This is an old entry that I haven’t published until now…

I’m facing extremely irritating problems with my DAW at the moment. Nothing really works, at all, sort of.

Motu have finally released the new firewire driver for Windows 7 so I could, for the first time ever, use my Motu 828mkII under Windows 7. My Windows 7 installation hasn’t crashed a single time (since February) until now – when I’ve applied this driver. I’m not using Windows 7 to produce music since I haven’t had a functioning sound card (no – the crap on my mainboard is nothing remotely close to a sound card even though it can produce sound). So I’ve been using Windows Vista (64 bit Ultimate edition) which have been a solid platform. Cubase 4 have always had its little bugs and quirks but have been marching on rather good still. I bought Native Instruments Komplete 5 when it was on a big sale last summer and that’s when things started to happen. Absynth can take down everything upon loading. It’s actually a gamble using it and that’s why I haven’t explored it as much as I would. Reaktor, Kontakt, Massive and FM8 works nice though, so that’s what I’m using the most at the moment. I thought about upgrading to Komplete 6 but there’s no point when the shit doesn’t work - is there? And that’s in Vista. It works like a charm on my newly purchased MacBook Pro.

Back to Windows 7. After the driver for the Motu 828mkII have been installed the system is anything but stable. It can crash when I hit play in Winamp, then the screen-saver starts or when the login prompt is shown. Motu won’t acknowledge the problem and my only solution is not to use Windows 7, which I’m luckily only has a free trial version of.

But, I’ve managed to produce two remixes for the Little Boots remix competition. One co-produced with Patrik and one on my own.

Patrik’s own, Gearsluts remix, can be found here:
Little Boots - “Earthquake (Gearsluts Shaky 16th Remix)”

Neither of them got to the finals, but we’re still very pleased with them anyway.

I’ve also produced a remix for “My Despair” by In Strict Confidence and that competition will be decided in March. Fingers crossed!

My remix ended up in third place, which means that you’ll soon be able to buy it at Klicktrack and iTunes and hopefully be able to stream it via Spotify.

HUGE thank you to everyone who voted for me!

My Pretorium remix of Emmon’s track “Lips On Fire” is one of five to win the remix competition over at Release Magazines site.

You can listen to the five final remixes in the player to the right at the site and then vote via e-mail.

Now I need Your help to reach what could be my, and Cut & Paste’s, big break!

I’ve uploaded the complete Pretorium album Melodies of Illusion to the iLike site so it can be streamed. I did a quick (not kidding) cover art for it and if you think you can do a better one that suits the album, just drop me a line. Alright? ;o)

Melodies of Illusion is musical journey that started in late 2000 when I composed the track Falling Leaves after some heavy influences by a Bonzai Trance Progressive demo from late 1999. The journey was complete when In the Land of the Golden Butterflies was produced and put in the middle of the album to, sort of, divide it in to two pieces. That was early 2003. I later shortened the name to just Golden Butterflies.

A second album is in the pipeline - and that’s an even longer journey, now spanning over 5 years. Three tracks are not yet finished, but as soon they are you’ll find them too on iLike.

Now I just need to figure out how to sell the album for a few US$ over at iTunes Store. That’d be something!

Edit: The new album, which I just gave a new name, is spanning from 2004 until today. So that makes it around 4½ years, and not 5. And, if I’m lucky - only one track is remaining…

I’ve just finished two remixes for Strangers in Wonderland. I took on their track “Addicted”, which is a sweet song really. I tried to add some Pretorium flavour to it together with some pop influences.

Another remix, for a competition, is also bounced. It’s not my best and I’m actually quite sick and bored of the track after only 1½ hour or working with it. This is the first time I said “yes” to remix a track I didn’t like, and I will promise myself that I won’t do it again. Shit in, shit out, as they say…