SIDtastic! comes to Sounds of Solarno
Back in the mid to late 80′s, and into the very early 90′s, the majority of my musical experimentation was done using my venerable Commodore 64. The Commodore 64 contained a little piece of hardware called the SID, a sound chip which would go on to become one of the most influential 8-bit sound chips of all time. The signature sound of the SID can be prominently found in the recent chiptune resurgence of the past 5 years or so. Artists such as 8-Bit Weapon and Computeher...
Read MoreMeet Boxel!
A few of you have asked me about the robot on the cover of the new album Robot Junkyard. His name is Boxel, and he stands about 3″ tall, 4″ if you count his antenna, but he’s much taller in his own mind. He doesn’t typically listen to me, especially now that he’s a star. I do believe that he thinks he will be on the big screen in the future. Can you say diva? Boxel is a prototype paper box robot created by Cincinnati based artist JessWolf. She...
Read MoreThe artwork is done!
I finished all of the album artwork tonight for Robot Junkyard, and I even have my UPC code already. It’s now a real album in the eyes of Soundscan! (Or at least it will be as soon as I upload the album info to Soundscan.) What you see next to this text is the album cover. The rest of the artwork will be presented in the album listing sometime around when the album is finally available. It feels really good to get this aspect of the album done. Sometimes it is very difficult to...
Read MoreI can see the finish line
It’s so close I can taste it. Here it is 1am and I just finished the first go-round of mastering on all eleven tracks. No, I didn’t do them all tonight. The brain couldn’t handle it. All eleven were done over the course of the last week, eeking out a few minutes here and there when I could find the time. Just for fun I took a picture (attached) of some of my album notes. You probably can’t read much, but here’s a brief rundown of what you’ll see:...
Read MoreThe highly anticipated new album from Solarno is nearly finished!
In the works for close to 18 months, I have been feverishly putting the final touches on my second album, Robot Junkyard. I expect to have a release date scheduled within the next month. This album touches a number of different sub-genres in the electronic family; trance, ambient, IDM, 8-bit, even a little old-school Herbie-esque funk. My take on these different genres? All of the sounds heard on the album (exceptions being drums/percussion, and vocals) are from one synth source, the...
Read MoreBedtop mobile studio surgery
I had the wonderful opportunity to perform a surgical procedure on my mobile studio this evening, and by mobile studio I mean my trusty Macbook Pro. A few months ago, my trusty studio took an unfortunate cliff dive off of a shelf with a cable in the left side USB port. Sadly, the USB cable was no longer attached when I arrived on the scene to render medical assistance, and in its place was the mangled, twisted wreckage of one-time pristine I/O port. I tried to revive the USB port, but...
Read MoreCover songs can be a tricky proposition
I recently made a list of songs that I plan on doing cover versions of. It’s hard to determine what songs will be worthwhile to put one’s own personal take on. The first criteria, and possibly the easiest to determine, is the obvious one, do I like the song. Almost seems like a no brainer, but if it’s not one of my favorite songs why cover it. The second criteria I looked at was does the song invoke an emotional response in me. If I don’t have an emotional...
Read MoreiTunes, Amazon, Napster, oh my!
Oh happy day! The trifecta is now complete. Remotely Programmed Moonshot is now available for sale all over the digital domain. First CDBaby, then Amazon, and now iTunes. Yes, even Napster will be streaming Moonshot in the near future, if not already. Head on over to the Store to see a listing of where you can purchase Moonshot. For those of you who have already heard Remotely Programmed Moonshot, please feel free to write a review on any of those sites. ...
Read MoreChristmas gifts for everyone!
I’ve added two new songs to the downloads page, and they’re both Holiday songs. Holiday song covers to be exact. First is a song I did way back in 1992, a dark brooding version of ‘The Ukranian Bell Song’. The second one is a robotic version of ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’ called ‘Hark the Herald Robots Sing’. Very nice indeed.
Read MoreGet Free Music!
I’ve added a new Downloads page, sound the trumpets! This will be home to random pieces of music that I’ve written, some new, some old. Unless notated, I own the copyright on anything found here, so no going and selling these as your own. That wouldn’t be very nice, and you wouldn’t want to upset Mr. Bigglesworth, because we all know what happens when Mr. Bigglesworth gets angry. Anything found here is also DRM-free, and so should play on the mp3/media player of...
Read MoreView from My Eyes
