Back again

Happy 2008, everyone. I just wanted to write in and say things are cool, just busy. Haven't seen a delay of updates like this since a few years ago I think.

Album work is coming along slowly but steadily. Craig Rundels is hitting some guitar tracks and I'm on the lookout for vocalists. Tenor male and soprano female, specifically. Jeanette will be doing some singing but I like the multi-vocalist idea of bands like Toto and Fleetwood Mac, so I'll be going that route.

Went to NAMM 2008 and here's what I saw:

The Bechstein is my mother's favorite piano builder, and while I didn't play it they sounded very warm and mid-range.

The guy at the mic is Joe Satriani, touting the latest Vox pedals. The 20th anniversary of the JS guitar series by Ibanez is going to be commemorated with an anniversary guitar, the prototype of which has a "3d" image of Joe's first big commercial release: Surfing with the Alien.

I had about two seconds of chat with Mix magazine and also got a bit bored really fast. Not knowing anyone and (my fault) not setting up appointments beforehand leaves you just to wander around, and there wasn't much "big" this year the way there was in 2006 when I first went and saw Yngvie, Vai, Petrucci and got a surprise performance where I got to listen 5 feet away from Al DiMeola (pure magic, absolutely beautiful).

I'm also going to be bowing out from Mix's "AudioNext" column, putting more juice into both Obsidian and the album. It was great introducing the pro audio magazine world to games on a regular basis (with awesome articles having been written well before my entrance by Blair Jackson and the like), but it's too much to handle with everything else. I'll be going out with a bang though with a huge feature on the PS3 vs. Xbox360 "under the hood", with interviews with Halo 3 director Marty O'Donnell, Xbox audio head Brian Schmidt and Gene Semel (director at SCEA San Diego).

Stay tuned for hopefully my first attempt at tackling some follow up for Club Silicon interviews and features now long overdue such as Game Audio Remix, a chat with Dave Warhol (musician on Adventure Construction Set), a look back into the grey book series with Jason Emery. Oh yeah, I've actually played a few of those games you all recommended in that post a few months back. I did review Mass Effect, but UT3 and a few others are still forthcoming. And a free song or two as well from the cellar.

Comments

[Bazyli]

Hi Alexander!
Is there a way to contact you? I tried e-mailing alexander@brandonfamily.net, but I didn't get any respond, so I guessed that you didn't check the e-mail, or my mail was spam-filtered.
Sorry it's not off topic, but there's one thing I'd like to talk to you about :)

Thanks and have a great day!
Bazyli

[suneel]

hi alex thanks for the updates. i still havent purchased your tracks, sorry just that i need to rebuild my old daw. probably in a week or so soon, i promize!

[Alex]

Hi Bazyli,

Sorry I haven't responded, but you can reach me at alexander@brandonfamily.net.

And Suneel, no worries man! No worries.

-Alex

[suneel]

i finally got 2 of your tracks incubis and guru , more later... :)