyboard unlike the original, so I have bought a MIDI cable to hook it up to my Juno-D to control it with.

I am also thinking of getting a EDP Wasp Deluxe clone which Behringer also has started making as it has a really advanced and cool filter onboard. The Behringer fare is really good and they are cloning lots of classical vintage equipment at the moment. Only problem is that they haven't made a synth as of yet which has built in Sine wave for sub bass sounds. If I want to get a decent bass synth from them I may get a Moog Model-D clone which they make. My only problem is my flat and workstation area is very small and space is at a real premium. so I may be able to fit in three of their desktop synth clones as they can be racked up in a eurorack. But apart from that I can not get any other synths as I don't have enough space.

Behringer has like Korg has done, re-released a clone of the Arp 2600, which is a legendary synthesiser from the early 1970's. But as far as I know there is not a price for it on the market yet. Korgs version is £3600, so I am hoping Behringers model is under £1000. But its only a mono synth and I disagree with spending over £5-600 on a non poly synth as your really limited to what you can do with them.

What I really want to save up for now is a second hand Korg Oasys 76 or 88 key synthesizer, as it can run sixteen oscillators per voice and it can run eight voices at the same time. It can also run sixteen Karma backing actions as well.

It has a built in sampler, synth editing functions, 12" touch screen, in-built intel custom processor, Hard disk, Ram and Rom expansion. It has amazing organ and piano emulation as well as custom sampled sounds. They run for around £2000 second hand (they started at £4800 brand new, for the 76 key model and £5500 for the 88 key hammer weighted keybed).

Anyway if you can check out my new song "My Ultimate Sadness" Here and tell me what you think...My Ultimate Sadness

I am releasing some older songs which I made in college as they are pretty good tracks.

This morning I released a track called "Blue Light" which I made eleven years ago in 2008; I had just recently discovered VSTi's like Kontakt, Pro-53 and HalionOne. I was running Sequel 1 on my laptop at home, which had no VST capabilities. I couldn't afford a version of Cubase and the college didn't like handing out educational licenses (which in all respect, they could of).

I made a track a day while learning to use Cubase which was on version SX3, I think Cubase 5 was out but Northbrook hadn't upgraded yet as there main programs they kept upto date was Pro-Tools and Logic. They had quite a decent studio space with twenty four soundproofed rooms with a PC, Tannoy Reveal speakers, Amplifier and a Core DSP rack. They also had four rooms with SLI consoles and extra equipment. We had a room with a Icon mixing desk and 9.1 surround sound with Genelec speakers. Two rooms with Valve consoles and one with a Moog Voyager in (the other had a piano and a Juno-106). Most of the rooms only ran Pro-Tools with Digidesign 002 sound cards (like the one I've got now).

They also had three computer areas with forty computers each, split up into Cubase, Logic and Pro-Tools areas respectively. Most computers had Roland Sound Canvas MIDI modules. I hung around in the smaller rooms, most computers had cubase in there and students had installed a array of different cracked versions of VST's on some computers, so it was a luck of the draw which computers had what on.

I used the VSTi's to their maximum capability, apart from advanced programming in Kontakt 5 which I never got my head around as I personally had a Akai S6000 and Yamaha A3000 sampler at home, which I used extensively in my BTEC and ND level courses.

Here's "Blue Light" if you want to take a listen! This was solely made using Arturias Pro-53: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/862600

So this morning I wanted to make a new song with vocals, which I just released now which is called "I Am Trying to See" which can be found here: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/858643?updated=1555586381

I made it using custom soundsets in Vanguard, Xpand! 2 and Serum. I have attempted a few harmonies which reinforce the vocal lines. This was really a quick project with me playing with piano sounds as well as trance style pads and leads.

I plan now to launch a new song once per week as I am fairly busy these days with my other studio job. I hope everyone likes this new piece as I think it sounds okay.

Anyway everyone have a good rest of their weeks and I'll post something about this time next week.

So here it is a re-rendition of a old live chord sequence called Give Up The Fight.

So I've made a new song called "Give Up The Fight" which uses a old chord sequence of mine which I've used in live situations and jam sessions. you can find the new song here: "Give Up The Fight"

I used Cubase 9 to compile and sequence it. I mainly used Vanguard and a very basic Sawtooth wave in Serum, layering eight oscillators over each other to create a chorused style effect. I also used a kick drum from my old Akai drum package and EZDrummer to create the Hi-Hat and Snare lines.

I played in the synth solo lines a few times to come up with something original and witty. The vocals were processed in two parts, one using Autotune and a light reverb effect and the final one using Orange Vocoder, keying it to F, I also used a slightly heavier reverb line to make it sit in with the rest of the song.

I used a dynamic microphone from Behringer as this seems to fit my vocal style a lot more than using a condenser microphone. I've now sold my Rodes NT1-A as my deeper voice never seemed to fit the waveform which was created by the NT1-A. I have plans to buy another condenser microphone in the future, but I want a very large diaphragm microphone, or even a microphone used for kick drums and low bass guitars. I want to make a few songs showcasing my operatic low baritone vocals, but I need a good track to go along with it.

My favourite song over the last 12 months has still to be "Time Goes On (Complete With Vocal)" This song really showcases some of my best vocals and the track is very good and was created fully and manually in a studio, not using sequencing as a means of creation. I've been told the verses backing track sounds like 2Pac and Biggie Smalls. I used no autotune and hardly any processing on the vocals. The mid eight was played in by me as well which I love as it shows off my keyboard skills, which I don't really do that often.