Marten Jansen Music

Time Goes On

Feb 25, 2010 New compositions Leave a comment
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My new song is titled Time Goes On. I drew upon similar resources as in Your Dreams and You Said with the difference that Time Goes On is 9 minutes long. Previously I didn’t have the confidence to move beyond 4 or 5 minutes and would end a song at the first opportunity.
Time Goes On is an “open ended” song. It doesn’t go out with a bang but ends in a kind of ambiguous way. I don’t quite understand the ending myself, so an update may follow. Don’t download at random, in anticipation of an update, because I will mention any updates in this post.

Now, with Time Goes On finished, I will have the opportunity to work with the new virtual instruments I bought. Hopefully my laptop has enough RAM to support that, because RAM is really the bottleneck in computer based music production. The problem is that I will have to buy a whole new computer just to double my RAM, because it seems to me, correct me if I’m wrong, that computer manufacturers now articifially limit RAM capacity and RAM expandability. A correct business decision undoubtedly, but a major headache to me.

The thing to watch with Time Goes On is that it’s a 13 MB download. This is just the consequence of home recording, because in order to get a decent sound quality you can do little compression to reduce the file size and even then some parts sound a little scrappy, especially the electric guitars with all their overtones.

In this song I used:

• Vocaloid Miriam
• Pro Tools loops and sounds
• Vocal Foundry
• Voices of Africa
• Nu Metal City 2
• Dubstep Plates 2
• Symphonic Manoeuvres
• 80’s Punk & New Wave
• Superior Drummer Avatar, Twisted Kit & Electronic
• Ableton Live Suite 8

You Said

Dec 25, 2009 New compositions Leave a comment
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You Said is an ode to guitar rock. During the 1980s I was a fan of guitar bands like Dire Straits, U2, Simple Minds and The Stones, but then, at some point, guitar rock became so predictable and retro that I switched to House music, until in pure desperation I switched to classical music, mid-90s.
Now, [...]

Your Dreams

Nov 17, 2009 New compositions Leave a comment
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Ok, so this track is a little unorthodox, as I always try to push my envelope. In my opinion it’s an artist’s obligation to be unorthodox (while making art, that is) because art is, or can be, escapism. In the visual arts you can work towards realism, but even there art is only interesting, in [...]

Requiem for Batman

Oct 13, 2009 New compositions Leave a comment
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Requiem for Batman is a hommage to Batman (March 6 2000 – April 21 2006).
I’ve made a habit out of alternating songs with drums and pop vocals with songs that are based on Vocaloid and result in a mix of classical music and jazz. The classical angle is due to listening to classical music a [...]

Come Home

Sep 23, 2009 New compositions Leave a comment
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My new song is called Come Home and is based on a sample DVD that has many short clips of vocals. So if the vocals sound familiar, it’s because many people have used them, but the song as a whole is still what the composer makes it.
All in all, using vocal samples is much like [...]

Tell Me

Sep 11, 2009 New compositions Leave a comment
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I told you I’m into Vocaloid, the singing computer.  Today’s track is a song based on Vocaloid, in the sense that it inspired me to write some music I would never write without it, even if I had a real singer.
It’s  a simple song, in that it consists of a bass, keyboard and a singing [...]

Vocaloid

Sep 1, 2009 Music Leave a comment
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I have used computers since 1980 and samples since 1990, but the most impressive piece of music related technology I’ve ever laid my hands on is Vocaloid. As a software instrument it’s still in the infancy of its development, because the text-to-speech aspect still leaves something to be desired in comparison with reality, so it [...]

Mi Fortuna

Aug 28, 2009 New compositions Leave a comment
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Mi Fortuna is the title of my new track. I’m not sure what it means, but I don’t think it’s dirty. I downloaded a sample CD and on it someone kept saying “mi fortuna” (I think) and I incorporated that sound clip into my song. It’s got four more samples from that CD, all vocals, [...]