Music
If you want to listen to a few of my tracks online, check out the music player at:
Discography (Recording Name / Album Name):
(complete MP3 recordings can be downloaded by clicking on the title)
1993 : Baby Wonder EP (Note: I may have lost this earliest recording.)
1995 - 1996 : L’Esprit Nouveau - Early Masters
1996 : L’Esprit Nouveau - Revolutions In and Out of Love
1998-99 : Breakaway Plates - The Radio Plays By An Open Window
2000 : Breakaway Plates - Baraki Candlelight EP
2002 : Phantom Channels - Phantom Jazz
History of My Recordings
When I was about 16 years old, in 1992, I rented a sampler and a 4-track cassette recorder from the local Calgary recording store. I remember it cost about $80 for a week’s usage, which was a huge expense for me at the time. In a week, I could hardly figure out how to work the recording equipment, then I had to take it back to the store. So began my very flawed, tragic, and rather pathetic recording career.
From 1994 to 1998, during my years as an undergrad university student, my recording set-up was so simple. I recorded with the free Sound Edit software that came with the Soundblaster soundcard. I used no additional software. It enabled me to cut and paste on only one stereo track. Without any multitracking possibilities, I could paste-mix (add other sounds to the mix) — obviously, the more sounds I added, the more compressed it became. There was virtually no ability to undo anything, so it was completely destructive editing. The good thing about working this way was that I was actually forced to finish things. The L’Esprit Nouveau works were recorded under these conditions. On the album, Revolutions In and Out of Love, two singers, Nicole Wells and Krystall Lee, sang on the tracks. That was incredibly fortunate for me. Somehow, they fully captured and made possible the sound I wanted to achieve. I had already written the lyrics, and asked them to just sing it however they imagined suitable over a loop they could hear on the headphones (if I remember, in some cases, they may have sang over no backing track whatsoever). When I made Revolutions In and Out of Love, I thought it was really awesome, and I honestly expected it to be the beginning of some kind of musical career for me. I sent out 10-15 demo tapes and nothing developed from that.
In 1999, when I was next doing recording, I changed my recording name to Breakaway Plates. The album’s worth of tracks called “The Radio Plays By and Open Window” was comprised of a few tracks leftover from when I lived in Vancouver, and others which were recorded in a corner of my brother’s house in downtown Toronto. I had rented an 8-track cassette multi-track recorder and some kind of looping sampler to do these tracks.
The batch of tracks from 2000 called “Baraki Candlelight” were recorded in the suburbs of Tokyo, specifically my apartment in Baraki-Nakayama. It is disappointing to think that I managed to record only these few tracks, despite the fact that I had purchased some pretty awesome recording equipment. I had bought a Triton keyboard sampler and a Roland digital 8-track multitrack recorder. But at the time, I was just too busy with work, adjusting to life in Japan, and simply didn’t have time to properly learn how to use this equipment. After having this equipment for only a few months, I had to move, and then spent time traveling in Korea and Okinawa, and eventually just sold this equipment, cause I didn’t think it matched my way of thinking.
In 2002, I again changed my recording name to Phantom Channels.For the “Phantom Jazz” album, I simply remixed eight jazz tracks (I kept one word from the original song titles). By this time, I was using various effects machines, including the Pioneer EFX-500 and my Kaoss Pad mixer, both of which I still have. Around this time, I got my first mac, which enabled me to edit video — ever since I’ve had the chance to edit video, I’ve pretty much neglected the audio side of things I do.
Through the years, I’ve created tonnes of audio bits and pieces, but have not finished too much. Some of my video projects contain bits of audio I haven’t used anywhere else. I think the soundtracks for my Pacific Resistance project are a good example of this.
My current recording set-up uses the Kontakt sampler and the Logic sequencer. I do hope I’ll have some new recordings before long.
