Happy September everyone.  Where the heck did August go?  Well, T|M is back this week with an exciting update on a small project I announced a few weeks back: a mashup between B.o.B and Fort Minor.

The main track comes from B.o.B and is called “Airplanes“ which features Hayley Williams from the band Paramore.  I’ve been a big fan of this song since I first heard it on the radio.  There have been a lot of mashups inspired from the song, to say the very least, but one morning when I was listening and thinking about the words of the chorus, I realized that tracks from the Fort Minor album would work extremely well!  The subject matter that Mike Shinoda raps about on the album worked frighteningly well with “Airplanes”.  It originally started with one track from FM, but I kept on finding additional tracks from The Rising Tide that worked just as well.  One thing led to another, and the complete version of the track included SIX different Fort Minor tracks, all from the debut album!  The list of tracks, in order, are:

Right Now
Remember the Name
Feel Like Home
High Road
Be Somebody
Slip Out the Back

Check out the music video I made for the mashup.  Unfortunately, there isn’t any video footage for three of the six tracks from Fort Minor, so I condensed the video down just four FM songs!  Watch it:

For those of you who want the FULL version of the song with all six tracks, check it out here!

Well, there you have it!  You can see the video over on the VIDEO page and hear the full song at the MUSIC page.  As always, I’ve got some great new project announcements coming soon, so don’t stray far; more to come!

Hey everyone.  I hope everyone is having a great week so far.  Two days until the wonderful weekend is here, so hang in there.

I just wanted to drop a quick line saying that there isn’t going to be an official T|M post this week.  I’ve had several projects to work on and one surprise project that fell in my lap on Monday.  We’re planning on releasing this project in the next couple weeks so you won’t have to wait long, but I’ll leave it at that.  I’ll have more updates on this new production, Project: Binary, animations, and more starting next week, so be sure to tune back in!

On a completely unrelated note, some of you may know that I’m a fan of Philip DeFranco.  I found him on YouTube back in early 2008, but when I moved up to Nashville, I forgot about the show and his name slipped my mind.  A few months back, I just happened to click on one of his show links and since then I’ve been catching up on his videos, all 500+ of them.  Well, I’ve finally reached the end and I have to say that I love him even more.  If I wasn’t married…well….never mind.  Phil, I don’t know if you’ll ever read this, but if you do, I want to show a small sample of something I’ve done in your honor (don’t worry, it’s nothing “too” creepy ).  Here is a sample of a full orchestral remix I’ve been working on that’s taken a couple of the music themes that Phil has used in his shows in the last years.  I’m still perfecting it, but here is a little preview:

Have a great Thursday and Friday everyone!!

Hey everyone.  I usually don’t do multiple posts in one week, but this one is just too good to wait.  I’ve been working a small mashup track using the song Airplanes by B.O.B. (feat. Hayley Williams)and taking multiple parts from multiple tracks from Fort Minor, one of my favorite hip hop groups!  I’ve had a man crush on Mike Shinoda for a very long time and it was great to be able to do this.  I’m still working on the piece and I’m contemplating making a movie for it, but I haven’t decided yet.  I wanted to make a post with a small sample so you guys can listen to the direction of the piece.  It is REALLY bitchin’!!  Take a listen:

And here is just an audio version. You can get better audio quality in the YouTube player if you select 480p instead of the standard 320p. Why YouTube doesn’t let you default to 420p is beyond me, but here is just the audio for those of you interested!

And there you have it for now.  The final version will be coming out soon.  This sample only has a snippet of one Fort Minor song (Remember the Name), while the full thing will have SIX different Fort Minor tracks!  It’s not to be missed, so check back soon!

Well, needless to say, it has been a busy week and a half since the last time I posted, but now I’ve been able to steal away for a short time to post again!  This week, we’re returning to Remix Under Review with a new track to look into!   Not too far back, I reviewed a piece from Final Fantasy 7 called Frozen Landscape. That arrangement was done for the OC Remix project Voices of the Lifestream.  Well, this time around, I’ll be reviewing the other remix I did for the project: Sephiroth’s Wake.

Source:

Remix:

As you can hear, the original source material doesn’t really lend itself to much interpretation.  Nobuo Uematsu really used the piece to create a very dark and ominous feel to this particular section of the game.  He didn’t seem to use any kind of tempo or rhythm scheme, so that was left up to me.

At the time of doing this remix, I was going though a major Harry Gregson-Williams kick and was really vibing his work on the Metal Gear Solid series.  Harry has a very particular style of music that he does very VERY well.  I classify it as the “infiltration” genre.  Check this YouTube Video to hear what I’m talking about.  After listening to this style from HGW a bit, I decided I wanted to try it.  From that idea, this remix was born and my goal was simple: What would it sound like if Harry Gregson-Williams composed music for Final Fantasy 7?

I never really anticipated being able to replicate the genre as well as I did, so I was extremely happy for how it turned out.  This piece was done in the late winter/early spring of 2007 which means this was in the day of me using nothing but Reason for any music I wrote.  I ended up primarily using the samples that come with the program when you buy it.  There were a few samples that I used from the Total REX sound library that really helped with the ambiance in addition to some ethnic drum samples from the Sonic Refills: World Percussion sample set.  The french horn sample came from a sample package I bought called Quantum Leap Brass (this is the same company that makes the orchestral sample package I currently use.  QL Brass is an OLD sample package they produced long ago).

As many of you know, I am a huge fan of incorporating orchestral elements in different genres, so you can imagine I had a great time with this piece!  The string samples came from Reason’s default library, and while they are certainly not the best things in the world, I’m still very pleased with how well they worked.  I’ve contemplated going back into this piece and replacing the orch samples with the awesome library I now have.  Create Sephiroth’s Wake 1.5, if you will.  That may happen, but maybe not.  Either way the track was a major stepping stone in my growth as a composer, programmer, and arranger and it has stood the test of time so far.  You can see what OTHERS HAVE SAID about the mix too!

T|M is working on several animations, original tracks, and in the process of planning a new potential project.  Be sure to check back very soon as there will be some very exciting updates on the way!

Spring semester of 2005, I was involved with a 3D game design class at The University of Georgia.  I was brought on to compose original music for the game that the students decided to make.  It was quite an ambitious class with a lot of great talent.  The students came up with the concept of a 3D gallery space that could feature various forms of art.  To say the very least, I was very surprised by this decision as most of the classes before this one did some kind of action game.  However, the opportunity FORCED me out of my typical comfort zone and the idea that I came up with ended up being a pretty decent concept!

Now, I openly admit that my real “birth” into electronic composition didn’t start until Spring of 2006 (more than a year later) so the piece I’m showcasing this week is NOT the original, but rather the rearrangement of the piece.  My execution of the original was decent for the time I did it, but it certainly doesn’t hold a candle to the new arrangement.  I’m sure I’ll do a Before/After installment for this piece in the near future, so be sure to watch for it.

However, onto the music.  The piece was inspired by some of the softer acoustic pieces that Jason Mraz had written around that time, but being as big of a fan as I am for orchestral fusion, I wanted those elements in there as well when I originally wrote it.  Now that my library of samples is much more advanced, I was able to turn this piece into what I had envisioned over 5 years ago!  See for yourself:

The piece really turned out well and, if I ever have the opportunity, I would love to be able to put this into the original game.  C’est la vie I suppose .  Until next time, enjoy the music!

T|M is back this week with some exciting additions!  Website redesign, new music, new videos, and a new sleek look is what has been brought to the table! After spending some time looking over the site, there have been some changes that have been screaming at me, so I decided to go ahead and work on redesigning a few of the pages.

First challenge was the MUSIC Page.  The old version was stale and contained a lot of text.  Most importantly, it didn’t showcase the music that T|M has done over the past few years at all, really.  So, after some thought and hard work, the page has been completely over hauled to allow listeners to hear a LOT of the work that Tweex Music has produced most recently.  You can check out the “Commercial Music” section that features music from advertisements, film, TV, theatre, podcasts, and much more.  If that doesn’t tickle your fancy, “Personal Projects” will allow you to listen to pieces that I’ve done for fun here and there!  And if all else fails, “Video Game Remixes” will let you escape in nostalgia to a time you may have spent as a kid!

Some of you may have already noticed that the old SFX Page has suddenly disappeared.  Fear not!  This was by design…or re-design rather.  What has replaced it is the new and sleek VIDEO Page.  All the audio work that T|M has done for a video can be found here!  Thumbnails for all the different productions has been made to help get rid of the wall of text that plagued the old SFX page.  The new layout really helps show the diversity of the productions that T|M has worked on!

Finally, the CONTACT Page was tackled!  A brand new layout very similar to the new VIDEO Page helps show everyone the MANY ways that you all can contact me to talk about productions you may be working on, projects that may need audio, or just to chew the fat about the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy…uh, I mean the Speed channel.

All the pages have never before seen/heard content on them.  Check out the new music and videos and enjoy the brand new layout!

T|M is back this week with a new installment of Remix Under Review and this time around, we’re taking things back into the past with a classic: Donkey Kong Country.  I have been a huge fan of this game every since I bought it for my SNES years ago.  OCRemix came out with a remix album a few years back for the game and there is one track from the project that is still one of my favorite remixes of all time.  It was done by composer and remixer Jordan “bLiNd” Aguirre and his track is called Aerofunknamics AND is a slammin’ house track!  Well, years after the remix was released, I decided to do a remix of the source material myself.

The source tune:

The Remix:

This remix represents one of the first tracks I did in Logic but there is also a healthy dose of Reason in there as well.  The main elements of the track came from several different third party plugins.  The drums primarily came from Sylus RMX with some additional help from Native Instrument’s Battery; the main synth lead came from Native Instrument’s Pro-53;  the bass came from one of Logic’s preset samples; the majority of the synths came from Reason, and most of those came from the Thor sample collection.

When I sat down to do this track, it actually started out as an original track and not a remix.  After working on it a little, I heard the theme song from the game fit into the track, so I decided to turn this into a full fledged remix.  Since I haven’t done a lot of just straight up electro Drum n’ Bass tracks, I wanted to try something using the new production tools I had at my disposal.  It was great to dive into the genre.  The automation with the LFO, filtering, gating, and everything else was a blast to work with.  I’ve never used the mod wheel on my keyboard as much as I did for this track!  This track, while it has the melody line in throughout, was an attempt to pay more attention to the textures of the sounds and the soundscape of the whole track.  I’m quite pleased with the results.  This track also marks the first ever synth solo that I’ve done for a song.  Not being much of a piano player, I can can say with complete pride, that the solo was played live with minimal quantization!  All in all, I feel the track turned out very well.

This ends another episode of Remix Under Review!  As always, be sure to check back soon for new updates as they will be here very soon!

Greetings to all!  It has been quite sometime since I last posted news here and there is much to cover.  First allow me to announce that the Tweex Music studio has officially relocated from Nashville to Atlanta, GA.  The move went smoothly and quickly and I was “down” for less than 48 hours which is much better than I expected!  Now that things are back up and there is a slight lull in project work, let’s play some catch up!

T|M has been very busy working with Gaming Union for the past couple weeks and has produced several new podcast episodes and several new pieces of music, but more on the music in a future post (coming soon).  However, GU released Final Fantasy Union Episode 35 yesterday and it is quite the special show.  The episode is GU’s focus on Final Fantasy XIII (13), which was released about a week ago.  Also, in this episode, I (Brian) was a guest on the show and sat down with the guys to discuss Square Enix’s recent decision to terminate its music department.  It was great to be on the show and talk about an area of the music/sound industry that I have really been experiencing in the past couple of years: outsourcing/freelancing.

Episode 35 also marked a debut remix/rearrangement from Final Fantasy XI!  I released the first FFXI rearrangement back in July of 09, Battling Despair as Dawn.  This new Remix is entitled City of the Humes and comes from the source tune, The Republic of Bastok.  For those not familiar with the game, this is the theme for one of the major cities.  The original song is unbelievably catchy and the rearrangement turned out exceptionally well.  In the show, the hosts asked me a few questions about the process of making the mix and why I did it.  Be sure to check the full episode out.  For those of you are are interested in hearing the section of the show that I’m in, you can can find an edit of it here: Podcast Edit with Brian.  And make sure that you check out the new remix which is here:

The debut of the remix also marks the first “announcement” of a project that T|M is working on.  Details will be forthcoming, but there is much more on the way!  Anyone who is a fan of Final Fantasy 11 or orchestral/cinematic music will be pleased with what’s to come! Take a listen to the show to get a little more info!

There are several new projects that T|M has recently completed and will be announced very soon!  A new string arrangement for a classic song and a new airline commerical are among a few of them but more info on that soon.  Don’t go too far as there will be more updates VERY soon (i.e. the next day or two)!

This week brings some very exciting news.  T|M has been brought on as an official staff member for Gaming Union, a popular video game news and discussion website.  GU offers a variety of services to the community: daily news articles, game reviews, and the extremely popular podcast series (Final Fantasy Union, Kingdom Hearts Union, and Mini GUP).  T|M will be spearheading the audio needs for all of GU with new music, themes, sound design, and lots of other sonic elements!

T|M was introduced to GU back in 2008 when a VG remix done by Tweex (REAKTR.1) was featured in one of their podcasts (Episode 4 of FFU).  Another remix (Of Fiend and Man) by Tweex was highlighted on another episode of FFU (Episode 24).  Soon after, T|M was contracted to do a theme song for the new podcast series Kingdom Hearts Union (now on their 7th episode; to be released today).  The KHU Theme Song has been used in each episode and has been well received by the fans and listeners of the show.

T|M and GU will be working together to bring new sonic elements to the entirety of the Gaming Union community to help brand GU, its podcasts, and the company itself.  Be sure to check out the new episode of FFU (to be released next Tuesday) for new music, sound design, and sonic elements.  It is sure to blow you away!

In the meantime, check out Gaming Union, join the forums and become one of the community members, listen to the podcasts, drop them a line on Twitter, and have fun exploring GU’s take and angle on a very popular industry.  I guarantee you wont be disappointed!

Check back soon for some more very exciting news!

T|M brings a new track to the ongoing series, Remix Under Review.  With the frosty weather outside, it’s only appropriate to feature the track Frozen Landscape which set out to convey a feeling of intense cold.  The remix comes from a song from Final Fantasy 7, called Buried in the Snow.  Here is the source tune:

And here is the Remix:

This track, like Final Panic, was created using Reason.  The majority of the synths and instruments used came from Reason’s default library.  However, when starting the track, I scoured the internet for some really nice and chill sounding samples to use.  That’s how I found the synth pad that is first heard at the very beginning of the track!

The concept of the piece was found in a previous remix done by Daniel ’sephfire’ Floyd called Snowfall on Forbidden Lands.  It is a fantastic piece of music that successfully gives off the chill/cold vibe.  By listening to Daniel’s track, I found some fantastic ideas for how to craft Frozen Landscape.  The percussion was the first place I started by getting a couple short 8-16 bar loops.  What I found was that the percussion, without any synths around it, sounded as though it could be either cold or hot.  It wasn’t until the cools pads and chilled bells were added that the snow feeling came in.

The toughest challenge came in trying to change the time signature from 3/4 to 4/4.  The source is very scarce in materiel and main melody line is very simple.  But by adding the gated synth, the down tempo bass line, and pulsing drums, the track filled itself out quite naturally.  The guitar was a fun addition that didn’t come into play until close to the end.  I was picking on my acoustic one day and just stumbled across the chords by accident.  After a little practice, I set up the mics, opened Pro Tools, and laid it down.  It was a great bridge section that helped break the track up a little bit.

I initially picked up the song to do because it was one of the unclaimed tracks on the OCR FF7 project Voices of the Lifestream.  When I sent the track to Andrew ‘zircon’ Aversa (the project coordinator), he was diggin’ the sound but had some suggestions.  Well, needless to say, his input really helped take the song to the next level.

Compositionally, Frozen Landscape is one of my best pieces.  The soundscape turned out perfectly and the arrangement worked excietionally well with the source material.  The track name was inspired by the main synth that is heard at the very beginning.  The name of the patch is Frozen Landscape and when I saw that, I knew that would be the name of the remix!  It’s a fantastic track that stands a long side over 40 other tracks on the FF7 VotL project.  Be sure to check it out.

That concludes this installment of Remix Under Review.  There are some very exciting projects going on here at Tweex Music, so check back soon to see (and hear) what’s new!