westis

Video for Ambient Sunrise

Westis — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:16:31 +0000

There is now a video for ‘Ambient Sunrise’ which i released a few days ago. I was just driving back home and decided to record a video of the road with my mobile phone… And later i decided to use it as background for the song.

Ambient Sunrise (part 1)

Westis — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 15:35:07 +0000

Some chill out and ambient styled music again with nice synths and strange melodies. I hope you like it. All your comments are very welcom, as usual. There might be a part two or perhaps even part three coming out some day in the future.

Please download the original in lossless flac format from the window below for the best sound quality.

Westis – Ambient Sunrise (part 1) by Westis

New gear: Akai LPD8

Westis — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 13:57:55 +0000

I recently came into conclusion that i need a pad controller to create drum tracks in my songs. This far i’ve made my drum tracks either by clicking them into the sequencer with my mouse or by tapping them on my midi keyboard. Neither one was the perfect way to do it. The problem with the regular piano-alike midikeyboard is that the keys must make a lot longer movement downwards to trigger the notes so that the drum-like feeling is missing. For example, you can’t play really fast drumrolls with a keyboard.. Or you can but it’s a lot more difficult and not so convenient. So i started doing some research on pad controllers and i found two different ones which seemed to be exactly what i needed (and in the right price range of about 50 euros): Korg Nanopad or Akai LPD8. I decided to get the Akai because it has the knobs which i can assign into different effects on Logic. The Korg’s X-Y -pad would be interesting to try but i don’t think i would need that kind of an approach on controlling stuff in my sequencer.

I’ve been using the Akai for a week now and it seems just what i needed. The pads are great in drum programming and the assignable knobs make my workflow a lot easier. I have assigned some knobs permanently to control cutoff and frequency filter settings and some knobs to control the track volume and panning settings. The Akai supports four different programs and i have assigned the knobs in different programs into different soft synths. For example in program one i control the Logic’s ES2 synth and in program two i control the EXS24 sampler and so on.. This might not be the best way to organize the settings but i find it useful for me.

My conclusion is that if you are a hobby music composer like me and you have an extra 50 euros to spend on something, you definitely should get a pad controller. It gives you a whole new dimension on creating drum patterns!

Testing Twitter WordPress integration

Westis — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 18:12:02 +0000

Just testing the integration of Twitter and WordPress with Twitter Tools plugin.

Updates

Westis — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 12:05:41 +0000

I’m planning on updating the website so the site may be offline for a while or might look funny.

New song: Summer chillin’

Westis — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 20:43:44 +0000

A new song has arrived

Westis – Summer chillin’

You can download and listen to the song at my mikseri.net page. All your comments are very welcome!

Westis – Summer Chillin’ by Westis

I bought an iMac!

Westis — Sun, 09 May 2010 15:11:19 +0000

Ever since my brother made huge investments on his professional home studio last year, i’ve been thinking of also buying some real new hardware with music creation in mind. I’ve been doing music with what i’ve had.. old PC computers and some miscellaneus software with VSTi instruments. They’ve been working fairly well but i’ve been thinking of getting something totally new for a while. The only thing that kept me from updating my hardware for so long was the fact that i’m doing music mainly just for fun – as a hobby – unlike my brother who makes a living with his music. But recently i started to realize that there are people who use huge amounts of money in many different kinds of hobbies. So why wouldn’t i? I realized that for me, the hobby of music composing has always been a good opposite for my job which can sometimes be more or less stressful. So if i buy new hardware and software, wouldn’t it be a direct investment on my mental health? Bingo! And the result of this is that i bought an iMac last week!

It’s a standard 21,5″ iMac with 4 GB of RAM, 500 GB hard disk and the basic stuff. And as a music creation software, i bought a Logic Express 9, which is more than enough for me. At first i was thinking of buying the complete Logic Pro 9, but after studying the differences between the express and the pro, i decided to go express. There’s nothing in pro which i’d absolutely need right now.

This week has been very interesting. I’ve never had a Mac before and it seems to take a while to get used to it’s operating system OS X. It’s all those little differences which take their time to get used to. I’ve used Logic 5 (the last version ever released for Windows) for a long time and i immediately felt “at home” with Logic Express 9. Many things are more intuitive and simpler than in the ancient version i had before. And what comes to performance, it really was worth the money to make the transition from PC to Mac.

Alongside the iMac with Logic, i have an old (and cheap) midikeyboard (MK-4903) from Thomann working as the input device. I use it for pretty much everything when composing. I make the main melodies, pads, drum patterns and basslines by playing them in with it. I’ve been thinking of buying an external audio interface and a new input device, such as the Korg Padkontrol, for drumming. The speakers at my computer are Wharfedale Diamond 9.0′s driven by an old Technics SU-V500 stereo amplifier. The speakers are not originally meant for close monitoring but i find them working quite well in my situation. I also use Grado SR80 headphones a lot when composing.

I might be releasing new music very soon so stay tuned! There’s some nice ambient stuff coming in the spirit of my previously released song ‘Strange paths’.

New song: Spring Chill

Westis — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 17:46:23 +0000

A new chillout tune has been released!

All your comments are very welcome.

Westis – Spring Chill by Westis

New Song: Deep Inside (feat. Ciggi Burns)

Westis — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 19:28:30 +0000

I recently found out about a great site called ccmixter.org which gives artists a channel to release their own stuff for other artists to remix and make their own versions of the songs based on Creative Commons license. I found this nice vocal sample by CiggiBurns and decided to create a new song based on it. I’ve never created a song with vocals before.. And this is the result.

Westis – deep inside (feat. ciggi burns) by Westis

Ccmixter.org

Google Street View in Finland

Westis — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 13:27:58 +0000

Last summer i saw Google’s Opel Astra with street view cameras driving past me when i was standing in traffic lights in Vaasa. And now after six months they released their Street View service in Finland. And here i am sitting in my blue Renault Mégane:

Näytä suurempi kartta