Helicopter Spies - music by Used Soyuz

Inspired by my favourite song by the magnificent Swell Maps, which I really should have left alone. Composed with LMMS using tweaked presets from two archives for the wonderful Synth-1 VST by Ichiro Toda (Ami Evan: Thriller ATMOS / Broken Leader / Phatt Leader / Arp 1, and Argon2005: Analog Gate / Screamy Lead). Public domain video from the Prelinger Archives.

Can Teach EP out now on Bandcamp

The Can Teach EP, my fourth offering on Bandcamp, is now available for no money whatsoever!

Quatermass - music by Used Soyuz

Thankfully you can't hear me at all in this track, which was inspired by the 1967 Hammer classic Quatermass And The Pit, which was written by the great Nigel Kneale, and directed by Roy Ward Baker. My vocal samples feature the plummy talents of James Donald, Barbara Shelley and Julian Glover, with Andrew Keir as Professor Quatermass. 

I trimmed the samples in Audacity, then used LMMS to arrange them into beats, with backing bleeps from the legendary Synth-1. I took presets from two archives: Blade 2, Organ Environment and Thor (from Art Institute Vol.1),  and Fallen Into The Abyss and Sedusa (from aMUSEDd Atonal Abstractions). I tiddled with a few of these presets, and left others alone, before using Audacity again for the final mix and mastering. The video footage is from Curious Droid's fascinating documentary on Britain's Black Arrow rocket programme.

Can Teach - music by Used Soyuz

It's taken me nearly two years on and off to finally record this; I'm not sure if it was worth the trouble. I tried to keep the music (composed in LMMS) as simple as possible, with vocals and mixing in Audacity. The samples are from a genuine BBC Schools 'Music and Movement' record from the 60s. Royalty-free video from videezy.com.

Pierce Film Lid - music by Used Soyuz

I have switched to another laptop (Dell Inspiron with slightly more RAM) so I have a clean install of LMMS, and used Synth1 for this composition, pulling presets almost at random from this huge collection: veryrandomstreams.blogspot.com/2012/03/over-10000-free-patchessounds-for-free.html (fx_suspiria, boys o' summer, sweet smoke, plucky). I bashed my vocal samples around in Audacity, which I also used for the final audio mix. The royalty-free video is from pexels.com, and the visualiser animation and edits are from veed.io.

I Nearly Understand - music by Used Soyuz

Another bit of VCV Rack 2 twiddling, with a simple rhythm track made in LMMS. I sliced up the twiddling in Audacity, and then dubbed in (non-singing) vocals and a melodica solo. There's not enough melodica in contemporary music - Augustus Pablo and Jon King, and that's about it.Royalty-free video from videezy.com.

Not William Shatner - music by Used Soyuz

I rashly chose to christen my new pop filter with some dodgy singing and a clumsy song. Composed in LMMS, with vocal and mixing in Audacity. The music sample is from 'Shatner' by The Wedding Present, and the royalty-free video is from videezy.com.