Rek-lores blog

Thursday, August 01, 2013

My latest EP release

Hey guys, I thought I'd say a few things about my new free to download EP - The Odyssey. How it was recorded, how I got my Inspiration and some of the similar artists I listened to etc. Have a listen first off!

Dreamscape really kicks off at the 2:33 mark! Enjoy!

Firstly it's a blend of Hip-hop/Trip-hop and Downtempo, I also use a lot of strings so the orchestral feel is there too, I listen to a lot of classical music, mainly mozart, and that's why I love to add in strings! They're so powerful and moving! I've been listening to a lot of 'Bonobo' recently, he's been a huge influence on my music, and I'm even going to one of his gigs in leeds! Check him out if you don't already know him. I've been listening to a lot of Royksopp recently, I love how they build up their tracks, have a listen to 'Keyboard Milk', I was really inspired by them in these tracks.

I record all of my tracks using Logic Pro 9 (Haven't gotten to use X yet, although it looks great!), I mostly create my own drums from scratch, but some of them are sampled from old hip-hop tracks I've found lurking about! For synths I use a lot of the plug ins you get free from 'Computer Music Magazine' which is a great magazine I'd recommend it, loads of tutorials, and a CD each issue, of samples, plug ins etc. I always sample my vocal samples, currently, as I'm looking for a female vocalist to work with, I use websites like Freesound and also have various vocal samples collected over the years! My next project will be taking the vocals from a bruce lee interview, which should be a lot of fun! Thanks guys!

6Towns Radio station love The Odyssey and it's being played on their show on sunday!

Friday, July 26, 2013

10 crazy homemade guitars

Hey guys, Thought I'd do another post about guitars. Here is a complete list of the coolest, weirdest, craziest guitars I could find on the internet. Hope you enjoy them!

May the chords be with you

The very first Guitar

Don't step on this

The most Metal Guitar ever

Seasick Steve

A very Saxy guitar

Sword guitar

Gun guitar

Scissors double neck

Pacman guitar

Click above to watch Seasick Steve

5 Things That Make A Great Guitarist

What makes a great guitarist? I've herd people swear by 'Wngwie Malmsteen', one of the fastest metal guitarists in the known universe, but then others favour slow Eric 'Slow hand' Clapton, a man who's very name would be a bad thing in Yngwies circles. I personally think the jazz guitarists are the best, but when I was younger I swore Angus Young, a one key, one scale rock god, was all knowing.

Tone

I can't tell you how many times I've herd a genuinely great guitarist, but his amplifier sounds like a jar of angry bees. I always found that less is more, many guitarist will opt for throwing on loads of effects, flooding their sound with reverb and delay, I advise starting out with a nice clean sound, and working from there, subtly. Check out this article on how to get a great tone. Click here.

Be tasteful

No one wants to hear a 10 minute fully overdriven solo. Unless you've got serious talent and a big enough fan base to do that, Eddie Van Halen can get away with it, not many people can. No one likes a show off, if you can shred all day and night that's great, just give the rest of the band a chance.

Confidence

Not to be confused with arrogance. It's a fine line I guess. Some of the 'best' guitarists I've seen are the ones that are at the back of the stage, with their head down. I've always said that I'd prefer to see a band who are really energetic, put on a hell of a show but hit some bum notes, rather than 4 robots playing a CD quality set.

Tuning

The classic 'shit band', are the ones where their instruments weren't even in tune, you can get tuning pedals so you don't have to disconnect any cables. I recommend the 'Korg Pitch Black', they're much cheaper than most, especially, the Boss TU-3, which seems to be the standard. They both do the same job but the Korg looks nicer and is cheaper! Also if you have any times to check your tunings in between songs, or even during a song if you can hear it's a little out, then take it!

Actual skill

This is rather obvious but I thought it should be covered, depending on what style you play, you're mostly going to have to know at least some theory and have some knowledge of playing. Grade books are a great way to go if you want to get seriously good. I recommend 'RGT'. But apart from that, practise a lot, learn other songs from similar genres to get the feel of them.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

An incident with a Superstar

Before I decided to become a music producer I had been in many bands for many years, but one band in particular had quite a lot success, here's a link to some of our music, check it out! But anyway, one gig stood out from the rest, we had secured a gig at Doncaster Dome thanks to 'Clement Marfo & the Frontline', who are a great bunch of guys by the way, check them out! I remember playing a quiet sunday evening gig with them, the sort of place where the audience is the other bands and the floors are stinky, anyway, despite being very successful and busy guys they stayed after their set to watch us!

So back to this Doncaster Dome gig, it was also with the rapper 'Chipmunk'. He's the 'superstar' I'm referring to. We were able to catch a glimpse of his demand list, it went a little something like this.

12 Small tea towels
Some spiced Ginger
5 Bottles of Jack Daniels
5 Bottles of Vodka
20 Plastic cups
Many backstage tickets

Not just this but he also got paid A rather ridiculous four digit sum. My old band 'Light Scars' were paid £4. Less than the cost in petrol to get there and put our heart and souls into it. So I thought, wow with such a large and specific demands list he must be great. He turned up 40 minutes late, played for half the time and wanted to leave as soon as he had done his show, so my dad parked his car directly behind the tour bus to trap him. He's probably still there now. Anyway that was my story, I hope you enjoyed it!

Sunday, July 21, 2013

5 ways to Promote your Music

'Being successful in music is 5% talent 95% business skills.' A sad but very true fact. Have you ever wondered why artists with little to no visible talent like 'Nicki Minaj' are so famous? (Sorry if you're a fan). On this post I'll share the five best ways I've found to promote music and get more fans. This is a complete beginners guide to launching yourself into the music business.

Social Networking/Forums

This is an obvious one but I thought I should cover it! Sign up for Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and any other well known social networking site, with these you can share your music, give people updates on releases and press.

Free Downloads

Selling some of your Music for free might sound a little counter-productive, as you've probably put a lot of time and effort into creating it, but you'll notice that if you put a track, or an album up for free, much more people will download it, and maybe even pay anyway (If you're using a service like bandcamp, which I recommend). You could even put a limited time on it 'Free track/album for one week only!'

Create a newsletter

Using bandcamp for your free downloads means that if someone types '£0' when getting a track they must submit their email (you can also do this on reverbnation). With this information you can create a newsletter (I recommend using Mailchimp) and send it monthly, with updates on your new tracks, press information, and give them exclusive offers that no one apart from subscribers gets.

Get a website

If you want to have a good presence online you need to be accessible easily by search engines such as google and yahoo, creating your own website is the first thing you should do! Firstly you need to get your domain name I.E - www.rek-lore.co.uk. Pick something simple and as close to your name/band as possible. I used 1and1 for this. Once you have that you need a Web hosting service, which basically puts all of your data (pictures, videos, text etc) online, otherwise no one would be able to see it, 1and1 also provides this service but plenty of other websites do too.

Once you have these you can start building your website, I recommend using 'Wordpress', it has a a nice interface and it pretty easy for beginners. It's all very well and good having a website, but what's the point if no one can find it? You need to get your website Indexed by Google, which basically means it will show up on google. Click here for a short quick lesson on how to do so.

Create Videos

Using Youtube is a powerful tool, as so many people use it, and if a picture can tell 1000 words, how many can a video tell? You can create videos about a wide range of things, such as music Videos for your tracks, tutorials on music production/composition, Vlogs, Live shows/sets, or anything else music related, the key is to keep it interesting, ask your self 'If this was someone else's video, would I like it?'

- At the end of your videos include links to other videos/websites.

- Include annotations showing where they can access your music.

- Include links to all of your websites in the description of your videos.

Friday, July 19, 2013

Hidden gems and personal favourites

Hey guys! We all have tracks and bands we love that the majority of people won't have even herd of, this entry is to show off mine, there should be a style of music to fit everyone's tastes!

Fytch - Dub-step/Drum'n'bass

Nubiyan twist - Afrobeat/dub

Parov Stelar - Electro-swing

Royksopp - Electronic

Delta Heavy - Dub-step

Rek-lore (Me) - Hip-hop

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Inspiration

Inspiration can come from anywhere, at anytime, have you seen the movie 'UP'? Well if you have, do you remember the flash backs of the oldies showing how they grew up together? (If you haven't, watch it now!) I watched that scene and it gave me so much inspiration, not just for my music but for everything else, I wrote a track that day!

If you're having problems writing music, it could be a lack of inspiration, try taking a walk and observing, really, open your eyes to the world! My latest inspiration came from an article on 'Random Acts of Kindness', which is awesome! And finally, here's the link to the website, check it out it's brilliant! http://www.randomactsofkindness.org/