Added more content

10 09 2009

More stuff up now at the Arrange Remix Page… including me singing on a track. Scary I know!

I’ve also uploaded a selection of tracks to the Non-Album Music page which again you can access from the buttons at the top of the page. Several tracks in there already and many more to come shortly.





New Pages Added to the Site and to Celebrate…

10 09 2009

… have some F-Zero Remixes

If you check the top of the site underneath my banner you should now see a couple of extra options… first up is the Remixes/Arrangements page where I will be listing up anything that I remix or arrange funnily enough. I do a fair amount of this over the years and will probably continue to do more in the future so it seems like a good place to start adding stuff. More will go up once I get back from my trip in the USA but for now I added a few things including 3 F-Zero arrangements I did yesterday using Garageband and my laptop’s keyboard… later tweaked in Logic to get the best results. I’ve also linked them in this post for convenience but please check out the arrangements page for some other things that I’ve added!

Also, I’ve added the three ‘Play Guitar With Philthy’ Video Lessons that I did last year onto the Video Lessons tab.

Lately I’ve realised that I’m writing a lot of stuff which doesn’t fit into the album that I’m working on so I’ll be posting that stuff up into the Non-Album Music page shortly. That will include random jam sessions that didn’t make it into the ‘develop into a full song’ category! Again, most of this stuff will get posted up once I return next week.

In the meantime, please enjoy these F-Zero Arrangements!

F-Zero: Theme From Silence

F-Zero: Theme From Whiteland

F-Zero: Grand Prix Ending Theme

Catch you later, Phil





Tracks Recently Heard on Drunken Gamers Radio

8 09 2009

I was recently on the Drunken Gamers Radio Podcast and we did a little feature about my music with a focus on some of the Videogames music that has inspired me over the years. I figured I should probably post up the tracks that we used for folk to listen to if they wish so here we go:

First up a quick F-Zero Track

Simon’s Theme from Super Castlevania 4

Balamb Garden Theme from Final Fantasy VIII

And you can listen to the interview in the DGR show from last week which you can find over at Robot Panic





Recording in Minneapolis… Secret Project

8 09 2009

I’ve been staying in Minneapolis for the last couple of weeks and luckily got the chance to record some awesome music yesterday for a secret project with my friends @ Robot Panic

We went into the session with two lines of a song and a rough idea of where we wanted to go, nothing musically just a slight concept. What followed was frankly the easiest and most fun songwriting session that I’ve ever had the pleasure of being at. Mostly, we’d drink spout some crazy crap, giggling would ensue and more lyrics would get written down.

Writing the Lyrics

Once lyrics got written we’d start discussing over a few pints how the drums and bass should sound and jam around a few ideas until we had a decent song structure that fit the lyrics.

johndrums

bassbass

moebass

So after laying down the drums and bass we had more discussion about how the rest of the song could sound, ideas on guitars, keyboards, vocals, harmony… interesting uses of instruments. Anything was free to discuss and believe me we had some awesome and entirely crazy ideas. From here Hilden started playing with keyboards.

keyboard

From here it was time to record the main vocals and believe me when I say that we couldn’t help but burst into fits of laughter with each and every line recorded. It’s one thing to write some lyrics that are funny but it’s quite another to actually hear them out loud!

vocals

harmony

From here out we started playing with different guitar sounds and added several tracks of rhythm and some solo sections. The highlight for me though was getting to jam with Moe on the Sax… his solo Sax background pieces were… inspiring… but for me the real fun was at the end of the first track that we recorded where we both just let rip and duel solo’d untl the end. Seriously I can’t wait to hear the final mixed result of this!

sax

moephil

guitarsax

Overall I’m more than happy with the recorded results of the two tracks that we did yesterday. I seriously can’t wait for you guys to hear the final results in the near future. I think it’s safe to say already that for fans of the last Shmopera in March will love what we’ve done here. Personally I think we blew that last effort out of the water!

This was easily the most fun and the easiest songwriting session I’ve ever done, a complete pleasure. No ego, no need for ‘band meetings’, just lots of fun and an awesome end product! All being well I’ll be contributing to the next couple of tracks once I get home as I did previously in the Shmopera.