Lyrics and vocals...

Sometimes writing lyrics is like constipation of the brain!
Since I studied lyrics and songwriting in more depth last year, I've been spending more time trying to make my lyrics more three dimensional and powerful. 
Sometimes lyrics come very easily and I feel I have written some clever songs like Hard Drive Heart. But then there are times where I want to say so much with so few words and it is so hard to pull off. 

Many of my songs involve serious and deep topics/themes and finding vocabulary and good literary devices is harder than writing about simple/trivial themes. I try and avoid clichés as much as I can and reject over-used phrases. I want to be original and come up with my own powerful lines. 
I feel that with time I'm always able to succeed at this, but time isn't always on my side with these things. Often I end up with something I've had to pull together before it naturally comes to me and I end up being unhappy with the result. 

This leads me to talk about vocals.. I wish I could sing. And I don't mean just be able to sing in tune, I mean have an incredible voice! So many times, and even when I am happy with the lyrics I've written, I get the song completely ready except for having vocals and then get someone to sing it for the recording.
And I've nearly never been happy with the result. It just seems to be this curse with my music, that whenever I use other musicians on my songs, they come out average.
Over time this has forced me to train myself in many different musical avenues so I can basically do it all myself, from playing guitars to mixing and even making artwork. This has been going well, but I still can't sing and I have tried for many years to get better and it never has.
On a side note, the only experiences I've had where other musicians interpret my songs well is my current ensemble in uni and with Zero Hour. But anything else in the past has been a disappointment. 

I will continue to try different vocalists, but I felt like confessing this frustration. Maybe the problem lies within myself, that because I am so poor at singing, I don't understand how to make good, singable lyrics. But with knowing my theory, I feel that isn't the main reason.

Anyway.. Now about guitars!
I spent this week recording guitars for a new song of mine. The song includes two guitar parts and solos and each track has multiple layers.

 I've been using TSE808 as a virtual tube screamer and then Poulin Solo C Fullstack as a pre/power amp. For the cabinet I'm using Poulin LeCab impulse loader with a variety of impulses for each guitar track. 
Usually I would be opposed to using digital methods of recording guitars, but I'm limited with money and I've been satisfied with the results. I'm also using a combination of other plugins to shape the sound aside from just equalizing them.

You can hear a small sample of the current progress here. My next task is to record drums and replace those horrible sample drums you hear on the recording.





Guitars sample by Tibbie93

And as you can see here, I look quite out of place and awkward with a guitar.xD

As a whole, the song is progressing well and I just have to finish the lyrics and record drums and vocals. I just hope the final touches will bring it to life rather than destroying what I've already accomplished with it.

Thanks for reading!

East West Quantum Shit-Heap!

Okay well not completely.. I know I have just bought one of the best programs that music software has to offer.

(Please note, I'm sorry that these photos look so bad. I had to use my old camera at this time of night and I don't remember it being this bad...)

This software is amazing! It sounds overwhelmingly realistic and you can almost feel like the sounds on this program breathe life into your music.
It's so good that it has even been used in feature films, and the other East West Quantum Leap products do many more spectacular things.

You can get a a small idea of it's capabilities here:

Video and composer details: 

Composed, orchestrated and produced by DJRockwood

Featuring EWQL Symphonic Orchestra Silver

Recorded and mixed using Logic Pro

From God's Masterpiece: Original Soundtrack

Check out Rohit John (DJRockwood) HERE!

So I can't wait to use this in my work, and I've needed something like this for a long time.. But getting it to work has been a nightmare!

So that huge box was delivered here today, and all that was inside were two disks, a letter and of course the iLok USB to run the program's licensing and everything.

So while thinking it was unnecessary to have that box, I read the letter inside. And here is where the bullshit started... It said something like "The software on the disks is out of date, visit the links below and install/authorize the latest software from the DVDs."

So essentially I just paid about $200 for a fucking piece of paper with the serial code! Why did I have to pay for shipping for two disks that didn't work and a big ass box? That's a waste of money when I have to download it from their website anyway!
So then I tried all of those links on the letter and none of them worked even though I was logged into my account on the website. And after about an hour of searching, I found the area where the downloads and support was.

I started the download and luckily the video tutorials were pretty good.. But when it came to authorizing it, it just got worse. First it led me to believe that I could just proceed and enter my serial number (due to the order of support videos), and I was wondering how the iLok was going to work. So of course I put the serial code in and it cancels my authorization because it couldn't find the iLok...
So it's back to the website and getting this iLok to work was probably one of the most cryptic tasks I've ever had to do!

Even though I had plugged the device in and it installed all the drivers and everything, it didn't tell me I had to register an iLok account on their website. I found out I had to do that by digging through soundsonline.com some more, and after making this account it gave me the impression that I would be given an ID that I had to sync with my soundsonline account. But it turns out it was just the username of the iLok account that I needed... Maybe I was over-thinking the situation at that point, but it still annoyed the hell out of me, and at this point I was getting frustrated.

So after looking around for half an hour for a number that didn't even exist I tried adding my iLok to the account. And after numerous scans it kept failing because my browser wouldn't allow Active-X and some other reason I couldn't remember. After enabling it and trying again it still didn't work, but then in tiny font at the bottom of the page I read something about Internet Explorer as it's main partner...
So I thought well why not try it? And I opened Internet Explorer for the first time in about 3 years! xD And then the scan actually worked! I was there with my mouth open, what kind of device needs a combination of web browsers to install?!

So after all of that horsing around I finally managed to open the program! : D

I was so happy! But then I tried to load some instruments....
And this happened! >= (

It turns out it can't find the instrument libraries in my computer files (WHICH IT SHOULD HAVE INSTALLED AUTOMATICALLY!)
So I went searching through my computer files for about two hours trying to find them and found nothing..
I tried to find help on the internet, read the manual over and over, looked everywhere in soundsonline but couldn't get any help with this.
So just for the hell of it, I tried to re-install just the silver edition instruments from soundsonline.com.

After being told the installation could corrupt the files I continued and it worked, and I managed to get the libraries to appear in the program's browse view!

But then when I tried to load an instrument... This happened!

I tried all of those options and none of them were successful. Trying to find the sample gave me a search where the samples were in the wrong format it was looking for, and ignoring the error made the instrument useless and receive/produce no signal.

At this point I was so pissed off that I just sent a message to tech support, and my friend, Laura actually found me their support number, which I'll call tomorrow.

Why does it have to be so hard to make this thing work! Now that I have gone through this I have heard of other horror stories of people having the same shit happen to them when installing this...
Sorry about this negative entry, but I've been frustrated lately about a few things and this kind of pushed me over the edge. I needed to talk about this, and I hope that if others are having problems with this process they can read what I did in certain areas to solve the problem.

But even after all of that, I still have a non-functioning program.
I really hope things will get better when the tech people finally help me.

Thanks for reading.

Happily Ever After

This will be more of a personal post, but I feel this is something I need to talk about here.

But first, I have returned to Australia and I'm about to start my second year of university as well as continuing with Zero Hour. It was so hard to leave and get on that plane, and I already feel so empty being back here.
I'm not saying I am not grateful to be Australian, but Finland has really become home to me now.

And one thing made it especially hard to leave...
In January I took my sweetheart on a holiday to Helsinki and we had a great time and adventure.
But that holiday became extra special for both of us when she proposed to me!
So we are now engaged, and I can't be happier. As soon as she asked, I went into shock and was speechless but I knew exactly what I was going to say. 
Henriikka really is my one and only, and the one I want to spend my life with.

And the way she proposed to me was really sweet~ ^___^ We were having lunch at Golden Rax and as we were leaving she saw these toy machines and bought two toy rings. She then sat me down in the mall, put them on our fingers and asked the question.

It might not be the traditional way, but for us it's very meaningful and I'll never forget that moment.

The next day we decided to buy real rings as you can see in the first photo, and we both keep the original toy rings safe to symbolize that moment.

This photo has the originals:

We also engraved a lock and locked it to the Bridge of Love in Helsinki!

We both have our keys and we threw the third into the harbour. xD But I have already grinded the teeth of mine down so it won't work. : D

So now we have plans that I'll finish studying here and then move to Finland as soon as I can, so we can be together for good and I'll continue my musical endeavors. 

The long-distance thing has worked for us, but it's really becoming harder. But the good news is that it's very possible that Henri will come to Australia in the middle of this year and we're so excited for that!

It will make it much easier when we can see each other more often than just once a year.

Overall I can't thank everyone enough who looked after me while I was in Finland. It was great to see all my friends and their families again. But most of all, being with my fiancé made every day so special and I can't thank her enough for being who she is and bringing such happiness into my life.

So much happened in Finland so I'll show a few photos here, but I can't tell everything in detail.

Thanks for reading!

Return of Zero Hour

Is coming! : D

I'm still in Finland at the moment but I will be back for this show, and the band has been rehearsing and getting ready with the new lineup in time for this show.

I'm looking forward to this. We're playing a venue I haven't played yet and I should have all the backings ready for this show. And as I mentioned before, it will be Harry's first show with us on bass and Andrew's first show with us on guitar (former bass-player for ZH), so hopefully it'll be very new and exciting.

So much has happened over the last few months in Finland, and I want to make another post to just talk exclusively about those things. And announce some big news too, so stay tuned as I'll try to make that as soon as possible.

But regarding my personal music, I've recently remixed two songs from my Skyrunner album ('Hard Drive Heart' and 'Still Alive') and they are up on Soundcloud now.
And you can hear them here too!




I hope you like them, and I'm also remixing the other songs on the album in order to polish it a little more and perhaps make some physical copies of the album when I finish the last song.

Sorry this post is shorter than usual, but thanks for reading and there will be more coming soon! =")

Personal things and Stockholm

Hi again everyone, it's been a while since I last updated as things have been busy.

I'd like to start off by saying that my Christmas and New Year's in Finland were both amazing and it was a really special time for me. It's been a long time since I've felt the "magic" of Christmas and sometimes I wish I could feel it again now that I am no longer a child. However the most recent one I spent here felt almost like back in those innocent times. There was something about it that was new and exciting because of cultural differences and it felt great to spend Christmas with that special someone! 

And it was the same for new year's eve, usually that is pretty boring for me in Australia but this new year's was fun, just watching fireworks and relaxing. 
And not long after my girlfriend and I had our birthdays, and those were both great days too! Our friends came to see us and also her family, and I felt so lucky that I received more gifts than I ever expected from them. ^___^" 

But eventually the day came for me to travel to the south to see my friends there. And even though I'm going to be with her again next week, it was so hard to leave my sweetheart when I got on the train that morning... And I am just getting even more depressed thinking of when the time comes that I have to return to Australia. It's going to be so hard...

I don't usually express personal matters here, but...
I just want to publicly express all my thanks and gratitude for her and everything she has done for me all these years. Thank you for loving me for who I am, Henriikka, and always being beside me, even though we have come from places so far away. And since I have returned you've brought me such happiness and memories I'll hold in my heart forever. 
I love you!

Here are some other photos from around that time:

So like I was saying before, I'm in the south with my other friends now. I've been staying with an awesome couple in their apartment and they have been so good to me. I've been friends with them for nearly a year now and it's great to see them again. We've also seen five other friends and last weekend we all went on a cruise to Stockholm, Sweden together! : D

We had a lot of fun, and the cruise ship was really interesting as it was my first time on one. There was eight of us altogether, four guys and four girls so we had one cabin for the girls and one for us guys. During the evening we explored the ship, there were some cool bars and we even played bingo for a laugh! xD We bought some stuff at the tax-free shop and had some food at the café. 
There was a spa and sauna area but we didn't end up going, we had to get some sleep for the day ahead. Although some drunkards were running through the hallway late at night and falling against the walls, so sometimes it was hard to sleep. But it was much better than what I thought it would be at night. ^__^"

Even though it was a little cold in Stockholm (because of the wind near the harbor) we still had a good time shopping and looking around. 
It was really cool to see a new city and there were some areas that were really unique and cool. Some of the back alleys and old town areas looked like something out of Zelda!

Well I hope you have enjoyed reading this. I hope that no matter where you are in the world or how things are going in your life, that you are staying positive and striving for your dreams. 

I believe that when we have good times in our lives, we should make the most of those days and enjoy every moment. Because in order for these times to come, we have to go through hard times.
 Times when we are stressed, times we are sad and lonely and when the hard work feels like it will never end. And I have experienced those times, sometimes it feels like it would be easy to just stop thinking of big things and live a simple, boring life with no ambition. 
But why would anybody want that?..

We are so lucky to be alive and have the opportunity to do many great things. We don't know how long we are going to be here, so we have to make the most of the time we have. If there is something you want in life, you should always do your best to find it. Even if everything fails and you fall hard, at least you can say you tried. 
And it's our experiences that shape who we are and build our character. Even though it's hard, we have to try and be brave in the face of failure and not let it scare us.

It's better to aim for the stars and hit a tree, rather than aiming for the tree and hitting a rock.