Finally an update!

The Musical Examples section has been updated to reflect the addition of excerpts from projects over the past few months.

The score and sound design for "Trek" were finished several weeks ago and the completed animation is now in fact viewable here via Youtube.

Radio Vault continues to be busy. In addition to our monthly new show at The Bad Dog Theatre on the Danforth, we performed at The Second City for the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival last month. Teamed up with us were the always awesome Nefarious Black Roses, as well as The Harvard Sailing Team from NYC.

Other projects have had to take a temporary back seat as I work on a score for Gruppo Rubato's "The Churchill Protocol", a new play set to tour across the Canada Fringe circuit. Also on the front burner is an absolutely beautiful animation from Neels Britz entitled "Trek".

Things are starting to get a bit exciting around here these days. The most recent project underway is an instructional DVD I've started to work on with a video production company. More news to come as the project unfolds.

Folks, the voting for the Greenbelt competition has begun! To help Radio Vault win the competition, please go to the Greenbelt site and vote here! Remember, vote for Radio Vault, 2nd from the bottom on the right hand side.

Radio Vault has been chosen as one of the top 10 finalists in the CHUM foundation's competition to raise awareness about Ontario's Greenbelt. Soon we will be posting a link to where you can vote online for your favorite. Help us win the big money!
Also, shooting of The Dead Sleep Easy has begun. Post-production should commence over the coming months.

Later this week I'll be heading off to Chicago with Radio Vault to perform in the Chicago Sketch Festival. If you are in the Chicago area Jan 11th or 14th come on out for a great night of fun!

I have recently signed on as Music Director for Radio Vault - a comedy troupe devoted to the love and lampooning of Radio. Check it out and come listen as we poke fun at the Radiophonic medium on the 2nd Thursday of every month at the Bad Dog Theatre (138 Danforth Ave.) Tomorrow night we are opening the Toronto Sketch Fest at the Gladstone Hotel. Come out and cheer us on!!

Another Odessa project has been announced! Production of The Dead Sleep Easy is scheduled to start in Winter 2007.

I've started work on the next synth patches to release for sale. They'll be for the Native Instruments FM7 and Korg's Wavestation emulation from their Legacy, and Legacy Digital Edition packages.

The Electric Beaver Project is back on the front burner after basically a 6 month break. Soon I'll be posting some examples and including an information page.

Obviously I've been busy with relocating to Toronto, but things are finally settling in at the new studio. Also, I'm switching websservers right now so things may be a bit bumpy for a few days. Forums will be down for a while but coming back in revised form shortly.

Black Kissinger isn't even out of pre-production and the next Odessa project has already been announced! Say hello to... Vampiro.

Big news today! The studio is going to be packed up and moved down to Toronto over the next while. An impending project is making it a necessity to get a little closer to the heart of things... News to come!

What can I say? I'm long overdue for an update. I've been quite busy lately, but I did manage to sneak in a little audio experiment. I really like this one too. The latest Current Audio Experiment involved taking a somewhat well-known Canadian tune and doing some heavy processing of it. It turned this recognizable melody into a vertical structure clearly showing something of a minor i-v-i structure. I think it's quite beautiful really.

The day the [electronic] music [instrument designer] died. Thanks for everything Bob...

This Thursday July 21, Bridget Farr's film 'Turnoff' will be shown at the 13th annual IFCO gala here in Ottawa. For those in Ottawa who don't know, it is an excellent evening of independent film and a good time not to be missed. The fun starts at the Bytowne Cinema @ 9pm.

The new Current Audio Experiment is something a little different. I found some of my old answering machine tapes that have been recorded over and over, cutting previous messages off. The only thing I've edited out are personal phone numbers, the rest is verbatim from tape #1. These messages range from 3-5 years old. If you've ever called me, you should check to make sure you're not among the guilty...

Made a few changes to LINKS/AFFILIATIONS and ARTICLES sections. Nothing major.

Boy it has been awhile! The latest Current Audio Experiment is a continuing of my obsession with finding melody within natural spoken word. I did a few projects in university that dealt with this when I noticed that repeated listening to any recording of speech revealed an underlying sense of pitch. This particular couplet even seems to work as a 'round'. Take a listen to this fragment from a work in progress..

The latest Current Audio Experiment is a recording I made a few years ago of my parents' old upright piano while playing it with only the damper pedal. There was some convolution processing applied as well to give it a bit of a ghostly quality.

Sad news today. Patrick Cardy, my former theory and composition prof from my days at Carleton U. died this week of a heart attack. He was only 51. I have very fond memories of his classes and his ability to always be encouraging and optimistic. He had the ability to see good things in your work even when you yourself were uncertain. I always came away with a feeling of accomplishment after going to him with problems.

I have finally put a "product" up for sale. A set of some banks of patches for the Ensoniq ESQ-1 synth. I had a lot of comments on these patches that I had designed mostly for use in Harry Knuckles and the Pearl Necklace so I have made a package with explanatory notes on programming the ESQ. I've always felt it was one of the most under-rated synth of all times.

Musical Examples section updated.

Next Monday (Jan 24th) The OSO (Ottawa Symphony) will be performing Steven Gellman's 'Universe Symphony'. It was written for orchestra and synthesizers and originally performed in 1985. I was involved in the 'updating' of the piece doing the sound design for the synths being used.

Speaking of 1985, the new Current Audio Experiment isnt really an experiment at all, but rather a recording of one of those flexidisk records that come in magazines. It is from Keyboard Magazine circa 1985/6. A largish download, but pretty funny and worth the wait.

If you use audio plugins in a Digital Recording environment and have interesting uses for them, please consider posting them here as I'm currently writing an article on their creative uses and am trying to compile some interesting practical applications.

A website has just come online for a film I scored last year called Horsie's Retreat. I dare say, it's a pretty sweet looking website!

Things are getting exciting over in the Odessa Filmworks camp as legendary Blaxploitation star Fred Williamson has signed on for the upcoming production Black Kissinger.

The new Current Audio Experiment is a clip from a longer experiment that is part of the new feature in the Forums section. I'm documenting audio experiments and such online. This includes both successful experiments and otherwise, so it isn't always necessarily *that* interesting.

Somebody wanted to see the lyrics from "Running on Awesome!". Well, here they are!. Thanks to crazyman Matt Ouimet for singing up a storm.

Added new article in the Articles section.

There is now a sizable teaser mix of the score from Harry Knuckles and the Pearl Necklace in the Musicial Examples section.

Added new article in the Articles section.

Work is now underway doing sound design for Steven Gellman's "Universe Symphony" for orchestra and electronics being performed by the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra in January.

The current audio experiment is the first clip available from Harry Knuckles and the Pearl Necklace. A song called 'Running on Awesome!' More to come...

Harry Knuckles and the Pearl Necklace is now completed. Look for it at a festival or repertory theatre near you.

After several months, the over-the-top-retro-80s love-in that is Harry Knuckles and the Pearl Necklace is nearing completion. Good thing too with other projects coming up to bat in September. Also, the next Odessa Filmworks project will be "Black Kissinger". It should prove to be the most ambitious Odessa project to date as we team up with Zed Jamaica to produce a modern "Blaxploitation" epic.

Added new article in the Articles section.

This week's Current Audio Experiment is a clip from the upcoming Harry Knuckles and the Pearl Necklace Video Game. No foolin!

**FLASH** I have extra tickets for Friday's Kraftwerk show in Toronto if anyone is interested. They are *excellent* tix (floors) and I'm selling them on the cheap just so they get used. Contact me double-ASAP.

I've been playing around with some of the drum loops I got from Betamonkey Music a while back. Mostly, I've been using them for sketches for ideas in the Harry Knuckles and the Pearl Necklace using Ableton Live 3. They're way better loops than so many other packages because since they are unprocessed, leave room to tailor the sound as you like. Thanks to Chris at Betamonkey.

For those of you still wondering about the Current Audio Experiment, the familiarity comes from all of the sounds being extracted from the Windows XP environment. The power of mindless repetitive audio structures!

Work on Harry Knuckles and the Pearl Necklace is now underway! Also, I've started a discussion in the forum section looking for input about classic Canadian songs to include in The Electric Beaver project. Please register here, and then join in the conversation.

This weeks Audio Experiment might drive you mad, but not from the repetitive minimalist style. What is it that is so darn familiar and frustrating? Some will get it right away. You have 7 days. Thanks to Paul Anthony for the idea..

The Forum is now up! I want to replace some of the icons as they don't match the colour scheme, but everything is functional now.

Well I was unable to find that original audio file to post for people to compare to the Current Audio Experiment link. For those that guessed close but no cigar, the correct answer is in fact the sound of a door slowly creaking shut. If you listen closely you *can* hear it. The 'melodic' elements that you hear were actually buried deep inside the sound - so to speak - and brought to the fore by processing/enhancing.

Finally, the new website is here! There are several things to be modified still, like the "Forums" section which currently leads to a dead link. I'll be updating that as soon as I sort a couple of things out. There will be a section for Odessa Film Work fans to post messages. Extended and superlative thanks to Dave Pattee and Jason Garner!

"Harry Knuckles and the Pearl Necklace" is now in post-production. I should be starting work on that in the next week or so. Look for a Fall/2004 release at Odessa Film Works.

Today's "Current Audio Experiment" is a highly processed recording of a regular everyday event. Can you guess what it is?