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.

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.

Seamless Cover - Weight of the World

Check out Seamless!

http://seamless.bandcamp.com/
http://www.facebook.com/seamlessmetal
http://www.reverbnation.com/seamlessmetal


This cover was fun to make. It's a challenging song if you are not used to odd picking patterns. I learned all of this by ear, so it was quite a challenge. Seamless is an awesome band, and I personally know two of the members since they are in my local area.

The guitar I used is my Ibanez RG8 - everything stock for now. It's running through my Line 6 UX2 interface in POD Farm. Download my tone here: http://bit.ly/L6RG8

I would encourage you to check out my band page. We are nearing completion of the long awaited EP "Living in the Last Days."

https://www.facebook.com/analyzedwithin
http://www.reverbnation.com/analyzedwithin
https://twitter.com/analyzedwithin
http://www.youtube.com/analyzedwithin

New ideas to share

Headbanging Monks

It's been a while since I have regularly posted. This track is cool because it's different. I have two main themes going. It's kinda like two choruses - each with their own melody.



I am tuned to standard 8-string tuning: F# B E A D G B E. This song contains some 7/4 time signature.

I used POD Farm to record, as always, and my DAW is still Reaper. I have learned more about mixing and mastering, so it sounds better than what I used to put out.

You will hear multiple parts in this track. There is the ambient guitar, dual-tracked rhythm guitars (I didn't feel like quad-tracking), and occasionally lead guitars. You also can hear the guitar solos when the choruses (themes) play. The bass is my Ibanez RG8 guitar EQ'd and brought an octave down. It sounded better than using Trilogy plugin because I can easily slide around, giving it a more realistic sound. There's gotta be a way otherwise, but I always hated programming MIDI anyway. The drums are still EZdrummer DFH, but they are now compressed and EQ'd so they should sound way better like in Mt. Kilimanjaro.

It's a weird title, I know, but I wanted something that would catch people's interest and click on it. I also wanted to try the silly track name like Wide Eyes does. I couldn't find the perfect picture for this track because you just don't see many headbanging monks do you? I figured it was a great title - after I posted my starting to compose such a track on my personal facebook - because one of my "friends" on facebook liked the status, and I never hear from him.

The file is pretty big, that I uploaded, and so I hope the quality is nice.

I tried to follow my heart once again on this one.

Brandon of Analyzed Within
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