Synoiz Music Blog
Synoiz music blog.
Posted 13th November 2013
News at last! At the moment I'm working on a soundtrack for the short horror film "Blaze of Gory" for Mitsuko Studios and pretending I know how to use a Korg MS-20 synthesiser I've just bought from Red Dog Music in Edinburgh.
The new album is almost done, vocals need tweaking and I've dropped another track that I just couldn't get happy with, some voice over sections have been added and hopefully at the end of the month I will be going back up to Edinburgh to master the album with Ghostsmut (who also mastered the first album Ambients).
At the weekend I wrote up ideas for the music videos for the album (no singles per say but we are hopefully having videos for some stand out tracks), I've discussed two of these videos with Ian Lawlor at 12 Foot Beast Productions (who has done all my other videos as he's mint) and I'm discussing two digitally rendered CG videos with Ryan McKindle of Pathogen Pictures. All early days still but hopefully these videos will come out really good!
Hope you're all well, eat a biscuit. Unless you're allergic, then just have an apple or something.
I've been a bit more into Twitter as of late so feel free to message @Synoiz on there.
Posted 17th June 2013
Once again it's been a while since my last blog, I've had lots to ramble about but nothing interesting enough to actually write about! If you saw the news I'm in the middle of working on my second album, I'm enjoying the process but it is a bit weird. 90% of the songs are written and just being spruced up, but now it's getting to the cutting room stage and I'm having to forget about my "ideals" and think about the best way to present an album.
In the past it would be that people would buy records based upon artist name or cover art or the success of a single etc, now it seems to be a lot more about the structure of the album.
Because we allow streams or previews of albums online we need to think about immediately "hooking" the listener. Don't get through to that listener in the first 30 seconds? Well they've got a million other artists on the internet to listen to and they're not gonna give a slow-burner the time of day unless they know it's gonna be worth it.
It's cynical but I'm having to be realistic, I can leave my 3 CD deluxe egotrip albums for if I ever make a name for myself, right now I need to make songs that people can use and relate to their lives, whether if it's listening in the background while working, or a song to have on in the car.
The way I started the new album was with a track called "Dawn" that was wonderful for me, it was a perfect representation of how I feel conveying an honest picture of the melancholy I often find myself in (not in a bad way, I see it as more of a comforting sensation). But when listening through the album these last few days, it wasn't the way to start a record. Every stream, every iTunes preview would start with this track and people might switch off before they got to the heart of the album. That's what happened with a lot of my last album Ambients, we started with Forest and because of it, most of the streams we see online end before the first intro track is done, even if that listener might have loved Getting Safer or Andromeda, the structure of the album stopped them getting that far.
Maybe people don't have the patience for albums anymore but this new Synoiz album is starting with something a little more dramatic, it's still got a lot of stuff for the existing fans to enjoy but there's a few vocal tracks in there too. We may even have an EP from it as we like all the tracks but some of them won't make the cut and I want to make this album as accessible and listenable as possible.
How do other artists feel about this? Do other artists feel pressured to slap people in the face with their music or feel like you can't do the album you want to do because of how online releases work?
As a listener do you feel like there's too much to listen to or that you want albums to grab you on the first track?
Hope you're all well, here's the Dawn track I was talking about, I love it but it won't be on the new record!
Posted 17th November 2012
Nearly time to say goodbye to 2012. It's been a good year but as I get older I feel like the time moves faster, feels like yesterday we were out and about filming the Shock! Horror! video and that was like 2 years now. I've tried to do a release a year while I'm busy with other things but months just seem to fly by worryingly!
If you didn't know my new remix album "Darkling" is out now! It's 15 tracks of awesome remixes of my stuff by friends and fellow artists. Now I must admit I'm not usually fussed about remixes and I've been often disappointed by "remix albums" but for this one it's pretty damn good, nice selection of stuff on there and personally I think some of the remixes actually sound better than my originals (Madeleine Bloom's version of Of Rolling Hills from Ambients, and Ark Elfs "news report" style version of The Enfield Poltergeist from the Andromeda EP. You can download the 15-track Darkling album here for pay-what-you-want or free.
Do Unsigned Artists Put Too Much Work In?
The thing I'd like to write about is something that a fellow artist asked me about the other day. They were feeling very down about their music and the feeling that no-one was listening, how hard it is to get exposure and how upsetting it is to work so hard on something and then no-one really seems interested. All fairness this is something that I've been feeling a lot lately too and it made me realise just how common it must be.
I'm not really meaning anything in a "why aren't I a big rockstar yet?" way, considering the style of music I do and how I compare to so many of the other more talented unsigned artists and musicians I know I'd be shocked by any kind of big attention! It's more whether we unsigned artists put too much work into what we do.
With my Synoiz stuff I'm doing artwork, singles, B-sides, digital booklets, remixes, music videos (you'd be surprised how much work goes into just one of them!!), then for every release I prepare large press lists of potentially interested magazines/newspapers/radio/blogs and contact each of them and send out press packs consisting of press releases, press CDs and other promotional material (such as the postcards designed and printed for the Shock! Horror! and Darkling releases); all of this is essentially just to help get attention and to give people special stuff in addition to the music itself.
The problem is that does any of this need to be done? My latest release Darkling seems to have been ignored by almost everyone and type of press it was sent to, and while the reaction from fans has been great and the release is doing well but I'm sure most of you would have been happy with just the album in MP3 with some quick artwork chucked out over Bandcamp or as a zip file on my website. If this was what I did it probably could have been out months earlier.
Obviously it makes me wonder if maybe my music is just rubbish and only me and some select few truly enjoy it, or if it's so different to what people want at the moment, or maybe I'm just not getting it out to the right magazines or crowds? So it begs the question should artists just focus on the music and throw it out there for whoever wants it and hope that someone finds it? Should artists who are not "discovered" yet stop putting effort into artwork and videos and such and wait until we've hit the big time with some random tracks we've put out? Or should we just make sure we enjoy every aspect of what we're doing and if we don't enjoy it (like press and promotion for me!) we should just not bother with it and hope someone manages to dodge all of the other millions of bands all over the internet and give a listen to one of our tracks and immediately fall in love with it?
It sounds mad doesn't it?
What do you think though, are you an artist trying to get promotion or feeling like you're not sure if anyone is listening? Would you prefer to focus on the music and not have to do the promotion or do you link everything else to your music so that you need all of it together?
Posted 28th October 2011
Well as someone pointed out, I totally failed to update this blog on Sunday. There will be news of the Cutting Edge Film Festival soon but for the moment I'm just getting excited about Halloween!
Free Shock! Horror! single still available
I can't believe it's been an entire year since the release of my single Shock! Horror! If you missed it or are just finding Synoiz now then check out the creepy horror music video by 12 FT Beast Productions by clicking on the animation to the side and click here to grab the 4-track free horror music download Shock! Horror!.
At the moment I have two main projects on the go, one is completing the main theme/intro music for a creepy game soundtrack for a publisher proposal and the other is remixing the new Erasure single "I Lose Myself" (which isn't really work as it's for a competition but it'd be amazing to get a remix on an Erasure release!).
How is everyone doing for Halloween? Looking forward to it? Costume sorted? Been out already?
