Emerald City Productions

ian boddy

Experimental Electronic Music……..

by Stokes-Herbst on September 14, 2010

in Electronic Music, General, Music

Hi,

I am currently working on an area which I have never touched on in seriousness, but enjoyed others works in.  I used to be challenged by Tangerine Dream, Michael Nyman, Philip Glass and other German Ilk composers such as Ian Boddy. I am working with a Mac computer and using the Komplete 6 by Native Instruments.  This gives me the vast batch of synthesizers they give with the their package.  You are able to create almost anything you think of-and that’s a fantastic!  I use the Kore 2 synthesiser/controller which I mix the sounds with and create the atmospheres and leads.  I love it.

On the 3rd piece in the EP-Starting with the sounds imagined, I created a beautiful background phasing grunge sound, by mixing on the Kore 2-loading in selected sounds.  A sort of a Moog type lead sound was selected and twisted/EQ’d and came out wonderful.  One or two more synthy lead sounds were selected/altered.  Turning next to Drum/Aux sounds was fun, but needed extensive editing.  I pulled the sounds from all over the place from Ultrabeat in Logic Pro and Absynth/Battery/Kontakt.

I not sure what counts for experimental Electronic music, but what has been created in track 3 is not exactly where I thought I would be going in.  I seem to drift as so many do-but drifting is fun sometimes when there is no pressure from record companies or TV demands!  I know how to react to pressure and write to brief-difficult but true.  I am now at the point of the mix, and thats going to fun…..

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Internet Promotion of Music….

by Stokes-Herbst on September 10, 2010

in Electronic Music, General, Music

Had brilliant night out with the 3 stooges (us 3 composers) Ian Boddy/Marcus Howarth +me!  We discussed how the Internet is full of content already, and how to get the message across-although Ian has a 20 year track record, how do other composers get their work known so they can make a living??  The Internet method doesn’t bode well for starters.  Apparently though the word still is content, content and more content!!!!-so here’s some………….

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Composing Electronic Music

by Stokes-Herbst on January 27, 2010

in Electronic Music, General, Music

Hi All,

I have been busy composing tracks for the forthcoming EP today.  It is purely Electronic in feel working on the Kore 2 series of Synthesizers.  Had a good bash at it today, working out Bass parts for the 2nd half of the track, although there is a more to go.  The sound is spacey though up front in parts with a good synth lead sound that I have designed.  Just as I was getting it deep, I had to give up due to the daughter ringing me for a lift :)

Having a night out with the 3 stooges (Ian Boddy, Marcus Howarth & me) tomorrow night!-a music seminar ending in the most important part-a curry!

Cheers

Paul :)

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Ian Boddy-Electronic Composer and Performer….

by Stokes-Herbst on January 22, 2010

in Electronic Music, Music

Ian Boddy-was an unknown to me 10 years ago until he was introduced to me as a result of a contact at a Music seminar.  His biography is shown below for interest:

Ian Boddy – Biography

Ian Boddy has been at the forefront of the UK electronic music scene since 1983 when he both performed at the very first UK Electronica Festival in Milton Keynes and released his first vinyl album The Climb.

In the 4 years preceding this event he had been experimenting at an Arts Council funded studio in Newcastle whilst at University. His early work resulted in 3 cassette only releases on the Mirage label as well as several local concerts. These early tapes showed Boddy gradually forming his own style through a long self teaching process in the techniques of analogue synthesis and tape manipulation.

After the success of 1983 he went on to release another 2 vinyl albums, Spirits and Phoenix, as well as performing several concerts throughout the UK. However it wasn’t until 1989 that his first CD release, Odyssey, came out on the EM label Surreal to Real. After Drive, his second release on the Surreal label Boddy formed his own record label, Something Else Records , through which he released a further 4 solo albums as well as reissuing his 3 early vinyl albums and the cassette only release Jade on CD. Furthermore he released three collaborative CD releases with some of Europe’s finest exponents of EM, namely Andy Pickford, Ron Boots and Mark Shreeve.

He continued to expand his concert appearances which have now surpassed over 100 events with concerts in the UK ( including several more UK Electronica appearances, two shows at the Jodrell Bank Planetarium & two at the National Space Centre), Holland ( five festival appearances ), Germany and three shows in Philadelphia, USA.

Alongside these mainstream EM activities Boddy has also built for himself a formidable reputation as a sound designer having produced a series of sample CD’s & virtual instruments for sampling specialists Time & Space. In late 2008 Boddy set up his own downloadable sample CD company with the Waveforms series of sample packs. Furthermore he is also involved in library music having composed nine such CD’s for the publishing company deWolfe as well as producing some music for a computer games company.

Thus we come up to the present with the formation of his DiN label in 1999. Unlike his private Something Else Records the DiN label was set up to allow Boddy to actively form different collaborations with a wide variety of musicians as well as release other artists music. DiN has achieved widespread critical acclaim for it’s adventurous outlook at the world of EM and has seen 31 releases with Boddy being involved in 16 of these ( five solo and fourteen collaborative projects ).

In 2008 DiN expanded it’s catalogue with a series of download only releases featuring Boddy in concert both as a solo performer and with other DiN artists.

January 2009

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Blade-runner music……

by Stokes-Herbst on December 19, 2009

in General, Music

Hi All,

Just heard the music of Blade-runner again by Vangelis-the digitally remastered film-thought it was brilliant.  Loved the synths which sounded very cool-yamaha CS 80 I believe. Plenty of reverb with very smooth reverb tails.  Lovely smooth overall sound-I wonder, did they use any real tape-or Digital tape emulation?  He caught the sense of the movie very well, and drove it in place where the was need.  I am aware that Ian Boddy has had his tracks remastered, having it put onto 2 inch tape then back into computer sequencer for further work.

I use Logic Pro Studio sequencer with Native Instruments Kore 2 system.  Very powerful arsenal as I am finding at the moment, and using it to compose my next EP.  I want to achieve similar quality sound that Vangelis has got on the film.  In my initial foray into film music, I have not yet got the perfect sound in the mix.  Hopefully that will change with this setup that I am using…….Merry Christmas!

Speak soon-Paul

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Top Quality Albums only on Musiczeit.com!!!??

by Stokes-Herbst on October 4, 2009

in Music

Hi All,

I’d like to introduce you to Musiczeit.com who are purveyors of Hi Quality downloadable music.  I now have posted 4 albums Cosmic Renditions, Storm, Chthonic Netherworld, and Easy Street up for download.  The site claim to be the only one worldwide where you can download albums at full CD Lossless quality and 256K mp3 quality-here’s what they have to say:

“We all jumped for joy when CD came along, right? Great sound quality, no scratches, no messing about. So now what’s happening? Download music is everywhere, and CD is being put out to pasture. But wait, there’s a catch. Most download music is “lossy”. And this means inferior sound quality to CD. MP3, AAC, WMA. It’s all lossy.

We at MusicZeit.com believe you should have the best of both worlds. Instant download access to the music you want, but no loss of quality. That’s why all our albums are available in lossless CD quality as well as top-notch 256K MP3 if you want to listen to things “on the move”. And we don’t do individual tracks. Like you, we feel the music needs to be heard in context, as part of a full album or EP.

You don’t have to compromise in the digital download era. Let your kids get their “quick track fix” on other sites, while you download the full album, full artwork, in full CD quality, from MusicZeit.com

Full albums. Full artwork. Full CD quality. The only way.”

Perhaps they have a persuasive  argument?  As a composer of music and not spending a lot of hours listening, I’m not sure whether I can comment authoritatively .  I swing between the thought that mp3 at the low end sample rate, is all that most people are interested in, and, that maybe those who can be bothered to buy music are more discerning than I think.  Speaking personally, I was always interested in as high a quality of sound that I could get.  This has carried over to my compositional side where I follow the ‘holy grail’ of top recording quality  as standard.  Does that make me a an audiophile?-I don’t think so in that I am thinking of the people that would be listening, and hoping that the high end quality that is available relatively easily makes the listening experience a joy-drawing scenes and pictures that only a few decades ago were unheard of.

Returning to musiczeit-good on you and I am sure that the idea will catch-on.  You get full CD quality, artwork and at good rates…there is a market here!

Paul Stokes


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