Skip to main content

The ....... of the New

As part of the run up to this current bout of arranging we loaded up lots of new presets - instruments on our two favorite synthesizers thinking that this would help provoke some new thinking and new sounds.

And yes we have done some more experimentation and the Log Marimba will appear from time to time when it's staccato effects help. We have also tried some of the tempting new pads but have rejected most on the grounds that the effects are too gross and un-controllable. In many instances the quality of an arrangement is achieved through the restraint applied to the variety and complexity of the sounds combined.

Where the classical composer has the standard orchestral pallet to work from an electronic music composer has an enormous potential range of instruments to use. Part of our success has been the identification of a restricted pallet of instruments that work well together. This week we have identified a couple of pads which sit nicely behind our steel drums and marimba arrangements filling in for the longer dying notes and giving a little more depth to the sound during the more percussive passages. This is encouraging us to include a couple of slow movements which we have generally avoided up to now.

So incremental improvement rather than revolution this time.

Popular posts from this blog

Worldwide audience

In the last month Download2MP3 was reached from 169 countries with the remaining gaps being a few countries in North Africa. These days most visits are going direct to one of the big name composer pages although the ragtime category is holding it's own. The last twelve months or so have been a dry patch interms of producing more recordings but I'm pleased to report that the technical issues which been related to various software upgrades. I have been using Cubase for at least 25 years not on an Atari but an Acorn with an external roaland Sound Canvas synthesiser which was purchased in London's Tin Pan Alley. Some of the steps that have got us to 10.5 have been very disconcerting but the truth is that there is nothing to campare with it for the work that I do. I have also acquired some exciting new instruments in the last few months to augment the stalwarts which saw this site get underway. So the Covid19 Lockdown is giving me the time to produce more recordings wh...
Read more
Persistance does it It is now 15 years since this website was launched. In that time we have had ups and downs - some associated with Google algorithm changes but this year we seem to have seen steady growth in visits and some dramatic download volumes. It looks as if we might reach 1000 giga bytes of download this month for the first time ever.  Our global reach is wider - although Indonesia and India still account for over 25% of visits we had visits from 126 countries in the last week exceptions include Uragauy and some sub sahara countries. The bulk come through organic Google searches with the next largest share coming from our daily tweets. 
Read more

Mozart is powering our growth

For years our Mozart arrangements failed to achieve the recognition they deserved but in the last few months this has changed. Our Mozart page has move up the Google and Yandex search results and now benefits substantially from the high level of interest in this composer. Just wondering what I need to do to help Bach keep up. There are some odd features to the usage of our site - some of it almost looks like streaming as gigabytes are down loaded or there are thousands of page hits from what is reported as a Russian search index robot. No, perhaps Google just badly underestimate how popular we are in Russia because they are not so popular there. According to Google India and Indonesia are still the mainstays of our audience with Nigeria and South Africa nudging in just below the USA. So it seems we are supporting developing countries just not in the way orgiginally envisaged.
Read more