Happy 100th

I started writing this blog back in august 2009, the main point of it was to promote my own music and write a little about what I was interested in (synthesizers and stuff). It wasn't something that I updated all the time and I have to admit that I forgot about it a few times.

About a month after I started the blog I recorded and uploaded a set of samples. The samples were really just some drum loops and bass lines that I recorded for a track I was working on (it never actually got finished). I thought it would be cool to upload them to the blog and allow people to download them to use them in their own productions. After a while I noticed that that one post with the samples had quite a lot of traffic, so I did a little snooping around the Internet and I found that I was being linked to from various websites and forums.

Soon, uploading samples here became a regular thing for me and the blog got more and more hits. Along side the samples, I also put up a few reviews and writings of my own and kept the blog running at a steady rate; posting updates, samples and reviews every time I got my hands on a new piece of music gear or software.

That seemed like ages ago but I still can't believe this will be the 100th post from me. Fair enough 100 doesn't really seem like a whole lot but when I think about all the time that I've put into writing the reviews and recording the samples I still find it hard to believe.

As I posted before, I'm in the middle of a re-imagining of this blog. The name will be changed eventually to something that relates more to the content of the blog (not just my name and a few numbers). There will also be some changes to the blog itself, I want to make it easier for new visitors to find their way around the blog and access older content without hassle.

To celebrate this milestone I've put together a new sample pack. The pack will contain synth hits taken from two of my favourite iPad synthesizers, the Animoog and Sunrizer.

You can find the new sample pack in this post.

-here's to the next 100, Dan.

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Blog/Website Updates

Updates to the site/blog

Over the next week or so you will probably notice a few updates to the Dan303 site and blog. I want to make the site a lot more user friendly for you guys so I will be changing a few things.

The main thing that I would like to to is make the site a lot easier to navigate so that content will be a lot easier to find. I might split the blog into a few categories such as News, reviews, updates, iOS apps, music, samples and synthesisers, etc.

Along with the navigation improvements I'll also be changing the about sections, side texts and main page. This will make it a lot clearer to new visitors and let them know and get a better feel about what to expect from the website.

I'm looking forward to making these improvements and I hope that they will help to push the site forward.

-Dan.

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New track [FREE] - Alive or just breathing

Alive or just breathing by Dan303

I have uploaded A new track to soundcloud Called "Alive or just breathing". It's very Industrial sounding but also has a lot of influence from noise and glitch music.
I've Been working on this track for about a week now and thought I'd share it, It's free to download [of course].

I Made the track using propellerheads reason, but it also contains reversed voice samples and some sounds from a few of my other synths/plugins.

Hope you enjoy listening to it.

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Free Album, Liable Mutt

Liable Mutt is the title of my new mini album which is available to download via this blog. You can download each track individually or the whole album as a .zip file.

The album is completely free which means you can take it, share it, give it away or do whatever you want with it.

Track list

1. Cake Torn FREE DOWNLOAD
2. Watt Cork FREE DOWNLOAD
3. Kart Etcher FREE DOWNLOAD
4. Croak Turf FREE DOWNLOAD
5. If Rack Vet FREE DOWNLOAD
6. Sax Trick FREE DOWNLOAD
7. Canker Vest FREE DOWNLOAD

Download full album [.MP3]
Download full album [.wav]

About the album
You have probably noticed the unusual track names, this is because they are all anagrams of themselves. For example the first track "Cake Torn" is an anagram of "Track one" and the title of the album "liable mutt" is an anagram of "album title".

Thanks to dave for helping out with the artwork for the album, you can find him on Twitter HERE or on Blogspot HERE

Production techniques
I didn't want to use a lot of equipment while recording this album as I wanted it to have a raw minimal feel to it.
The whole album was recorded on my Fostex D-80 8-track and mixed roughly with a basic Tapco 8 channel mixer. There was no computers involved in the production.

My Roland MC303 groovebox provided all drum and percussion sounds on the album, using mostly the 808 and 909 kits.

Most of the basslines were produced using my Freeform Analog Technologies FB383 [clone of the Roland TB303].

All other synth sounds came from my Korg Microkorg [apart from the strings on "Sax Trick" which came from the MC303].

For effects like reverb and distortion I used my korg Mini KP, Boss MD2 and Boss DS1.

Hope you enjoy listening to the album. You can find me on Twitter HERE or Myspace HERE

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ThRREeOh!32154865321=]

The New track is called "ThRREeOh!32154865321=]" (I don't really know why). And it is available to download for free from Soundcloud (bellow) or HERE

ThRREeOh!32154865321=] by Dan303

Instrumentation/Gear used.

Drums/percussion - Roland Mc-303
Piano - Roland Mc-303
303 Bass - FAT Freebass FB383 (TB-303 clone)
Simple raw pad - Korg Microkorg
Extra synth hit - Reason NN-XT (Juno 60 multisample)
Synth drone patch - Reason NN-XT(Juno 60 multisample)
Vocal stutters - Alphebet samples!!?!?






The Mc-303, FB383 and Microkorg were originally recorded using a Zoom MRS-4b Multitrack and then imported into Propellerheads Reason using the NN-XT sampler. Then I added the extra parts to the track (Juno 60 parts & the vocal stutters).

The FB383 part Is run through the Scream distortion and the piano part is run through the DDL-1 delay (both in reason)



When I was happy with the track I did a bit of mixing and exported it.

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Waldorf PPG wave and Arturia Moog modular

In the last post I posted some audio from the Arturia Moog Modular. The audio clip was mostly drones and scifi noises so I thought that I would upload something a little more musical.

Along with the Moog I used a Pad sound from Waldorfs softwear version of the classic PPG wave digital synth.









The 909 kick drum is coming from a freeware rompler from DSK called mini DRUMZ 2.
Other than that there is no other plug-ins/instruments/effects used.
Everything is sequenced using Samplitude 10 LE.

The audio track is free to download from soundcloud

Moog Modular and Waldorf PPG wave by synthersizer-sounds


Arturia
Waldorf
DSK

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First post

Right then, just started this new blog.
I will post various things on here including a lot of my older music and projects along with other stuff I have been recently working on.
I will upload links to Soundcloud, Facebook, Twitter, vampirefreaks, Last.FM and myspace accounts.
Basically anything on and off the net that I'm involved with.

Also lookout for links to friends projects for more music, art, video etc.


But until I upload all that stuff check me out on Twitter at; www.twitter.com/dan303
You can also keep up to date with the twitter widget in the upper right hand corner. This will display my 4 most recent tweets.

-Thanks, Dan.

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