“Chamber Waves” should have been out July 1st. Not sure how many of you were waiting but I have to apologize for the delay. As of right now, the album has been pushed back until the early part of Fall. I don’t want to make excuses so I won’t. It’s my fault the album missed the release date but I will do everything in my power to make sure it comes out early Fall.

There are going to be some changes on the album, about which I will post at a future date.
Thank you.

That’s it for now………

Fourth track off of Roll Call ‘10!  My contribution, “Casa de Luna [2 Seater].” This will appear on Roll Call ’10, and on ADM’s upcoming album “Chamber Waves.”  A mashup version with a rendition by ADM is also in the works and will also be featured on both albums.  This is a definite departure from what you’re used to hearing from me, as it is akin to the new house music that’s out today, combined with some elements of trance and other genres.  It’s also the first track that I’ve completed that uses Illformed’s Glitch plugin, which people have claimed that Timbaland has used it in past tracks for reverse, gate, tape stop and other juicy mid-bar effects.

More coming soon!

-mnshyn

I created a really simple video in Motion 4 as a promo for the song “Screamer” on the upcoming “Chamber Waves” album due out July 1st, 2010 by ADM.

Click play on the video and it will automatically start in 720p HD. Or click the ‘YouTube’ logo in the video to see the video on their site. Once there, switch to 720p (in the lower-right of the video) and see a larger version with clean audio.

Enjoy.

That’s it for now………

It took a while to really figure out what to do to get that particular sound, but I think I’ve pretty much gotten it down.

It consists of three different parts.

1. “K034″ from the Deep/Hard Kicks set (I believe from Modern Beats?)
2.  EQ this kick around 150Hz, raising it, with a fairly wide Q,
3. Compress the kick: Threshold = -1.2dB, Ratio: 11.5:1, Gain: 7.0dB, Attack = 23.4 ms, Release = 2205 ms

At the end of that chain, that kick will knock you on your ass.  A few alphas before, I had a much higher gain, higher ratio, and faster attack.  This one sounds pretty good to me though; a nice pumpy bass sound with a nice kick in the attack.

One thing I have noticed in these songs is that some of them were heavily limited (limited as in the compression effect, not limited as in with a restraint).  Thing is, some of the versions I have of these songs are limited so hard that even the vocals sound pumpy from the mix.  They obviously all hit very hard, but the mix itself sounds terrible from an overall standpoint.

Hopefully, I’d like to try to get a mix of both worlds; get a good pumpy feel without compromising the rest of the mix.  If I can get the bass to pump and still achieve a favorable mix, then I’d say we’ve done a good job.  The pump of it all (I guess it’s what gives that fistpumping action) is part of the genre, I feel, and without getting that, I’d be betraying the sound we’re trying to achieve here.

So far, ADM and I have gotten a pretty good track so far, and I’m getting REAL excited about this.  We’re looking to work on Sunday to get in some vocals and get this song into the beta stages.

As always, I’ll make sure to keep you guys updated!

-mnshyn

I submitted a new drum beat loop to MooN ShinE w/ all new percussion b/c after listening to what we were using, at my house on bass-intensive speakers and headphones, it sounded like were playing on kettle drums. So the kick drum will be replaced w/ a Hard-House kick, the popping snare will be claps w/ a clap break, the hats will be a combo of tambs., 707s, and 78s.

The gate is “Deceptor” from Nexus. We scrapped Vanguard b/c it didn’t have enough of a punch.

I’m liking the title MooN ShinE came up w/: “Switch-up.” It’s a work in progress but I’m leaning towards it very much.

I have a feeling we’re going to be in disagreement over a/the bassline…

Strings will be changed, I agree.

There is a saw-ish part throughout the song that I believe needs to be stretched JUST A TAD – I MEAN A FREAKIN’ TAD… It also needs to be layered, made richer, given more beef!! Not melody, just more presence.

Vocals will be Sing, Rap, Sing-Rap(??), repeat. I’ll try to convince them to put in some sort of a bridge type part to make this similar to a club/pop/dance track and less hip-hop – like “Memories.” Although I do believe that “K-talk” just might take care of that..!

MooN ShinE didn’t mention this but this will also be on the “Chamber Waves” album by ADM.

I think we should also discuss how it will appear on albums. Obviously on MooN ShynE’s album or ADM’s album it will be
MooN ShynE – Switch-up feat. ADM, K-Maculate
and
ADM – Switch-up feat. MooN ShynE, K-Maculate
But I can also make it:
ADM – Switch-up feat. BBI
And he can also make it:
BBI – Switch-up feat. ADM

Which brings me to my next point. Since on an album the artist will be the album artist regardless, featuring the others, but AS A SOLO track how should it look:
MooN ShynE, ADM, K-Maculate – Switch-up
or
BBI & ADM – Switch-up

New topic: Going back 2 weeks, we continued work on Project InhalOr.
So picture this, if the song is from your house to the moon, we never made it out the front door… But it will be finished, we just needed motivation – after all it’s a genre neither of us ever worked with and we didn’t know how to attack it.

That’s it for now………

iTunes Link for Phase 3 – L.Y.R.I.C.A.L. Without Fear

When you click on the link, it will open up iTunes and bring you directly to where you can buy the songs and put them on your iPod. =]

In other news, ADM and I got some work done on projeCt inhalOr, albeit just a little. =]  All in due time.

More coming soon!

-mnshyn

ProTools M-Powered 7.4, Internet Explorer 8 and Windows 7 Fix

As I’m sure many people will be wanting that first. I don’t want people to think I actually don’t have the fix and I’m just leading them to my blog as a deception. For more info, read further down below about the fix because I did make some notes on it.

As a short note, this is the fix for the 0xc0000005 error you get when starting Pro Tools M-Powered 7.4 on Windows 7 32-bit, with or without Internet Explorer 8.  My guess is that you can probably apply this fix on older versions of Windows and it will allow you to keep IE8.

==

So Black and Blue Ink. has officially started work on “The Lyricist Manifesto,” the new album slated for this coming Fall 2010. Since you can count on BBI coming through with nothing but hard lyrics and hard beats, that’s what you will pretty much get out of this. No hooks, no fancy intros, no nonsense. Just straight up in your face lyrics with creativity and imagery, pushing the limits of rap lyrics. As soon as the beats hit, we’re off taking turns spittin a 16, 24, or even 32. If you’re a fan of metaphors, imagery, punchlines, and literary devices, and other rap/poetry/prose techniques, this is the album for you, combined with hardcore beats.

This is a bit of a departure for me, because I am more of a song/track oriented rapper than a lyrical rapper (though I used to be back in the days), and that’s because as of late I’ve been really pushing for my musicianism to materialize in my music in terms of the way beats are made, usage of music theory, different techniques in song form, etc.  However, the fact that it is a departure, also presents itself and a challenge, and a challenge I definitely want to take up.

The challenge now, involves a couple of things.

First off, for example, we just finished recording a song called “Left Hook.”  It’s called as such because we “left hook” out.  No hook.  Also, for some odd reason (though commonplace if you’ve ever had the experience of watching K-Maculate record), K-Maculate alludes to not being lefty but bringing it to you.  I don’t know why, he just did (it brought many a laugh between me, ADM, Harmony Speaks and Boy Gnyus who were all present at the time).  The song itself is 1:45.  Yes, not even two minutes.  We both spit 16 bars, and that was it.  As K wanted it, he wanted no hooks, no intros, no nonsense, spit and continue on.

It just seems a bit short to me.  However, we agreed that we could maybe spit 24s on future beats, just to try to at least make the 2 minute mark.  So that was resolved.

The next challenge, is making the entire album not sound repetitive, and giving each song a character.  Normally, every song has some kind of character to the beat, to your lyrics, some character by topic, and by the chorus you put in or other characteristics.  With this project, you’re confined to the beat and lyrics only.

The good thing about this is that it hones in my writing, and maybe it will make me more creative lyrically.

As a producer, I have to make the marriage between the vocals and the beat in a way that even if we are spittin our usual bravado for every song, I can make it so that each song still carries a character.

I’ll know I’ve succeeded if by the end of this project, the vocals and beat are so intertwined that mixing the acapellas and instrumentals would be blasphemous (tempo not withstanding).

This may not seem like a challenge, but when you’re dealing with these type of lyrics, those vocals can easily be moved to a different instrumental and it would be perfectly fine.  I feel that in order for this album to be stronger, the beats and vocals must be 100% complementary, and that may only be possible if the beat is tailored perfectly to the vocals.  I don’t want loose vocals that could go on any beat.  This means a lot more post-production work rather than pre.  Once K and I record our verses, I will go through the track, take notes on the vocals, then go back and add to the beat so that the beat fits the vocals as completely as possible.  I guess you can say it’s like a movie score.

Now that I’ve written all that, I feel I have a better grasp on what I need to do with these tracks as we move forward.  Let’s see what happens.  Watch our main home page here, as well as the BBI Facebook as I will be posting up “Left Hook” in the next few days.

Also, as indicated by the title, I’ve stumbled upon (no pun intended, I didn’t use stumbleupon) a fix for Pro Tools M-Powered 7.4 to work on Windows 7.  It drove me bananas for months since I got Windows 7 that my Pro Tools does not work, but now with this fix, it works perfectly on 7.  The original fix though had a lot of URL’s in it, most of which I remember as spyware related sites, so I deleted all of those (they were in the site zone entries and history entries written into the .reg file), and left the more appropriate registry entries.  Please feel free to delete any other suspicious registry entries and let me know so I can update this patch as well.

ProTools M-Powered 7.4, Internet Explorer 8 and Windows 7 Fix

Mind you, I don’t deal in warez, so that is just the fix, not the program itself.  Click the link if you’re having that problem with M-Powered 7.4 with either IE8 and/or Windows 7.  On prior versions of Windows, uninstalling IE8 would do the trick, but disabling it on Windows 7 (uninstalling IE8 is not permitted on Win7, just disabling) would not work.  This will get you around that.

As I said above, I’ve deleted the questionable entries (that I’ve noticed).  You may want to give the .reg file a once-over first before merging it with yours in case you have a better eye.

I’ll have more soon!  More projects, and this weekend I am excited for a FoRcE oNe beat selection/recording session, as he is taking the initiative to make a song and be a big part of the creative process.  I’m a fan of artist evolution, so this will be a very fulfilling project for me.  He has only one solo song under his belt completed, so we’ll see what the young gunna has to say.   Be on the lookout for that one.

Also, Cocoa has some demos she is looking to have me hear and work on, and Destiny and I have a few projects on deck as well.  You can’t forget projeCt inhalOr with ADM, and I’m sure you’ll be hearing a bunch from Brian Bullion soon as far as production is concerned.  The entire fam has got at least one project waiting in the wings, so as I’ve always said, 2010 is our year.  Watch!

-mnshyn

ADM’s Facebook Fan Page

The MsP movement is spreading.  2010 will be our year!

-mnshyn

Now comes the planning for the future.  I’m looking to promote this one more than I have promoted the past two albums, and I have a lot of confidence in this album.  I feel that there are many strong tracks that will be alluring to different audiences, and with the melding of unorthodox elements within these songs I feel that I am bringing something quite unique to the table.  Promoting will include performing in some open mics and a video.  I may do some YouTube tactics as well, but I don’t want to use the same tactics everyone else is using.

Hopefully, I can bring in some iTunes sales.  Although the numbers haven’t been anywhere near stellar, the fact that I have been regularly selling a song here and there means that there are people who are interested.  This album, I believe, has the power to bring some more people in at a much better rate.

Here are the projects that are currently in progress:

1. Project Inhalor [adm/mnshyn]
2. Wind Beneath My Wings [dstnysprn]

I will most definitely be working on a Phase 4 once Phase 3 has gone to iTunes.  What will Phase 4 be?  It will definitely build on the ideas of Phase 3, but I want to bring in some other elements as well that I have not used.  Different time signatures (5/4 and 6/8 being possibilities at the moment), different keys and chord structures (particularly more use of diminished chords and other 4 note chords aside from dominant 7th), and new sampling techniques.  I want my music to still have the feel of a hip-hop rooted foundation, so it still won’t strive too far from that.  Some people strive to get the old sound back (those still wanting that 94 boom bap), while others are trying a new sound that do not sit well with the traditional heads (snap/crunk/hyphy/signature dance).  I’m trying to forge a new direction that would seem logical and fitting to everyone yet still sound fresh and innovative.

I still would like to do an MsP compilation album to really show what we’re about.  MsP’s got such a lovely array of talent, and people need to see (or in this case hear) what we can do.

With that being said, I would like to help all the members create at least 1 or 2 songs this year at the minimum.  It would be interesting to note whether or not that goal will be achieved by December 31, 2010.

There’s also Flight, who we will finally get to see again after 3 years!  I don’t know if he will be interested in making music again, but you know I will have to ask.

MsP will have an informal meeting on February 6, 2010 over Chicken and Rice, so maybe we can trade notes there.

Interesting times!  Let’s see what this year has in store for us.

-mnshyn