Mark's
sounds
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page updated:
2010.04.02
A few sound files, mostly of my music
Unfortunately lack of free space meant I had to remove them.
Warning
These files are BIG. You could be sitting around a long time, waiting for them to download, and you might not think it worth the effort in the end.
How to play
The .mp3 files need to be downloaded and opened with an mp3 player such as WinAmp. If your browser is set up up right, they should just play when you click on them. Some reports of trouble with windows media player giving silent results, but winamp works fine. Also, I have had trouble with netscape sometimes interpreting the files as text and adding CR ort LF or something. Seems to download OK in IE5.
MP3
is a wonderful bit of technology that compresses
sound files down to about 10% or their original
size. If you haven't got an mp3 player, get 1. You can probably
find WinAmp on the front cover CD of most PC magazines, or you
can download it (or something similar) from http://www.mp3.com/software/windows/players.html or go direct to source at http://www.winamp.com. You can get different skins for WinAmp from
various places including 1001WinAmpSkins. Here's a picture of my WinAmp (with the sony skin)
playing a track.
The files...
Oxford
In my last term at Oxford, encouraged by Will of the Quads, I got a band together. Will, John and Martin of the Quads, Penny and myself. We practiced in the underground music room at Exeter College for about 4 weeks, before playing once only at the Stage Club. I wanted to do it again, but Will, in particular, thought it might be a good idea to do some revision for Finals. Oh well. Taped from the back of the room in glorious mono with no top end.
| Name | Full |
Description |
| 01_longlongwait | 1443kb | Enigma Vibrations. Adam and Will with Adam's song |
| 02_youreafailure | 2666kb | Enigma Vibrations. Adam and Will with Adam's song |
| 03_scenery | 3417kb | A marksong from
the early days at university. A song about
freedom/independence. I didn't actually write most of the
words.The opener at the Oxford Stage Club do. We played it again at the end, but by the time we'd got the spare guitar into action after John broke a string, the tape ran out. |
| 04_1159 | 2714kb | Penny chose this 1. 11:59 from the Blondie LP Parallel Lines |
| 05_wintertime | 4217kb | A marksong from the early days at university. A song about winter (surprisingly enough), but also about other stuff including the seemingly endless wait for bands to appear on stage. A simple 3 chord thing, but Martin, John and Will made something special out it. |
| 06_gladallover | 2151kb | Me singing "Glad all over". Of course it's a very old song, but I knew it mostly from the Rezillos' Fay Fife version from the "Can't stand the Rezillos" LP.. |
| 07_yourname | 2674kb | A marksong from the last days at university. Infatuation's such an awful word. |
| 08_sawherstanding | 2690kb | John's choice of something to sing (he took a lot of persuading). Yes the dreaded B***les. |
| 09_yousayyoudont | 2914kb | 1 of my favourites from the Buzzcocks. Also done previously by Oxford's Instamatics, which Penny had something to do with. |
| 10_terminal | 1443kb | Me singing an early marksong. You can't always get what you want. |
| 11_politics | 1415kb | A bit of a curiosity this. A song from Girls at our best. At the time only available as a single. Used to get played a lot in Will's room. We had to do a (rather bad) version of it. |
| 12_kid | 3201kb | Penny chose this 1. Kid from the 1st Pretenders LP |
| 13_onlywanttobewithyou | 2362kb | Originally by Dusty Springfield (I think), but at the time better known for the Eurythmics version |
| 14_itssoeasy | 1863kb | A bit of a set filler. Will singing the same Buddy Holly song from every Quads show. |
| 15_killthemall | 4692kb | A Coventry inspired marksong from the early days at university. Do you ever feel that there are too many people about, too close together? 3 chords and a twiddly bit. |
Home 4track doodles
| Name | Full |
Description |
| doodle1 | 1167kb | short drum loop with simple bass, keyboard riff, keyboard chords and guitar |
| pretty1 | 1435kb | piano chords, piano arpeggio, echo electric guitar. No drums! |
| thumper4 | 956kb | thumping drums and bass, string drone, electric guitar |
| trinity3 | 1115kb | 3 guitar improvisation |
School
Not actually, from when I was at school. This lot comes from a tape of when I hired a local school room to make some noise in. I took the Atari and the box full of midi stuff. Apart from the Atari doing its thing with the drums, bass, synth etc. it's just me singing (sometimes) and the Satellite guitar through the fx500 with a fair bit of compression, (no distortion), equalisation, chorus and reverb (sometimes echo).
| Name | Full |
Description |
| 01_feel | 2906kb | A bit of a democratic effort this 1, from the days when my brother and I were trying to get a band together after university. I think Adrian came up with the bass line. Christina did the words and melody. This is what it turned into after I messed with it, years later |
| 02_dream1 | 852kb | Short and sweet marksong. 53secs and that's only because I play it through 1x 1st without singing. Usual 3 chord stuff. But wait, there's an F#m in there too! I always liked the way the lyrics to this form a triangle on the page. |
| 03_jenny | 2382kb | An Oxford inspired marksong. Just bass and drums, with me on guitar and vocals. The last few seconds are missing - the tape ran out |
| 04_killthemall | 1883kb | A Coventry inspired marksong from the early days at university. Do you ever feel that there are too many people about, too close together? 3 chords and a twiddly bit. |
| 05_queensoldier | 1315kb | Suzanne Vega track "The Queen and the Soldier". Just me and the guitar. Not much of it - don't know the words past the 1st verse. |
| 06_dream2 | 2378kb | Something a bit special. Rather a lot of chords in this all played with the E and B strings open. Just me and the guitar. I can nearly play this on the piano now. Not as old as some of the others. This marksong is only about 10 years old! |
| 07_stances | 2546kb | Something else from the me, Adrian, Christina period. Of course I've messed with it loads since then. 1 of my favourites. |
| 08_jeans | 1915kb | Something a bit heavy. A cautionary tale about the meaning of life. A marksong from just after university. Also a play on the similarity of the words jeans and genes. Probably my 1st go at a guitar solo, but I still play it exactly as I did then. Quite pleased with the drums on this too. Curiously, when I play the same G A Bm chords on the piano it gets very moody with a totally different character. |
| 09_scenery | 3010kb | A marksong from the early days at university. A song about freedom/independence. I didn't actually write most of the words.This was the opener at the Oxford Stage Club do. |
| 10_terminal | 2514kb | A marksong from the early days at university. You can't always get what you want. Will and John (of the Quads) liked this so much that they played it when just the 2 of them did a slot at Maxwells in Oxford. |
| 11_instrumental1 | 3309kb | |
| 12_instrumental2 | 2734kb | |
| 13_dream2 | 1999kb | Liked it so much, I did it again. Another go at track 06. |
| 14_meandbaby | 752kb | Short and sweet marksong. 47secs. Just me and the guitar. |
| 15_rightstuff | 1215kb | Me having a go at the Bob Calvert/Hawkwind song "The Right Stuff" from Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters. Quite pleased with the howling wind noises I got out of the synth at the beginning, but it goes downhill from there. Not much of it either. |
| 16_instrumental3 | 2562kb | |
| 17_instrumental4 | 2188kb | |
| 18_stances2 | 2214kb | Not actually recorded at the school session, but soon after at home. Same song as track 07. I wanted to use the FX500 on everything, so I played each part separately into the 4 track. I got some chorus on the vocals and some reverb on the drums (sadly lacking on most of my recordings before I got the REV100).The Atari stuff going through some compression makes it sound a bit pumpy. |
The equipment
Here are some of my toys that I have used for making music.
Tascam Porta 05. 4 track cassette recorder. Limited to recording 2 tracks at a time. Effects loop is only mono. Still, for it's time it was great. dbx noise reduction, variable speed, separate mix and cue monitoring, stereo EQ, separate pan, cue, effect send control for all 4 channels. Most of the stuff I have done has been recorded on it. It's probably about time to go to digital recording now though.
Yamaha FX500. Digital stereo guitar effects box. basically a digital version of a fairly complete set of foot pedals. Compression, distortion, equalisation, modulation (chorus/flange etc.), reverb. So clean because it's digital, and stereo out too. Even allows MIDI conrol. Brilliant.
Roland TR505. Drum machine with real digital samples. A sophisticated song/pattern editing feature with tape save. I used to save whole songs to tape before I got the Atari. The samples are excellent, but it gets a bit boring hearing the same drums all tthe time.
Yamaha REV100. Digital stereo reverb box. Want to sound like you're in the bathroom? Albert Hall? No problem. Also has a few effects. I tend to use a setting that sounds like a small room ie. early echo. Gives a nice intimate feel to guitar, but more importantly, warms up the dry drums from the TR505 very nicely.
Yamaha TX81Z. Basically a DX27 in a box without a keyboard. Still only 8 note polyphonic but at least they can be different. I tended to use 2x bass, 3x synth chords, 3x synth riff.
Yamaha DX27. Basically a cut down version of the famous/ubiquitous DX7. An FM synth. I think this picture is actually a DX21, but it was the best I could find.
Roland XP30. Treated myself to new keyboard/synth (1999). It's "brilliant". My old Yamaha DX27 is quite dated now. I've wanted something velocity sensitive for some time. It has aftertouch too. You can read a review and hear some samples. I recommend the Guitars Forever track.