mistrustmusic's posterous

Croydon Library track on O'Neill TV

I've just found out that my some of my tracks can still be heard on O'Neill TV - the place that all the promos for O'Neill surfing contest are shown. Three tracks (Croydon Library, Never Alone, and Hello) were used in Deep Blue Open 2005. The thing that sets this film apart from all the regular surfing events is that it focusses mainly on the effects of Tsunami on the Maldives. Watching it again recently reminded me of the devastation of the hurricane in Burma and the earthquake in China. Click the link here to watch the whole film (approx 25 minutes): O'Neill Deep Blue Open 2005 on O'Neill TV If you don't want to sit through the whole thing, here's a short clip: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPIDdLCTLUg] The film has been shown all round the world on TV (eg the Fox network in the USA, Channel 4 in the UK) and in all the O'Neill equipment stores. A couple of the clips from the film are on the Video Wall section of my blog - and have received a lot of plays since they were uploaded to Youtube. I remembered the other day that O'Neill Europe started up a TV channel on their website last year and that the whole of the DBO 2005 film was up there in its entirety. I thought that it might have been replaced by footage of more recent surfing events, but I checked yesterday and it's still there. It's a bit tricky to find if you're searching for it on the O'Neill site as it's fairly well-hidden behind some of the 2007 events, but it's there...... New music.... We recently got rid of our old desktop computer at home and replaced it will the Dell Inspiron 1300 laptop/notebook that I bought a couple of years ago. Before we binned it (actually - gave it to Adam - eldest stepson), I had to transfer hundreds of files including loads of half-finished tracks I'd made in Acid Pro over the last few years. I've just started listening to some of those tracks and rough arrangements and I really think I can do something with them. Maybe some of them will turn up as new tunes soon. One thing that should finally see the light of day soon is the remix I've been working on for the last few months. It's for a New Zealand band called Pitch Black and the song is "Rude Mechanicals", the title track of their latest album. Site changes.... My website schizophrenia has kicked in again and I've changed the site theme again (and will probably change it again). I wanted this blog to look fairly original and be able to tie it in with the main mistrustmusic.co.uk site (and my myspace page). Some work ahead to make everything tie up!

Filed under  //   acid pro   burma   china   dell   earthquake   film music   music licensing   oneill   pitch black   remix   rude mechanicals   surfing   tsunami   video   youtube  
Posted May 28, 2008

Youtube and other video sites driving web traffic

I'd guess that a lot of people have a video or two on Youtube, Google Video, and some of the many other video hosting sites. Out of those people, how many of them use the videos to drive web traffic to their own, or someone else's website? I've got a couple of the O'Neill surfing clips on Youtube. These are two of the sections that are used in the "Deep Blue Open 2005" promo film, featuring three of my tracks.  Since I uploaded them, I've have quite a lot of hits, but it doesn't seem to be driving a lot of traffic to my this blog or the mistrust music website. The videos are amongst quite a lot of other surfing videos so you'd think that people who watch those would follow the links to my music. Maybe not. There doesn't seem to be a lot written on the web about how to improve your traffic using Youtube etc. Maybe someone could suggest something. Following on from the last post - "The Colour Purple" - I can now report that I was featured artist of the week on a show on Purple Radio, which is the official radio station of the Big Chill organistion. The DJ, Ketsbaia, played three tracks, "Dubcrazy", "Painless Light" and "Distant Shores". I got a few nice comments from the DJ, and some support on the Big Chill Forum. My tracks were played alongside a lot of "A-list" bands, and seemed to hold up ok. He ran out of time to play a fourth track "Never Alone", but said that he liked it that much that he'd play it in a couple of weeks. As for other things... The "mistrust clan" went to Borth near Aberystwyth for a week in a caravan at the end of July. It's an old fishing village, which is very quiet and suited Paul (my stepson, who has PDD-NOS, and a massive social phobia, amongst other things). It started off as a complete disaster - pouring rain, burst car tyre, everyone worn out - but in the end we didn't want to come home. Lots of nice scenery and fresh air to inspire me to write some new tunes. I'll put some of the photos on Flickr soon. I'm in the middle of applying for a new job, and contemplating a move from the Manchester area to Yorkshire. Things are happening at work which mean I could be out of a job or at least being downgraded in the next two years, so the time is write to put my skills to better use. Besides that, the holiday proved how much Paul, and the other children, need to be nearer the countryside and aware from where we're currently living. If anyone reading this lives in the more scenic areas of West Yorkshire, please can you leave a comment saying if it's a nice place to live?

Filed under  //   ABer   Aberystwyth   Borth   artists   autism   autism and music   big chill   download   exposure   family   google   ketsbaia   mistrust   purple radio   youtube  

The colour Purple

No post for a few weeks, mainly due to family commitments, work commitments, and stuff like that. However, I'm excited right now. I'm finally going to get some tunes played on an upcoming internet radio show. More details to follow after 10pm (UK time). In the meantime, you can get hold of all my music for free. See the previous post for details....

Filed under  //   UK   big chill   blog   blogging   buzz   film music   forum   free   free download   free mp3   google   ipod   ketsbaia   label   lastfm   music library   myspace   purple radio   wordpress   youtube  
Posted July 19, 2007

Saving the planet

Am I saving the planet by not making any new tracks at the moment? I've got lots of things to inspire me and lots of ideas going round in my head, but can't seem to find the time to put them down on the computer as rough ideas. As for saving the planet, I guess that I'm lightening the load on my carbon footprint by not switching on the laptop and the midi keyboard, but if I'm not making any tunes, the conceited view would be to say that someone somewhere is out burning fossil fuel instead of being at home listening to my music. I've been listening to an old tape I made in 1988 called "PMWW" which stands for "Power, Movement, Wisdom, Words". It sounds like a strange title, from a time when I would write endless pages of lyrics and try and fit some music around them, and hope they all gelled together into songs. I probably made about 5 or 6 of these tapes, all with about 12 tracks on each, so that's a fair amount of music. The thing with PMWW and probably all the others, is that although the songs and the singing aren't particular good and the timing of the playing isn't perfect, there are lots of that sound interesting and original. It sounds like I've taken the time to play around with the sounds and the drum programming, made some interesting intros and solos. Fair enough, my playing technique wasn't very good, but there are some decent basslines and chords in there. In those days, I had a Jen SX1000 monosynth, a Casio MT31 keyboard, Kay Memory Rhythm drum machine, and a Yamaha VSS 100 sampling keyboard. Listening to PMWW it reminds me that I used to connect the Jen's output to the line-in on the Yamaha. Then I'd play a note on the Jen and start up the amazing 2-second sampler on the VSS, and build up a few other sounds using the latter's oversample facility. Then I'd start mangling them with the built-in editor. Amazingly, I'd end up with samples that sounded like the Yamaha DX7 and PPG Wave synths and none of my tracks had the same sounds. They were all original sounds, too. The point I'm making is that these days, I sit down in front of the computer with Acid Pro open on a blank page, find some loops that sound good together or load up a soft synth and use the midi grid to paint in some notes, and take it from there. So the only thing that a track comes from is usually something that started out being made by someone else. Alright - I usually end up cutting up the loops, or changing a few of the soft synth presets, but the tune more often than not is a some of its parts, until I go back to it a few weeks later and add a bit of my own personality to it.  I guess it all boils down to lack of time. I usually get on the computer about 9.30 pm one or two evenings a week and get constant interruptions, especially as Paul isn't in school and on Prozac and demands constant attention. Which brings me back to Power, Movement etc. What little time I got on the PC the other day, I started looking at some of my old VST plugins, and ran them through a little program called Cantabile, which lets you play the plugins using your computer keyboard.  I actually started playing some riffs and experimenting with the sounds, trying to make something original, I got the same buzz I had all those years ago, and I've actually been creative! Finally, the O'Neill surfing clips I've mentioned before (and are on my video wall) have found their way on to Sumo TV's website. Apparently, it's a bit like Youtube, but the videos can be shown on their satellite tv station.

Filed under  //   buzz   cantabile   cantabile   creative   movement   plugins   power   prozac   tv   vst   wisdom   words   yamaha   youtube  
Posted June 6, 2007