Another Milestone Approaches

In the coming months, it will have been 20 years since I officially launched my solo music project, n-Somnia.  The year was 2002.  I had already put my foot in the door of digital music composition 3 years prior with a song called "Red Alert", which was made with the help of my friend, Darren Roverts.  Since then, I had started creating loops and samples that I planned on using for future tracks to follow.  Unfortunately, and kind of embarrassingly, very few of those loops/samples have been used towards full length tracks and most are still waiting their turn more than 2 decades later.  But at least they're there, I suppose.

Along comes March 2002 and I am heading off to start a new music course that was run by my hold high school, Linwood College (formerly Linwood High).  I'd already studied audio engineering for 6 months back in 1999 (close to half a year before "Red Alert" was finished), so I went in with a bit of knowledge already.  It probably made up for the fact that I started a month later than everyone else (I discovered the course's existence after it had started, I think - very thankful they still let me join).

During this time, I had some pretty bad habits caused by activities in my personal life.  Some of which I will probably cover in another blog.  In this case, I developed an out-of-sync body clock due to chatting to an online friend from the UK overnight (during the day for them), so by the time I had to go to course, I was already awake.  So, I found myself going there for half days sometimes because I was so tired by lunchtime, I'd end up going home to bed.  It wasn't always a good thing for my course work, as you'd imagine, but on a few occasions I surprised myself.  One of which led to the creation of a song that would launch a new project.

So, the deal was I had an assignment that required me using audio software called ACID Pro 3.0 to create 2 songs.  Could be using samples and loops, maybe recording your own song with instruments, whatever you liked.  All you needed was to do it using this computer program.  Seems simple enough.  I opted for the loops & samples route, of course.  Now, I had put off getting the assignment done straight away, and my sleeping habits partially contributed towards the delay.  That is until one day I decided to have a go at one of the 2 songs, despite the fact I was feeling quite drowsy at this point.  After so many minutes of playing around with some loops, putting them together, etc, I found that I was starting to create something that sounded pretty good.  Eventually, I finished what would become the first version of a song called "Eliminator".  It was quite inspiring to have created this song while in my sleep-deprived state.  Which is why within days/weeks of this event, when I discovered some fliers in the classroom about dealing with insomnia, I was drawn towards the word in a different way.  At home, I had (or still have) a CD-ROM full of installation files for various audio software that I was taught to use on my first audio engineering course.  Among these is a program called n-Track Studio.  I remembered this when I looked at the word "insomnia" and thought it would look good if I spelled it like the audio software.  So, from that moment on, the project now known as n-Somnia had a name.

To cap it off with the assignment, I still had a second track to finish.  Not surprisingly, I didn't start it until the day it was due to be handed in.  So, the second song (called "Electronica") was actually a bit of a rush job.  In the end, it still sounded good, so I was happy.  My tutor seemed to like what he heard, based on the marks I got for the assignment a few days later.

So, that is how my solo project was launched.  Since then, I took my digital music compositions home with me (including a huge catalog of loops and samples from the course's computer network - cheeky me).  From there, I continued to do what I did at course and it led to something bigger than expected.  In fact, later that year in November, I created a song called "Robot Lover From Mars", which would (in December) reach the #1 slot on one of the charts on one of the music websites I joined earlier in the year.  Not a bad start.  The rest of the story, however, is one for another day.

To conclude this blog entry, I wanted to put out a reminder to those who are already aware.  For quite some time now, I've been reaching out to the public about taking part in remixing my song, "Eliminator".  Initially, I set the deadline date for the beginning of March 2022 - less than 2 weeks from now.  However, to my knowledge, only one person is actually taking time to put something together for me (thanks, Tim!).  With that in mind, I'm contemplating whether I should extend the deadline for the public or leave it as is (let me know in the comments).  This remix collaboration will lead to a release I've scheduled for June, so if I extend it, it might be up until May.  We'll see.  As for the release itself, it will contain every version of "Eliminator" available to me at the time, from the first version to all remixes (my own included).  It will be a great way to celebrate 20 years since it was first made.

If you're interested in taking part in the remix collaboration, you can download the files here (needs WinRAR or similar to open the compressed file).  Also, let me know you're doing this so I don't release it without your contribution!

In addition to the "Eliminator" release, I will be re-releasing a compilation I put out in 2011 called "The Early Years".  Originally, it was more like an EP and contained no remixes at all.  This time, it will feature every track I created between 1999 and 2004, including the ones I moved over to my other project, Kingrow (that's another story for later).  This compilation will be available at the same time as "Eliminator".

Exciting!