Jason Wood software, music, graphics, television

The song, This is Halloween is the result of a collaboration between myself and my housemate Luke Cotton.

Lyrics by Jason Wood,
Additional Lyrics by Luke Cotton
Music by Jason Wood and Luke Cotton.
Production Mixing and Mastering by Luke Cotton
Video Editing by Jason Wood

The video is a "souvenir" video for people who came to our halloween 2009 party. Enjoy!

So, I've been using spotify for some time now, but I found out recently that it is quite easy to publish your own songs to it as well, and it doesn't cost very much at all.

Spotify works with a number of indie agregators. These sites do the paperwork needed to post your songs to spotify, itunes and a host of other download sites. They also deal with the royalties, which come back to you.

Here is spotify's list of sites - there's quite a few to choose from, and they all have varying terms and conditions, coverage and pricing models so pick one that suits you.

http://www.spotify.com/en/work-with-us/labels-and-artists/aggregators/

For an example though, here is my take on http://www.dittomusic.com, one of these aggregators.

Ditto Music has various packages depending on how many online sites you want your music to go to. All of the packages are subject to a £2 per month charge per release. A release is the equivalent of a single or album, so it is more cost effective to put up an album than a single.

Their coverage packages then start at the most basic, which is spotify only and has no upfront fee - to their premium package, which is £50 up front but puts you on over 700 stores (albeit, quite a few of these are regional variations of the same brand - itunes in europe, itunes in america for example)

They also have add on options to make your record chart registered, and they will do the legal paper work for you to set your own record label up for 25 quid (they also tell you how you can do it yourself and exactly what they are charging you for - the legwork, essentially, it's not a hard process when it's written down for you)

Is it worth putting your music on spotify? Well I'm thinking of doing it more for personal satisfaction than the intent of making money. But first, gotta finish that album!

My second song - Words of a Nation

Very different from the first.

What does this song mean to you?

The long awaited DNA technology from Celemony is finally with us, as the Public Beta for all registered users started a few hours ago.

If you don't know what DNA is, let's start at the beginning. Melodyne is an application or plugin that can tune vocals up without them sounding unnatural. Ok, it can also make them sound very synthetic, and change a man into a woman with a couple of clicks, but that's your decision!

You can also use it to create new melody lines and harmonies, but you could only use it properly on monophonic material, like vocals.

DNA stands for direct note access, and means that as well as monophonic recordings, you can now apply the same methods to any polyphonic track.

Jason Wood after a tOG Sports demonstration for RT Software at IBC 2009, at the RAI in Amsterdam

Jason Wood at IBC 2009Well, IBC 2009 is over, and although attendance was down, the quality of people there was up so it was worthwhile being there!

For the RT Software Booth, I produced a news-style countdown to introduce the virtual reality presentation that went out on the hour.

The weekend is here,
you come home, have a shower,
call your mates, find out who's out
for a bevvy or a pitcher or a shot.
Whether you like it or not

I seem to be about a month out of the loop, but the announcement of Propellerhead's Record software, which according to their website is due out in September.

About my only problem with Reason was that it had not audio record or sequencing capabilities - something you work through to limited effect by using redrum or one of the in-built samplers, but that was not a very satisfying solution (and required an additional application to record the sound).

Propellerhead Record looks like it will solve this, essentially turning Reason into a fully fledged DAW.

There is another article from Creative Digital Music

My latest attempt at Moonlight Sonata, much better than the first.

I am learning to play Toccata and Fugue in D minor. This is the first part (up until the fugue).