Tuesday, August 27, 2013

New Alienware Laptop

I have been trying out my new 14 inch Alienware laptop this morning before work. I am about to leave for the evening. I get home so late, and I need to get to bed at a better time tonight. I stayed up last night a little to turn on this new laptop. I am slowly setting it up. I installed a few things including Civ 5 and I see the speed difference as well as performance. I am also glad to see I can type on a keyboard that lights up and works. My old laptop's keyboard was broken last year while I was installing a new display screen or something. I had to use an external keyboard. Still trying to set up the laptop but just about to leave so I will have to do this one day at a time. When I ordered the laptop I got the upgraded hard drive and video card.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Psalm 13

Hey it's me, Brandon, again. I am the founder of Analyzed Within, a Christian Metal band being born. We are still recording vocals for our EP, Living in the Last Days.

This track was written for my band's (Analyzed Within) future worship album.


This will be an interlude with either Josh (my vocalist and cousin) or me speaking Psalm 13 over it. I want to start out soft and build the intensity to match the track's flow. I showed this track to Josh last night during our recording of Testing of Christians. Actually we were re-recording some parts we didn't like before.

Psalm 13 
O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever?
    How long will you look the other way?
  How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul,
    with sorrow in my heart every day?
    How long will my enemy have the upper hand?
  Turn and answer me, O Lord my God!
    Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die.
  Don’t let my enemies gloat, saying, “We have defeated him!”
    Don’t let them rejoice at my downfall.
  But I trust in your unfailing love.
    I will rejoice because you have rescued me.
  I will sing to the Lord
    because he is good to me.

This Psalm speaks so much to what I am going through. Sometimes it feels like God has abandoned you, but really he is right there all the way. I have a lot of things on my heart I can't wait to get out on the new worship album. But we have an EP to finish first. The reason I am still working on new stuff is because me and my vocalist obviously can't work continuously on tracking vocals. So I just keep my mind fresh by pumping out new stuff. It will actually make the launch of the album faster this way anyway.

I quad tracked the guitars using POD Farm. The bass is my 8 string, the same I used to track the guitar parts, just over accented the bass frequencies with a simulated bass amp and cab. The drums are of course EZDrummer DFH, but in the end they will be re-amped by our studio guy. He is going to either use Superior Drummer or Steven Slate, or a combo of both. The synthesizers are a cool plugin called Serenity - and it's FREE! There are two synths going on that I blended, and then the ambient guitar part is my signature preset from POD Farm.