Posts Tagged ‘downtempo’

4_03

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Posted 25 Jul 2009 — by karl
Category Music

I liked the solemn, deep quality of the main instrument in here(The deep bassoon-like sound in the background).  This track quickly goes from downtempo chiller to drum and bass thriller.  With the drum and bass part, I wanted it to have a more “techy” quality than the rest of the track.  The computer bleeps near the end and the creepy pad really give that half of the track some great contrast.

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Old Tracks: Why I Hate Dante

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Posted 10 Jun 2009 — by karl
Category Music

Through my adolescence I became fascinated with the works of Dante Aligheri.  I read the Inferno a couple times in high school out of my own interest, and I continued to read it in my college years.   I have read multiple translations and have become somewhat of an Inferno scholar by doing so.

Spending as much time as I did reading the book, it became a natural source of inspiration for me.  Unfortunately, this inspiration came about in the form of terrible recurring nightmares about Hell, damnation, and the Devil.  A day came in about 2001, when I was just getting into music production, that I was able to focus all of this emotion into a song that I called “Why I Hate Dante”.  I finished the song in an afternoon, and I don’t remember doing much of it.  Looking back, creating the song was somewhat of a mystical experience for me.

This song remains to be some of my best work.  It has a strong trip-hop groove that evolves throughout the song until it finally reaches critical mass and turns into a thrilling drill and bass monster.  This is one of my longer works but I guarantee the tension justifies the entire length of the track.

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3_06

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Posted 30 May 2009 — by karl
Category Music

Dub music has become an increasingly effective medium for me.  I had lots of fun making the last “pure” dub tune in the random beats series – 1_04.

This new dub tune is still uptempo and modern enough that we can call it dubstep.  It started with the childlike keyboard sound throughout the track.  However, along the way I became tempted to turn up the “whiteboy reggae dial” to 11, which brought in the piano elements.  Overall I’m very pleased with how it turned out.

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2_14

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Posted 02 Apr 2009 — by karl
Category Music

What makes the difference between acid jazz and trip hop?  To me, it’s the jazz.  Trip-hop generally has a more urban, modern feel, while acid jazz is a little more subtle and not as synthetic.  Today’s track, I feel, is more of an acid jazz track with some atmospheric electric piano with some neat synth sounds that really add to the rhythm of the track.  I had every intention of making it more obvious with a Chick Corea-style electric piano solo, but like I tell all my friends, I can’t really play piano, I just pretend to.  (Ok, so I guess I play piano a little bit.)

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This post concludes volume 2 of the Random Beats series.  You can now download all the mp3s for this volume in a ZIP file in the downloads section.  Volume 3 will start soon!

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2_13

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Posted 30 Mar 2009 — by karl
Category Music

This might not be for everyone; this house-influenced trip hop track is at it’s essence, an experiment in binarual beats in electronic music.

Although this may not meet the strictest definition of what binaural beats are , the technique was used in creating the sliding bass sound.  The left and right channels are detuned against one another just a little bit so when you listen to this (on headphones only…otherwise you just won’t get it), what your brain hears is really the difference between the two sounds.  I find it fascinating, and I wanted to bring this into a track.

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Karl D – Futuredub

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Posted 11 Mar 2009 — by karl
Category Music

I know you’re out there. I can feel you now. I know that you’re afraid… you’re afraid of us. You’re afraid of change. I don’t know the future. I didn’t come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it’s going to begin. I’m going to hang up this phone, and then I’m going to show these people what you don’t want them to see. I’m going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.

-Keanu Reeves, The Matrix

This is one of two new songs that will be released for free in the Downloads section as part of the forthcoming  Existential Funk: Remixes and B-Sides EP.

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Red Time: Soundtrack for a Movie Not Yet Made

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Posted 04 Feb 2009 — by karl
Category Music

Epic post time!  This is a big one, for good reason…

Before there was Existential Funk, “Things You’ll Need to Know”, or randombeats.com, there was Red Time.

Red Time started as a dream I had in 2002.  I can still recall the dream very vividly, and it had to do with moving backwards in time somehow.  I knew this was called “Red Time” because someone in the dream told me.

In the dream, I heard music.  The very next day, I put that same music into a song.

Karl D – Red Time Original Version

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In the small circle of friends that I distributed my music to at the time, this was one of the most popular songs. The concept was just as popular.

I hoped to one day write a short story, as well as a film based on Red Time.  In the time between 2003 and 2004, I worked almost exclusively on the soundtrack to the film.  Because the music was so important to the idea of Red Time, I wanted the soundtrack done first.

Sadly, with a budding “real job”, my time for screenwriting went way down, and the project never really got started.  However, the soundtrack was nearly complete.  I nearly released it as a full album(despite the film not being complete), but I felt that it was too short.

Because of the new format of randombeats.com, I felt now was the perfect time to let this “in to the wild.”  The album is slow, melodic trip-hop mixed with house and breakbeat.  While I was telling people about the project back in ‘03, the multi-talented Matt Wilson of screen and stage volunteered the following illustration for a cover.  I felt it summed it up nicely.

Click on the image to download the entire ZIP file of Red Time: A Movie Not Yet Made, including the original and remixed versions of the song that started it all, along with 7 other great tracks.  The full download will also be in the Downloads section.

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2_05

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Posted 27 Jan 2009 — by karl
Category Music

This track is mellow in the neatest way.  I feel like it’s got kind of a noir quality to it. 

Since the release of Existential Funk, my music has been described(accurately) as trip-hop.  I’d never thought of myself as much of a trip-hop artist,  but since then I’ve embraced that much more in my work on the “random beats” series.

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