It has been an exciting, productive and busy holiday season here in the Mystik studio. In addition to continuing my long-standing residency with RadioExplore.org, I am also developing several new tracks and collaboration projects with local and foreign musicians.
DJ Scottino is one of my studio neighbors and also a music producer, and it has been fun to jam together and exchange studio sessions, strategize about gear, and other conversations regarding optimal live setups, performance and recording options. Although we’ve only jammed a few times, there is good potential to develop a project further, incorporating both live elements as well as recording material. Scottino is also working on a remix of Mystik’s 2011 track Regatta, which they are both contributing to and developing for a digital release later this year.
mystiksound · Mystik – Regatta
Also, one of my most recent collaborations just got started over the new year and first weeks of 2012. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to evaluate several guitar synth and MIDI input options with a good friend and near brother-in-law Carlos Caminos, who also happens to be a guitar virtuoso and year-round professional musician in Venezuela.
Carlos was in San Francisco over the winter holiday season and was looking for a guitar synth, specifically the Roland GR-55. After much discussion, he eventually got one, and I was excited to help him get it setup, and hooked up into both Ableton Live and Logic Pro, so we could see how it would work to integrate the guitar MIDI input with the software flexibility offered by MIDI data… We also had lines in recording the guitar synth’s input as well, which could model various guitar sounds as well as a wide variety of synthesized voices.
After a bit of fiddling, we finally got the inputs working on BOTH Live and Logic and promptly began making some MUSIC! Finally we were recording and developing two demo tracks, one in each program as demonstrations of the production and recording process required by each DAW. I was also able to test out (and quickly prove) my new little Akai LPD-8 and LPK-25 keyboard, which by the way, I am very pleased with, especially since my previous generation of Korg Nano’s were way too fragile.
(Aside: My Nanokey smashed after falling on the floor and 5 keys popped off, irrepairable. Also, my Nanopad pads have almost never worked to my knowledge…a true testament to the fun and performance joy of using an XY pad, since it’s still stuck around in some way…also maybe to complete the tri-set of former nano toythings… Now they’re B-listed for sure, except my NanoKontrol, but still…I digress!!)
We are still finalizing the mixes and arrangements of each project, but stay tuned and I’ll post up some samples soon!
DUBSIDE
In addition, I had also prepared a shorter sample track to combine several concepts…breakbeat, hip-hop, dub step, cinematic, lounge, chill, downtempo… The result of this experiment is a track I am calling Dubside, and in the process of creating it, three distinct mixes evolved. One a flamenco-inspired mix with an acoustic sampled guitar riff, a “Devolved Gangsta Mix” without the guitar, but adding some more vocal and textural samples and a “ballad” mix, with no guitar layers and more minimal textural effects and samples.
As always, I feel I should re-mix these all before posting…but maybe I’ll just post some links anyway to see if anyone’s got any thoughts and wants to listen.