Tag Archives: mixing

GAME MUSIC, MUSIC, NERDCORE

Heath McNease – Straight Outta Console: The Nintendo Thumb Mixtape

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Some fresh, free Nerdcore for ya from Heath McNease, “Straight Outta Console: The Nintendo Thumb Mixtape”

Produced by ForBeatsSake the tight album features a massive cast of rappers, including Playdough, Manchild, Freddie Bruno, KJ-52, Okwerdz (Grind Time), Cas Metah, Red Cloud, and Sivion. I’d write a more indepth review, but I’m only on track 2 and I felt compelled to post. No time to pause over here…

“This was a total labor of love on my part. I was filled with so much love and excitement while writing and conceiving this with ForBeatsSake. It’s the most excited I’ve been to write raps since i was a freshman in college,” McNease says. “I was able to talk about everything that I love in this world. Stupid cartoons, video games, politics, your mom… just anything and everything. And having the greatest talent around me on production, lyricism, and turntablism only made this more enjoyable. I wanted to give this away for free just to show my fans and supporters how much I truly love them and care for them. I want to be a part of their lives. I want my stupid songs to be a part of their soundtrack. They’ve given me so much love and encouragement as I’ve grown as an artist… I owe them my career… and this is a way to say thanks. I also hope it brings in TONS of new fans and friends. This project will only succeed by the word of mouth of everyone that picks it up for free. Phone calls, texts, emails, Facebook and Twitter blasts… I need them to share one on one and just let people know how exciting and fresh and awesome this project is. It’s the most enjoyable sounding rap record I’ve ever heard and I’m thankful I got to be the oe who made it!”

CHIPTUNE, MUSIC, PRODUCTION & TUTORIALS

Chiptune Daft Punk “Something About Us” by Dj CUTMAN

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Art by SudarioJust released a new remix I’ve been working on for the past few days. An 8-bit re-imagined version of “Something About Us” from Daft Punk’s album “Discovery,” possibly one of my favorite electronic albums of all time. Something about the way Daft Punk incorporated vocals into this album really stuck with me, and when a friend of mine did a hip-hop remix of this tune I knew I had to follow suit, taking it in a different direction.

The mix is available on Bandcamp.

I slowed the track down from the original, and utalized a very fun plug-in called The Magical 8-bit PlugIn, engineered by Japanese band YMCK. It’s simple controls allowed me to explore the most basic of the chiptune sounds (square, triangle, pulse and noise waves) while giving me freedom to focus on the mix and arrangement of the piece.

The total song is 16 tracks, 8 Chiptune tracks, 6 Sample tracks (for drums and vocals) and 2 sends for compression (to thicken the drums) and delay. I used Waves L1 and The Glue to master. A simpler mastering chain than I normally use, because I was going for a more authentic chiptune sound. Those true chip enthusiasts out there would criticize that this isn’t a “Chiptune” because this mix could never have come out of a single sound chip. But if you know me, I’m a production junkie. Screw the rules, man, I’m making music!

Something About Us [8-Bit Daft Punk Remix] by Dj CUTMAN

The track is also available from Bandcamp, for those who wish to support or just download it in a high quality format. The FLAC version sounds awesome (if I do say so myself :) You can also follow Dj CUTMAN on Facebook, Twitter, and Soundcloud.

The art was created by Sudario from Brazil.

CHIPTUNE

ChipTuesday: The Magnificent Meat Shower

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I had this idea I stole from myself, and I’m going to run with it. While working over at Moving Box Studios I was creating a weekly blog post I called “Track Tuesday” where I would post a new mix I was working on out of the recording studio. Well, since the new year happened I’ve been running all over the east coast and haven’t had time to produce any new artists out of the Moving Box. So I’m transferring the idea over here and calling it ChipTuesday, where I’m going to go on 8bitcollective and post an easily accessible track from their weekly chart over here. Yeah, I guess it’s kind of lame… if by lame you mean pretty neato keen gang. [alright, that last part was actually lame. way to go me.]

This week it’s a new track from one of my favorite Chiptune artists Coda called The Magnificent Meat Shower. Have a listen!

[audio:coda-meatshower8bc.mp3]
EVENTS

The Video Game DJ @ OTAKON 2010

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Dj CUT MAN and MC DEATH BEAR at OTAKON 2010Big news for Dj CUT MAN and MC DEATH BEAR, this weekend they headed down to Baltimore, MD to attend OTAKON, the east coast’s largest Anime and Japanese Culture festival (attending approximately 30,000 people.) The convention is named after the Japanese word Otaku which is used to refer to people obsessed with Japanese animation (anime), Japanese comics (manga) and Video Games.

This was a big milestone for Dj CUT MAN, as it was their largest live performance yet. Dj CUT MAN played his new mixtape, DUBTROPOLIS (available soon via SoundCloud), a collection of Dub-Step influenced Chiptune songs, a sub-genre known as ChipStep. A last minute addition of this track by UK chiptune artist Monster! Monster! proved to be a worthwhile addition. MC Death Bear became a true Master of Cerimonies that night, hyping the crowd and providing vocal interludes and shout outs throughout the set.

The music Dj CUT MAN spun was a comprised mostly of chiptune compositions from the 8BitCollective and 8BitPeoples communities, websites devoted to providing their independently created music for free download. Later in the set, Dj CUT MAN featured the music of bLiNd, a top-tier Video Game Remixer and trance/dance producer known from the groundbreaking video game remix website OCREMIX.

MC Death Bear has been creating art for Dj CUT MAN for months, and is responsible for the killer flyers for the series of shows at Ithaca’s own Waffle Frolic. Dj CUT MAN has created three full-length mix albums so far and his fourth is expected soon. Stay tuned for more.

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