Archived Studio Notes vol. 3

There is a new addition to the Intelligent Design Studios... Spectrasonics Atmosphere. Atmosphere bills itself as a "Dream Synth" and it is exactly that. That VSTi sounds amazing. I got it on eBay for about 180.00 less than what it retails for. All I can say is after about one hour of listening to some of the sounds I'm totally inspired. I'm looking forward to having this in my arsenal for future tracks. I'm sure I'll be getting a lot of mileage out of this one.



The only thing I don't like about it is that the Spectrasonics EULA forbids you from making loops with Atmosphere and selling them as part of a collection. I guess I understand their point. They did spend lots of time sampling lots of instruments to create their sound set. But still it is a bit annoying.

Intelligent Design Theory Remixes Serious by 4o1k

Intelligent Design Theory Remixes the track "Serious" by 4o1k. IDT's take on the track leans more towards the progressive side of electronica. Check it out over at 4o1k Productions. (link will open in a new window) Look for "Serious (IDT Remix)".

Intelligent Design Theory on Demo Reels

Intelligent Design Theory has music on a demo reel. An animator friend just updated his web site with his old demo reel and IDT wrote and recorded music for it. Check it out over at www.hynes-site.com. (link will open in a new window) You'll need QuickTime to view the movie.

Archived Studio Notes vol. 2

Cubase SX 3.0 is up for sale. (see the studio page) Why? I really want to simplify life in my studio. Having a full time job, wife, house, and other obligations, I really want to be able to just write and record music when I get time. Cubase complicates things. I updated my sound drivers and Cubase wouldn't boot until I re-ran the ASIO set up. I didn't figure that out until about 30 minutes later. Oh and to add to it all, after I re-installed the sound drivers, my computer would hang for about 2 minutes on boot-up. Not the fault of Cubase as I had previously thought. The culprit was my M-Audio MIDI Man 4x4. No big whoop. I just had to re-install those drivers as well.

Now we're golden, right? WRONG. Cubase, in it's infinite wisdom (or my lack of), doesn't have my audio and MIDI inputs configured any more. So another 30 minutes monkeying around with that I finally give up and do my recording for the day in ACID Pro. All I want to do is sit down and write and record. To me, Cubase isn't all that intuitive. I guess Germans are wired different and think differently.

I've switched to Mackie's Tracktion 2.0. That program is "stoopid" easy to use. The first time I installed it, I ran through the set up and everything worked flawlessly. I've started another track idea that may or may not make on to the CD. One thing I am doing is remixing "Reflections" in Tracktion. I had a hard disk crash a couple of months ago and lost some of the big audio files for "Reflections". Fortunately I recorded my performances with MIDI so the whole track is going to be salvageable. A "Reflections" remix is on the way.

Reflections featured on the Sharpe Mortgage web site

Intelligent Design Theory's "Reflections" is currently being used as background music for the Sharpe Mortgage Website. (link will open in new a window) If you click over, be sure your pop-up blocker is turned off to hear the music.

Archived Studio Notes vol. 1

"Come on. All the cool kids are doing it." So yet another blog is created in the infinite expanse of the Internet. I'm writing this one to track the progress of various projects going on here in the studio. Plus I hope to share what limited insight I have into music that happens to be different from some one else's. Also, I plan on using this "blog area" to talk about the different kinds of music I'm listening to. If there is ever a tour, business trip, funny event or circumstance, it will probably be written about here.

This is far from being a formal blog with archives, trackbacks, comments, etc. My hosting company offers a free install of wordpress so I am looking into that. It shouldn't be too awfully tricky to set up and integrate with my site. Once I get all "formalized" it'll make it easier for those of you who wish to subscribe to do so. Until then, just check back every so often.

I have set up an affiliation with zzounds.com. If you click through and make a purchase of gear on their site, all the proceeds go to support the work I'm doing here. So if you like what you hear and see, consider purchasing some gear. (link will open in a new window)

Intelligent Design Theory Goes Old School

Intelligent Design Theory goes old school with this track from the archives. "Electric Dream" was created in 1991 in the electronic music lab at the University of Tennessee. This track was created entirely with the Kawai K-5. All sounds were designed from scratch then sequenced together using some version of Performer for the MAC. This track is reminiscent of the days of Stockhausen and Varese but instead of splicing tape, zeros and ones were spliced together to form an electronic sound scape.

Listen on the music page

Reflections getting play on DI.FM

Intelligent Design Theory's "Reflections" is getting some spins on the chillout channel at www.di.fm. (link will open in new a window) A few comments have been received both on the forums at DI.FM and through private messages. The feedback has been extremely positive.

First Track Completed

Intelligent Design Theory has completed the first track from the forthcoming CD entitled "Finding God in Zeros and Ones" The name of the track is Reflections. It is a downtempo track with a melodic piano and pulsing basses driving the song.

Listen on the music page