BLACKINK's Projects - v. *djents shyly*

[BlackInk]

Thought I'd make my own thread for this instead of posting my updates in the musician chat thread.

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So after making my wonky-sounding MIDI-demos for my solo project since 2008, I finally met up with some people who liked the same(ish) type music as I do and also played instruments. So in october 2014 we officially started the band Oktober. Since that time we have been writing music for our first album 'Virgo' and have recently started recording demos for that album and have so far put two of them on our SoundCloud page.

The demos are self produced and a bit rough around the edges since we are sort of learning as we go along. I think we're managing pretty good results though, certainly good enough for first time demos.

So please check it out. Comment about what you liked, didn't like, general observations, or anything. Peace!

https://soundcloud.com/oktoberofficial

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Daniel Larnhem (Me) - Bass
Marcus Svensson - Guitars, Artwork
Samuel Leckborn - Keyboard, Guitars, Saxophone

[BlackInk]

The band and I finished a new demo and it's up on soundcloud. This will be the 'lead single' of the first album.

https://soundcloud.com/oktoberband/planetarium

We're still in the demo phase, trying to zero in on a sound we'll use to properly record the first album one day, and while we're not quite there yet, we're getting close. This is the best we've sounded so far. So have a listen. It'd be fun if anyone has any comments or thoughts.

We've also recently replaced the old audio for the other two tracks with some newer remixes. So check those out too!

https://soundcloud.com/oktoberband/sets/virgo-demos

[BlackInk]

Man this thread is old.

Over the past months I've built a home studio and am doing some tests to slowly learn how to record and mix stuff. I needed to try out some more all-out metal sounds if I'm to make the demos I'm planning, so I made this cover/remix of Halsey's song Bells in Santa Fe to try some stuff out and get a general sounscape (partly) dialed in. Don't expect the overlap betweeb DT-fans and Halsey fans to be all that significant, but I think it turned out pretty mean.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4Sv6n4ZoVI

[WilliamMunny]

Dude, I totally love the remix!

Sounds like you have a really good grasp on sonics and mixing in general.

If you ever need some session stuff (I'm primarily a guitarist, but if it has strings, I can probably have it and can record it), feel free to send me a PM.

[BlackInk]

Experminetation continues. Done lots of stuff inbetween I might post at some point, but for now I thought I'd just share my latest thing I finished, which is a cover/remix of Coldplay's song 'Midnight' but--to the best of my abilities--in the style of the band TesseracT. It's not perfect, but it was a fun little project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qUo5SOTRxc

Dude, I totally love the remix!

Sounds like you have a really good grasp on sonics and mixing in general.

If you ever need some session stuff (I'm primarily a guitarist, but if it has strings, I can probably have it and can record it), feel free to send me a PM.

Thank you! I really appreciate it. May have slightly forgot this thread existed, otherwise I would have seen and replied to this sooner..

[BlackInk]

So in the interest of continuing to learn how to record, mix, and produce music, I went back and recorded the first six songs I ever wrote. This was way back in 2007, when I was just 12 years old, which is why the songs themselves aren't really good at all. I made very few alterations to my original demos, the biggest change being the new drums. But even there it follows the old crappier demos pretty closely. Since these are really old demos that even I don't like any more (other than for nostalgic reasons) I didn't make too much of an effort to play everything perfectly. I also didn't spend that much time mixing the songs, just enough so that I was marginally happy with the result. This was also a time when Dream Theater was basically my only musical influence, so the tracks may be a bit stale as I mostly tried to emulate them but without any of the song writing skills. This to the point of pretty much ripping them off (and a few things from other artists) straight up. I don't expect this to generate a whole lot of interest, I'm mainly doing this to document this for myself, and this place is pretty much the only place I can think of to post it. Also; ignore my very cool track names. I was apparently a lot more edgy when I was 12.

This was fun to make though, and I hope I can continue producing these proper demos of the other albums I wrote as a young kid, and hopefully eventually move on to stuff that I actually think deserve the full on production treatment.

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BLACK INK - SPOKEN (2007 Demos) (38:46)

01 - Never Look Back (5:22)
02 - Hands of Blood (4:27)
03 - Shadow of Sin (9:21)
04 - Don't End It (4:12)
05 - Black Sun (4:34)
06 - Speechless (10:48)

[BlackInk]

Continuing to experiment and slowly learning to make music. Most of the stuff I make so far I don't end up posting anywhere, but I am now finishing up three songs that I felt I wanted to post to document some sort of progress.

I took some time away from my old songs I wrote when I was a kid and made demos of a few newer songs that I actually like and am moderately proud of. They are all demos meant to be songs on my band's fourth album. I finished up the first one today, which is a song called 'Cruise Control', one of my long time favorites. With this one I really got deeper into my love for sound design and soundscaping to enhance the mood of the track. Trying to mix this track (as well as the other two I might post in the coming weeks) almost made me quit music, because I thought everything sounded like a big pile of steaming shit for so long. I finally made it out the other side of that, however. The result may not be perfect, and I know I still have a long way to go if I'm ever going make professional-sounding stuff. But for now, I feel like this is as good as I can currently make it, and to keep working on it would just be keeping me from working on other cool tracks.

This one is written to be the opening track of the album, and was an attempt to create a big-feeling strong opening statement.

OKTOBER | Cruise Control - Instrumental Demo (9:48)

[WilliamMunny]

Continuing to experiment and slowly learning to make music. Most of the stuff I make so far I don't end up posting anywhere, but I am now finishing up three songs that I felt I wanted to post to document some sort of progress.

I took some time away from my old songs I wrote when I was a kid and made demos of a few newer songs that I actually like and am moderately proud of. They are all demos meant to be songs on my band's fourth album. I finished up the first one today, which is a song called 'Cruise Control', one of my long time favorites. With this one I really got deeper into my love for sound design and soundscaping to enhance the mood of the track. Trying to mix this track (as well as the other two I might post in the coming weeks) almost made me quit music, because I thought everything sounded like a big pile of steaming shit for so long. I finally made it out the other side of that, however. The result may not be perfect, and I know I still have a long way to go if I'm ever going make professional-sounding stuff. But for now, I feel like this is as good as I can currently make it, and to keep working on it would just be keeping me from working on other cool tracks.

This one is written to be the opening track of the album, and was an attempt to create a big-feeling strong opening statement.

OKTOBER | Cruise Control - Instrumental Demo (9:48)

Everything in your post resonated with me on multiple levels...trust me when I say, I've been there.

That said, as someone who's 'been there,' I'd also like to say the following: if you'd started this last post with 'this is the best song I've ever recorded!!!' I wouldn't have thought twice about.

The mix for "Cruise Control" is sound/solid on all fronts. As someone who's been writing/mixing/recording since the Clinton administration, what you just shared is absolutely 'professional' sounding.

I know the last thing a musician wants to hear is 'music production is subjective,' but it's freaking true!

It's all about framing your expectations. If you were going for something in line with the last Five Finger Death Punch record, your mix might fall a bit short in the low end and drums, but it sounds like that wasn't what you were going for.

Liz Harris, aka 'Grouper' has put out some of the most devastatingly beautiful releases of the past decade. She is critically acclaimed and revered by those who are in the know. Her recordings are mostly self-produced and lo-fi as all hell. Are her records 'professional' I guess it depends on what your definition of 'professional' is. I'll tell you this much, people buy them and enjoy them.

It's late, and I feel like I've been circling a point without actually making it 

The bottom line: I dig the track, and to my ears, the mix sounds fan-freaking-tastic! Move on to the next track and consider this one 'done.'

[BlackInk]

Thanks man! Really appreciate that you took the time to check out the track and comment!

Yeah I think it's easy to get hyper focused on your own work and obsess over every little detail, and you forget that basically everyone who will end up hearing it will have a far more casual and less technically judgmental relationship to your work. That in combination with the fact that you always compare yourself to your idols, which leads to a sense of always falling short and failing. It's pretty tough sometimes, but I don't know, it's also a really fun and engaging process.

[BlackInk]

The next song in this latest trio of songs I finished. This one was much more well behaved and I didn't have to do 90 iterations to get it to finally work. Not perfect of course, but, as good as I could currently make it. More of a straight forward prog metal track this one, with some fun little polyrhythms thrown in for good measure(s).

OKTOBER | Winter's Teeth (Instrumental Demo) (4:29)

[BlackInk]

Finished another one, a shorter and mellower song this time. More cozy vibes rather than the more metal feel of the previous two songs.

OKTOBER | Black Spots on the Sun (Instrumental Demo) (3:44)

[BlackInk]

So I originally had two other projects in the works that were going to be my next posts. One is delayed since I handed the track off to the lead guitarist of the band to write a solo, which is taking longer than expected. The other project were demos for the next of my old albums I wrote as a teenager, but my 6-string guitar has broken and so I can't work on that until I get it fixed.

Instead I thought I'd go back to the drawing board instead, doing a simple mix test just to see if I can get some more life and intensity into my productions. I realized that I had been too aggressively micro-managing the top end in previous mixes, and thought I'd try to embrace it a little more, giving the sound more presence and being much easier on the ears. Thought I'd post the results, as it turned into quite a groovy track. It's not really a proper song, more of a simple riff that was easy to deal with as I tried to dial in a cool tone, with some ambience coming and going to give it a floaty rolling mood.

Hopefully my tracks will have more of this sound going forward, we'll see how it goes. I'm sure there will be complications that will make me want to tear my hair out when I try it on more complex and dynamic songs.

Big Chugus (2:36)

[BlackInk]

So, since I bought my recording stuff I have been making a lot of music that has not ended up anywhere on the internet, because I'm never happy with anything and I end up putting projects away and moving on to three new ones every time. But I thought I'd go back and finish up some of these projects and post them, just because it's fun. I will not be working on these until I would consider them completely finished, but rather slightly touch them up just to the point where they're at least not embarrassing to share. Maybe spend a day or so going over and fixing the most obvious flaws that I've since learned to spot (and I'm sure plenty that I don't). So over the coming weeks I will--hopefully, if the process I mentioned goes well--be posting one of these older demos each Sunday. The tracks will be roughly arranged from oldest to newest.

This first track is a strange one that I wrote for a project called ME AND THE COFFEE, where I was meant to write the music, and a friend of mine was suppose to do the vocals. But as it looks right now, I don't think that project is going to happen, as I haven't seen or spoken to her in a while, and I suspect she has other things to do than to spend a lot of time practicing singing.

Anyways, the song is quite fun. Not the usual progressive metal style I'm used to, but more of a cozy and chill indie pop/rock track. It was fun to branch out into genres I'm not used to finding myself in.

[BlackInk]

So this one I made back in late last year, so already I made some choices here I wouldn't today. But instead of doing everything over again, I just went back and tweaked some things so make it a bit more comfortable. And looking back, the playing here is a bit sloppier in places than I would have liked, and that I would probably manage now. But rather than let it taking up space in some forgotten folder, I thought I'd post it.

This song is the final song of the concept album VIRGO that me and the guys in the project OKTOBER wrote back in 2014/2015. This was a time when I wasn't really focused on making good songs per se, but more having some dumb fun. That said, I actually like this track. It's such a crazy axis spinning stupid energy for over 16 minutes, both with the music and the story. I'll give some details of the story below, hamming it up as much as I can to make it funnier. It's obviously a very silly story, but most of those details don't come through the actual lyrics. It was more for us guys in the band to have fun thinking about.

Unfortunately I'm not a singer, so this is an instrumental demo. But story of the album so far is basically that two versions of Nicolas Cage--one an old time sailor, and one a modern black scientist (he'll have to wear blackface for the movie, it'll be a very controversial shoot)--have throughout the album become the savior figure of a sort of hollow earth-ish place, and it is his mission to replace the the dying sun of this world before a dark scarab-like god can extinguish the light. At one point, the old-timey sailor Nicolas Cage is captured by the evil minions of the scarab god and is burned alive at the stake. But the Virgo, a guiding spirit, saves and hides Nicolas Cage's soul before his body dies. When the modern black scientist Nicolas Cage arrives to the place much later, he is united with the soul that the Virgo had hidden away, becoming the Serpent--his true self, and the savior of this world.

I AM THE SUN (16:20)

I. OMNIUS (0:00 - 5:28)

In this section, the dark Scarab and his evil minions advance toward the center--destroying, corrupting, killing all in their path. Finally arriving at the dying sun at the center, they sense that something is amiss. The challanger they thought dead is returned, the power radiating from the reunification of the Serpent's soul reverberating through the world. They prepare for their dark ritual that will extinguish the sun's light, and also prepare for battle. Lots of silly strange cockroach-like creatures doing off-putting or almost whimsical things ensue.

II. SERPENT (5:28 - 9:53)

Sailor Nicolas Cage and Blackface Nicolas Cage have now been united into one, and this section is about them grappling with the implications of this new existence and the mission ahead, as he gathers his own forces.

III. DREADNAUGHT (9:53 - 12:52)

Instrumental part, meant to be preparations for war for both sides.

IV. BLACKSTAR (12:52 - 16:20)

This section is the last battle between the Serpent and the Scarab and their forces of light and darkness. The Serpent strikes down the Scarab, and Nicolas Cage begins to ascent to godhood, taking the sun's place at the center of this world. But then at the very end, it becomes clear that the Virgo--the spirit of death--had used them all like pawns. The light from the Serpent becomes so bright that it burns all life, good and evil alike, as they scream enveloped in the final inferno. Nicolas Cage is then claimed at last by the terrifying true face of death--all life ended.

[BlackInk]

Touched up another OKTOBER demo from a few months ago. A somewhat newer project than last week's monster, so it sounds a lot better. In fact--and I don't really know why or how--but this one stands out to me as probably my best production work so far. Not perfect, but it just sounds beefy.

This one started out as a test, but turned into more of a song revolving around a central theme that I sort develop throughout and layer with different rhythms and riffs. Very TesseracT-ish, which is what that initial test was going for, so I just sort of went with that.

At some point, the idea that this was supposed to be the final of a sort of 3-part suite emerged, and I've just sort of called it Part 3 ever since. I have not written Parts 1 or 2. The current idea is that this one is going on an album called AT THE HITHER END OF ALL WOES, the fifth album written for this project.