First I said "late summer". Feeling a bit pressured, I then said "December". I'm looking at where I'm at with the album and I'm not sure I'll have a complete December release. I could, but it's just not ready. You know that moment right before you completely go to sleep? It's a time when you're kinda vulnerable - if something worrisome pops in your head, you're awake all over again a little bit startled. Lately, that's about the time where my brain has faithfully reminded me that my album isn't done yet and there are people waiting for it, as if I didn't think about that enough all hours throughout the day. Should I get out of bed and work on music? Sure. What would it hurt? Lets go work on some music. 2-3 hours later and sometimes that process repeats itself - back to bed, back to the Motif. Sometimes I have some recorded media to show for it, sometimes not. Never do I beat myself up if not - music is always worth the time you put in.
Things continue to be fun though. Just the other day, I found myself adding a minute of newness to the end of "Throwing Fire". It's the kind of stuff I love to do - just go anywhere I want to with the song. All else is moving along too - some songs quicker than others.
Back to deadline speak, I (thankfully) don't have a label beating me up to release a second album, just people interested in hearing new stuff and I'm grateful for that. Just be patient with me while I have fun with music and get it recorded. I'm just thankful I don't have a label imposing arbitrary deadlines on my creative progress. I do that well enough on my own. LOL. Late summer. December.
PS. A friend and fellow YouTuber, David Choi, finished his album (there's a buy link on his myspace). All original stuff. Threw it in the car and I was digging it even though it's different than stuff I normally listen to. It's calming and he's got a great singing voice. I think it'd also make a good gift if you have a female friend who digs love songs.
PPS. Got to meet STS9 when they toured through KY. Zach (the drummer) had me come on the tour bus to meet the band before they played. Very nice people and the show was a blast. Thanks to my hat guy, Sam at Livity, for telling Zach about my music and making that collab possible.
I'm not a fan of deadlines when it comes to music but for the sake of you being in the know, my hopeful goal for the new album is sometime in December (digital release, physical CD's take a while to get pressed). "Late summer" has already past and the work is slower than I anticipated. All the basic groundwork is laid out though - the ideas are all there in front of me. All the tracks are pretty much picked out. Disorganized fun, messin with a guitar sound, throwing fire, stay crunchy (released ), and others that some of you have told me you like on youtube will definitely be on there.
I could have rushed things and had something sooner, but I'd rather not release something I'm not 100% comfortable with. Does that mean it'll be perfect? Probably not! LOL.
I don't know about you other musicians, but for me, finishing tracks is the most difficult and time consuming part. That's where the "work" creeps in. I've been told that goes along with all creative work. It's a weird balance between keeping it fun and actually having some organized recorded media to show for that fun.
Also, a new video should be out super soon. I'm doing a VERY VERY fun collab thingy with a cool band. I want that video to be a surprise though. It's been a BLAST working on it. It's got me charged up every time I sit down to jam with it. Kinda has that same vibe as "throwing fire".
And some quick thanks to Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park for shouting out to me on his blog yesterday (WHOA!?!), Katy Perry for her flattering post that I forgot to mention a while back, and to Papa Roach who continues to stay in contact by email to encourage me on my new music and videos.
Thanks for your patience and all the cool emails that keep me going.
We had a huge windstorm here in KY thanks to Ike. I love storms. Without any rain, it looked innocent enough until it knocked out power to the majority of people in this area and killed/injured a few poor folks. We haven't seen power outages like this since the mid-1970's when some huge tornadas hit. Still nothing compared to what some in TX are going through though. Gotta hook the red cross up with those donationz.
Anywho, I'm up late without power, using the Wordpress app on the iPhone to write this. Hopefully we'll have power ASAP but they're saying it may be up to a week for some. Might have to seek out a coffee shop tomorrow so I can do some CD labeling/shipping.
While I'm at it, my long-time friend and fellow independent musician Brad released his second CD last week. His fans (me included) have waited 5 years for it. I'm digging it - it's solid. And I'm encouraged to see him complete it because albums are tough when you're pretty much doing all the work by yourself (he's a 1-man show too).
Update: 3 days later (9/17), we still have no power. LOL. Ice and D Batteries are hard to find at this point. This Coleman LED lantern is amazing though - still has a lot of life after 3 nights. Totally recommend it - just keep 8 D batteries handy.
So here we go. This is an early cut off of my next album. A lot of people have requested more of my YouTube-style jams, so this song is pretty much the exact jam I did in "messin with an e-piano sound" mixed down to 320Kbps. Figured this would be a good way to experiment with this fancy new shopping cart AND to see how people like it when I leave the grime in a track. Can't wait to hear your feedback. This method of blog-posting and selling music is new to me, but maybe it beats waiting on a complete album to be finished (still working on that!). Anywho, I hope you like the tune!!! It was definitely a fun one to create.
iTunes - this won't be a single release on iTunes, but it's not too hard to buy it this way and drop the MP3 into iTunes. It just adds an extra step.
PS. Thanks to my friend Fil Smyth for always telling me (and pretty much anyone he comes in contact with) to stay crunchy.
People often ask how I'm getting my keyboard sounds hooked up to FL Studio. Unfortunately, I don't truly get the sounds working in FL Studio. What I'm actually doing is just recording into another program and importing those wave files into FL. The process isn't as seamless as I would like it to be. The Motif XS series comes with a version of Cubase that "syncs" better with the Motif, but I don't prefer to use Cubase, nor do I want to run FL Studio as a plugin (VSTi/DXi2) in Cubase. So my method is neither the smart or efficient way of going about this, but since folks ask, I thought I would share my old school method of recording stuff from my Motif XS8 and getting those recordings into FL.
Basically, I just record a .WAV file from my "live" playing from the Motif into Adobe Audition 1.0. Version 1.0 is old, but lighter than their new versions and it does what I need it to. Check out Audacity for an open-source and free alternative. I then trim up the wave file, save it with my patch number in the file name (gotta remember what sound I used), then drag and drop that file into the lower part of the playlist in FL. When I drag and drop the wave file, it's not in time with the beat yet, so I turn the Snap (to edges) to "NONE", and line carefully line it up. Don't forget to turn Snap back on to "LINE" or whatever you used before. FL also comes with some built-in recording and wave editing capabilities (Edison), but I have always found it easier to work outside of FL to trim up my wave files and record them fast.
There are a whole host of problems with doing it like this, so if you haven't created any habits yet, I would suggest doing some research on how to get Cubase working with the Motif XS (check out the quick setup guides on the MOTIFATOR site). The main thing is it a little too time consuming and you don't want technology to slow you down while you're trying to make music. I don't intend on doing it like this forever, but until I can find the time to get good at a method that works for me, this is how I'll do it for now.
Edit: I've learned that in FL 8, Edison can shoot the stuff you record over to the playlist with the click of a shortcut. Looking forward to experimenting with this. I'll give an update on that as soon as I try it.
Hope I helped!!
PSSSSSSST! Here's a small clip of a new beat I'm working on (just started it). Just click the little blue play button. Throwing Fire
My friend and old roommate Daniel accidentally figured out that Malcolm Kelly's (Oklahoma football player) freestyle rap went perfectly with my beat "Remix to a Remix". Didn't even have to change the tempo! So he helped me cue everything up in the video and it's actually fun. I even threw in some fake applause at the end. ROFL.
For you loyal RSS-subscribed blog readers, I thought I would thank you by temporarily releasing this track that kept me up all night this past Monday. It's fun to get in a groove like that where time slips by. It's a lot like reading a good book.
Anywho, I LOVE John Carpenter's original Halloween theme. In my opinion, nothing will compare to his original composition, but it was lot of fun putting a "dirty south" feel to it. Hopefully he won't mind that I posted this - it's really a compliment to him.
Thanks a million for all of the album purchases, folks! I'm slowly but surely working on album #2.
PS. I'm featured in the November issue of Paste Magazine that hits newsstands this week (Ryan Adams is on the cover). A few close friends tell me that Paste is a very highly regarded music magazine so I'm thrilled about this!! Big huge thanks to freelance writer Paul Williams. Here's a video on their site if you're interested.
Finally!!! You can now order my REAL CD directly from my website. I had it professionally pressed by a manufacturing company in a Digipack case (a step up from the average jewel case a CD normally comes in. If you happen to buy 2 or more CD's, I'll personally sign them.
Just an FYI: you don't need a PayPal account to order the CD - PayPal will allow you to use a credit card.
First of all, I want to thank everyone for purchasing my digital album! I didn't expect that kind of response at all. Last week was probably the most exciting week in terms of putting this whole CD together.
The picture above is a link to my album art in the form of a hi-res download. Lots of you have asked for it and it just took me a while to get around to it. If you download the whole CD, the artwork is already in there. Thanks for your patience!
For those interested in downloading my beats as MP3 files (192K - DRM free), feel free to head over to the Ronald Jenkees Digital Download Store!! For those of you who would rather have a physical CD, it's on it's way too. Maybe a few of you will like to get that too. It's coming in digipack form, so it's more snazzy than your average jewel case.
Choose what you want to buy (the whole album or just a few MP3's)
Pay using PayPal (it's a secure purchase and you don't have to have a PayPal account)
You'll get an E-Mail with a personal link to your downloads
Download your music!
FYI:
- The "Whole CD" option comes in a ZIP file. To unzip a the album, right-click the file, and then click Extract on the shortcut menu. Click here for more help with zip files.
- The "Best Value" button is kindof a joke, but kinda not. LOL.
- I have obtained a mechanical license to sell my Rocky Remix song
Thanks everyone for helping me get this done - all of the encouragement has been awesome. If you have any problems with the store, don't hesitate to get in touch: ronaldjenkees@gmail.com
If you buy 2 or more physical CD's, I will unwrap the plastic and sign them
