MI7®

So, I finally walked down to Jam (my local music store and dealer) to get my hands on the update from Cubase SX3 to Cubase 4. Now when the 4.1 update is out I felt that it was time to invest in it.

I tear the plastic off and waited for the installation to finish so I could wait some more for the 115MB (mistyped to 114.something kilobytes on Steinbergs website) to wait even longer for the 4.1 update to finish and then rebooted my computer.

I started the Syncrosoft LCC (License Control Center)  to get my newly purchased license onto my dongle but met a message saying that my newly purchased license, wrapped with plastic around the box, had already been used.

I tried a second reboot, but with no luck.

MI7 has been notified with a picture of the license page and the receipt along with screen shots.

Can't say that I have much left over for dongles and other types of copy protections since they only seem to bug us - the paying customers! Actually, I'm really pissed at this and I'm going call MI7 tomorrow before lunch so they can give me a working activation code over the phone. That can't be too much of a request - right?

If a representative from MI7 is reading this, you can reach me at +46 70 993 3816. I won't bite, I promise! I just want it sorted out plain and fast.

I was programming some sounds on Z3ta+, which I've recently purchased, when I can up with the melody and chords for this track. It's a happy dance track bouncing at 140 bpm. Named it after my girlfriend, Christel.  Enjoy!

Check it out at:

http://community.mi7.com/profile/all/sounds/6603

So, I've finally got a hold of myself and remixed my favourite DJ Rkod track, Space-Based Utopia (vote for me here). I tried to add a Pretorium touch to the song, but it's not really what I was aiming for when I started the remix 4 hours ago. I might do a new version later, under less pressure.

I tried to build it up slowly through out the whole track, which a short break in the middle, and having the track exploding with drums and a new melody.

So, if you listen to it, please listen until the end because there's when things start to happen.

We're fighting tight deadlines at the office so I've had very limited amount of time to spend in front of the computer remixing but hopefully that's a passing phase.

The song is completely software and I might have over-used the Audio Damage Fluid (which a friend gave to me as a birthday present - yey! Thanx Daniel and Zoria!) but I really love that chorus effect.

Soft synths used: NI Kontakt 2, NI Battery 3, Sonic Charge µTonic, Gforce Minimonsta, FabFilter Twin and SQ8L.

Soft effects used: Universal Audio (loads of plugins), Audio Damage Fluid and FabFilter Timeless.

Mastered using even more Universal Audio plugins ;o) 

I haven't really let you see, or hear, any goa-trance material that I've been producing through the years.

Back in 1996 I met Magnus Eriksson and we spoke of starting a goa-trance act together since we were both very fond of Astral Projection and M.F.G. It actually took one year for us to get our thumbs out of a certain part of the body .. but in the summer of 1997 we wrote five tracks ("Arcane Philosophy",  "Definition of Mankind", "Extraterrestrial Elimination", "Submit To Fate" and "Superchrome") which gave us a gig at a local festival. "Definition of Mankind" actually peaked at no 6 on the trance chart on mp3.com. Ah, those were the days.....

Magnus and I split up (we're still friends) but I kept going on my own with the same name - Ypsilon 5. I wrote the track "Ground Zero" in 2000 which is the oldest track on my debut album "Binary Sky" (released in march, 2004) and a track still being in the live set and perhaps one of the best songs I've written. It featured a pounding bassline, angry electric guitas and screaming leads with a rock influenced beat.

But, as a saving soul, Patrik Rydberg joined the live setup and has also co-written the last two songs produced waiting to be released ("Abandonded" and "Interceptor").

Also on the album is one of my favourite tracks called "Cosmic Psychosis" (and it was the only track less than 10MB of size, hehe) which I thought you might wanted to hear.

If you want a preview of the "Binary Sky" album, you should point your browsers here.

Two new songs ("Titanium" and "Interceptor") can be found in the mp3 player at our unfinished site, Ypsilon5.com, where you also can hear "Beta Pictoris" from the "Binary Sky" album as well as the above mentioned track, "Ground Zero".

Enjoy! And, please, don't use drugs. It's just not cool.

I've just started my new blog.

The new blog will be the active one, where I'll continue my search for invaluable VSTi's as well as letting you in on some secrets and keeping you updated about the music related work I do.

Here at mi7, I'll continue to blog about the songs I upload whenever I exchange them .. and perhaps something else, who knows?

I hope my new blog hosted at my domain will get lost in the big jungle of blogs - but still. I felt like I needed to take that step so I could bash the software vendors with my findings along the demo trips of their creations. 

All the best! And please keep reading my blog, if you find it interestering. I've added the feed here so you can keep a track of it. If you want to add the feed to your own reader - use this link.

.. to the next. 

Still searching for nice, valuable and handy VSTi's. After trying Cakewalk Rapture, which could have been something for half the price and twice the features, I installed the latest demo (v1.4.0) of Z3ta+ with two heavy eyelids after a long day at the office. I must say I'm a bit curious of that the new 1.5.3 version has to offer - or is it updated just because ..?

Okay, a lot of 6's everywhere. 6 oscillators, 6 LFO's, 6 general purpose Env's and 16 (sixteen) modulation matrix rows. It's said to be a wavetable synthesis and it is. What cought my sleepy eyes, and ears, the most was the Shaper section. A section where you could alter the waveform (of which there are 60 in this soft synth) in many different ways. None can be modulated though and Cakewalk did receive an e-mail regarding that today.

I'm keen on letting companies know what I do think, and where I think they can improve. For example; is it too much to ask to be able to enter value from the keyboard instead of using the mouse or arrow keys? Wanting to go from 6 to 9600 using the wheel on the mouse is a bit boring (referring to Cakewalk Rapture now), and having two knobs with the same MIDI CC where the delay knob is the one reacting instead of the oscillator octave (referring to Gforce Minimonsta now) is just plain dumb. Not responding to inquires like those, especially when I've bought the product is a bit ignorant I think. Sure, I can map another CC for the Octave knob on the Minimonsta, but my G2 patch will not work for the one's downloading my patch to use with their Minimonsta unless they map the knob to the same value. "To make this work, you need to..." - sounds like Microsoft Windows if you ask me.

Back to Z3ta+. Besides the not-being-able-to-modulate-some-parameters it's an okay instrument. I think it's the kind that will grow on you when you finally get around their thinking regarding the modulation matrix - which can do some pretty wierd stuff when using the "Function" as a destination which then can be a source on the next modulation row (or later if you prefer). What the modulation matrix does not offer is a drag-and-drop to re-order the rows which is a nice thing to do since the LFO can modulate itself, for example. However, the Env can not and that's on my wishlist to rgc:audio.

Another thing that bugs me a bit is that Korg don't offer a demo of the Legacy Collection Analogue (or Digital) Edition so I haven't been able to try it. My local music store don't have it installed - which I think Korg should offer, at least. I'm not going to buy something I can't try and listening to demo mp3's isn't that fun of a deal. Really ..

When I got connected this morning to check my e-mail, I found a message from Mindmovie congratulated me as this weeks chosen member.

"Spirou is an amazing synth programmer / producer / remixer from Sweden. He's a master of electronic dance sounds, turning out some of the most perfectly crafted pop here at MI7. Listen to his great summer sounds on his profile page."

I must say that I got really happy and the loved the nice words. Now I'm searching my hard drive for something new to upload so you can listen to something NEW from my studio.

For a while I thought about uploading one of the Erasure remixes Patrik and I did for the Erasure contest that closed last Friday but wasn't too sure about the copyright on the vocal tracks and it might inflict on the outcome of the contest so it was uploaded for 15-20 seconds.

So, I'll be uploading a remix I made for a couple of friends from Holland who won't sue my ass for sharing the song in the flash player ;o) I hope you enjoy "We Can Be (David Lilja's Radio Edit)" by Technologic. I think it has that summer feeling, dance sounds and is enough pop even though it's a couple of years old. Sorry, but I got things to prove now and I'll try not to let you down.

MI7, I lift my hat for thee!

I was listening to the demos of the Korg Legacy Collection Analog Edition (KLCAE) the other day and I must say that the Mono/Poly sounds a lot more interesting than Arturia's emulation of the Jupiter-8V (so shoot me!) for example. Having decided to dump the studio for a corner of my girlfriend apartment, I must store some 61-keys synths and aim to keep a small one and go virtual.

Software has come a long way in a very short time, so following the development is pretty darn exciting with all the new (and old) synths popping up here and there. I've recently invested in both an old and a new one (Gforce Minimonsta and the FabFilter Twin) and I came across the KLCAE which I have neglected for some mysterious reason. I must say that the Mono/Poly sounds really impressive and is a lot more exciting than Arturia's emulation of the "King Roland" (the Jupiter-8V that is). I tried the demo of the Jupiter-8V, which is a very good emulation but I can hear the Mono/Poly chewing a Jupiter for breakfast.

So, while we're talking about the Korg Legacy Collection I must admit that the Digital Edition is also very tempting since I've had a lot of Korg gear though out the years; 01/Wfd, 01R/W, Prophecy, TR-rack, Wavestation EX, Wavestation SR and today I have a Z1 in my studio. Even though I loved the Wavestation I got rid of them since I was only playing around with the wave-sequencing and not composing (which was my main objective) but now I miss the possibility and listening to the Alphaville song "New Horizon" (from "Salvation", 1997, I think) really makes me want one again - hence the Digital Edtion.

However. Since computer are getting faster and faster, really quick too, I was wondering what Korg has planned for the near (or not so near, but still not far) future. It must be every Korg lover and gear junky's wet dream to have an updated version of the Digital Edition featuring a 01/W and at least a Prophecy but more preferably, in my case, a Z1. They are digital, so why not give them a try?

Am I asking for too much?

I know they won't sound like exact replicas of the hardware, but does that have to be a bad thing?

I guess I have to e-mail the proposal to Korg. Wish me luck ;o)

If you liked the track "Departure Gate" uploaded here at mi7, you should point your browser to:

http://trig.com/mindxpander/media

You should also check out the artist page over at spacesynth.net which is a neat summerize of what we've done so far as well as visit the label Hypersound in Schwitzerland.

mindXpander @ Spacesynth.net

Hypersound Productions

Just uploaded a track called Departure Gate written by Patrik Rydberg and I. It's from our space-synth project called mindXpander and it's the latest song to be recorded almost two years old (I think).

Anyhow, here it is in its full length with vocoders. A "Space Mix" (short and without vocoders) was released on Synthesizer Dance vol 7 which was released by Hypersound Productions a while back.

The wonderful and thought-through lyrics can be found at Xpanderland which also was the name of our latest CD.

I've done my rain-stopping dance so Rodney's house won't be flooded. Hope the dance still works.

I'm finally working with one of my all-time favourite bands; Erasure.

What I'm doing is that I'm actually trashing the well-written song "When a Lover Leaves You". Not sure whether they'll like it or not, but it's nice to at least have gave one of their songs a try. It's for a contest, but still.

They won't get one remix either. They'll get three. I mean, why not?

On the wishlist of todo's:

. An official remix or co-production with the Pet Shop Boys

. Writing a song for Sarah Brightman

. Remix Erasure

I'll upload some more music later, I'm on vacation now so I got plenty of time to be in the studio.

Take care! 

Sorting your hard drive can be good some times. Found a couple of remixes I've done for quite some time ago a long with demos and live recordings. Uploaded two here.

Studio-wise I'm now up and running, but my daytime job takes most of my time (spare time as well) so I haven't had the time to be there - but when I'm going on my vacation I'll pratically be living in the studio ..

A scary though entered my mind today (is that a saying?). Why not selling most of the hardware I still have (keeping the Nord Modular G2) and adding some cool software to the shopping cart together with a loaded laptop? Well, I then went out for an ice-cream with a colleague and the thought left my mind as quick as it entered... more or less...

However, I got a $75 coupon over at Universal Audio and I'm thinking of getting the Helios EQ. Not sure if I need it, but another (different) EQ might be fun to play with. Regarding software, I'm very close to purchasing the Korg Analogue Collection (Mono/Poly sounds really nice! And so does the Polysix) and a FabFilter bundle (Timeless, Volcano and Twin).

Time to get some rest now. Nighty night!