alonetone radio: Latest
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I decided to try a few different things this year for RPM. This is the single (along with a b-side to make a playlist) I'm using to show I completed RPM. All told I had six songs and could have listed an EP, but the songs all need a bit more…
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If you're watching, you know. If not, stay away from the elevator.
It has a certain appeal
Disconnecting from half of your life
Getting through the day by forgetting who you are
No need to find a way
Not remembering all that went wrong…
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Straw can be light and golden yellow
Is often used to stuff our pillows
Straw is the hay you see in the fields
All those hay bales give good feels
The scarecrow of Oz was made of straw
though his brain held nothing at all
Dorothy held…
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Demo for FAWM '25. A collab with @villedog inspired/adapted from original lyrics by @johnkaniecki
[Intro]
Excuse me
Buy, Buy! Buy, Buy!
Excuse me
Buy, Buy! Buy, Buy!
Excuse me
Buy, Buy!
I don't want your junk
[Verse]
I…
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2025 RPM Challenge song idea number eight becomes finished song number 19.
Do I like this because of the swing groove, or in spite of it? I don't know.
The rhythm guitar in your left speaker is a Les Paul Custom and the one in the right…
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2025 RPM Challenge song idea number seven becomes finished song number 18.
I kinda like this one. I think it's going onto the final RPM Challenge album. I just wish I couldn't hear the keys on the saxophone clicking. I don't think I've ever…
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Demo for FAWM '25, A collab with @nahlej381.
In an interview, David Lynch once called Eraserhead his most spiritual film. When asked if he wanted to expand on that, he replied "no".
This might be my most spiritual song.
[Verse]
My head…
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2025 RPM Challenge song idea number four becomes finished song number 17.
I'm waffling between not liking this song and thinking it's just meh.
The guitar in your left speaker is a Les Paul Custom and the one in your right is a Les Paul…
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2025 RPM Challenge Song Idea number 13 becomes finished song number 16.
Meh. Waste of a good guitar solo in the outro.
Rhythm guitars are a Takamine F-400 S 12-string into a Shure SM57. The leads are a Gibson Les Paul Standard 50's into…
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Glory's Gonna Shine
Verse 1:
I woke up with a feeling deep down in my soul,
The world keeps on turning, but it’s out of control.
Storm clouds are rising, you can hear the thunder roll,
But I know my Saviour’s in control.
Verse 2:
Seven…
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2025 RPM Challenge song idea number nine becomes finished song number 15.
This one is not going to make the RPM Challenge album cut. That middle bridge section... what was I thinking? Laughably bad.
The rhythm guitar in your left speaker…
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2025 RPM Challenge song idea number 18 becomes finished song number 14.
I like the song all right, but the performance could have (should have) been better. It's okay, I guess.
Rhythm guitars are a Takamine F-400 S 12-string into a Shure…
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2025 RPM Challenge song idea number 20 becomes finished song number 13.
As the great Ian Gillian once said, can I have everything louder than everything else.
This mix kinda got silly as every level kept going up and up and up. It's a fun…
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What the hell's a djembe? No, me neither. So it gets an airing in the intro. Tried to hit a just-behind-the-beat edginess to fit in with the just-behind-comfortable intent of the song.
Titles are hard.
*Tech Corner*
More clangs and thuds…
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A bit of Frankenstein of a song, lyrics cobbled from old lyric fragments, with variations on bass and melody and piano motifs, like I couldn't make my mind up where it was heading. Something about it, so has made the cut!
*Tech Notes*
Hmm…
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The song's about betrayal: about mixing with the wrong crowd, who then drop you from a great height. It's a love song. Maybe I should find a twee skirmish instead of relying on that Muse.
*Tech Notes*
Hmm. The usual set of twenty-three sound…
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The song started life as more sonic doodles using the Numanesque 1979 synth emulators -- so if you think it's 80s, you're a year out!
Was also working on transitions from verse to chorus (as I've listened to too many fawmers doing this rather…
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TL;DR: more guitary than my preferred synthery. With production practice too.
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For a recent collab, I undertook collation duties: mixing received stems without (hopefully) losing their original energy. Those stems were played on real instruments…
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TL;DR: it's got percussion in it.
I had an idea for percussion-heavy song: that I found tough to articulate because it's not a usual thing for me. More practice required.
I dialled back the bpm as the percussion became (even more) a wall of…
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This started out from some sound design doodlery. A couple of the synths I've been using have some non-standard routing options, so I've been getting better acquainted. They're not modular, though the Reason hosted stuff does have visible, virtual…
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I sold my upright piano earlier this year: it had been underused for a while and my head's been buried in the DAW for a long time. So played arpeggios into DAW instead. Then quantised them within a inch of their lives. More doodles with the Backbone…
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Ditty with jangles, bass and celloish thing (all Halion) and plenty of triplets. [Drum sounds from Groove Agent; edited using the new Drum Pattern editor. New for Cubase that is ... but every other DAW has had for 20 years, I suspect.] Vocal synths…
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Hmm. The trigger was to use a random Wikipedia page [via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random ] -- it gave me a 1990s Brazilian film I'd never heard of. Although it sparked a song, the verses that more obviously related to the film got…
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I'd been recommended some free plug-ins for DAWs. One of these plug-ins emulated synths from yesteryear that were bizarrely nostalgia inducing. Which led me down a path to a sort-of retro style song. It's possibly anachronistic: I didn't check…
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Not _entirely_ sure where this came from, probably the muted trumpet sound, that's only possible to play in the wearing-a-black-turtle-neck style. Other motifs followed suit.
'Tis mainly from Cubase Halion sounds ... Reason double bass, and…
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TL;DR: the song's about waiting too long to do the right thing ... and then still choosing to ignore it when you get the chance.
Last autumn, I spent too long polishing production & sound design at the expense of, amongst other things…
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TL;DR: this is a synth-pop track about being true to yourself.
For the last couple of days of January, I'd been listening to Pete Shelley's "Homosapien"¹, on repeat, like a deranged teenager. The idea was to overdose on a song I liked, so that…
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A mention to freesounds.org -- a hole full of rabbits and, um, a Portland Ferry. The ferry's foghorn makes an appearance on this track: a love song.
Elsewhere there's the usual synthery -- including Vocaloid vocal synth -- plus some orchestral…
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*Lyrics*
Looking down at the scars
Seeing bars on your window
There's a beauty
In the broken life I see
Don't cover the tears
Glory in your flawed story
Scratch the surface
To let it bleed
Roll up your sleeves
We choose to sing…
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This song had been a "fragment" for a couple of years -- a state the befalls many an aspiring melodic doodle, sound design or chord cadence.
This time, the glockenspiel melody that formed the initial draft had another iterative polish, together…
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