And here is the Terminal Nexus, Polyatomic’s 12inch Expedition Of Joy Mix.

This track has an interesting history.  Early 2014, I was asked if I would be interested in doing a remix of a track for the upcoming album by Drake Jensen, Retro.  The song was a going to be a Duran Duran of a song that was not quite released by the band but was on a fan made b-side compilation.

Absolutely!  It daunted me, but the person who approached me thought I would do a bang up job.  What did I have to lose?

Around Mid 2014 I received the vocal stems and a demo.  I listened to that track for days, obsessing over details within the track.  My vision – turn it into a 90s dance anthem that would work during, say, a Pride event.

It took a while for everything to click for the  remix.  I found chords that worked using my Korg Kronos X.  I wanted to use the new Roland SH-101 plug-out that was made available for the Roland System 1.  I had a vision.

Interesting, the first version that I started writing sounded way too dark.  I had these Blade Runner-like sounds all over the track that did not fit in with the track.  More on this later.

I had a sketch, and then I was stuck for sounds. What do I use, how do I build this up to be an epic dance track from being country and rock?

Scott and our friend Nico listened asI sat in the living room, laptop hooked up to our sound system throwing sounds at the track.  It started to sound amazing!  I had an epiphany around how sounds can be combined together and I had the basis for the track.

I then had to figure out, how do I take the vocals from 105-106 bpm to 125 bpm?  Not as hard as it sounds with Logic Pro X, definitely meticulous.

About a month or two later, I went up to Ottawa to present the remix.  Drake and his partner Michael had an idea that I was doing a remix, but they weren’t 100% sure.  I said, “Hey, I have a track for you to listen to that I want your opinion on.”

They were gobsmacked as I was shaking, hoping for their approval.  That first remix, in full, comprises the bulk of the “Polyatomic’s 12inch Expedition Of Joy Mix”.  It was certainly a  more accessible mix.

But what about this 7 minute plus piece of music?  Remember those Blade Runner-like sounds I mentioned?  I saw down and thought, “Hey, I really want to kick this up, make it a stomper.”

Enter what would have been a 2 to 3-minute intro to the 12in mix that really takes you on a journey.  An epic journey, expedition of joy as I call it.

The track was not released on Retro, mainly because we were asked not to release any version of the track.  It’s possible that Duran Duran could release the track in the future.  Fair enough and I can appreciate that.

Still, this is a piece of music that needed to be released in some way as it’s too good to be kept locked down.  Terminal Nexus is the result.

I travel a lot between Toronto, Portland and Dallas for work over the past 4 years.  My next album is definitely themed around travel and specifically air travel.  You can hear a story in Terminal Nexus if you listen carefully.

I know Drake and the team would have loved to release the track in question.  I would have loved to released the remix I did.  It would have been epic for all of us.  Who knows, maybe in the future we can release it.  Maybe I’ll get a chance to remix the track for Duran Duran – that would be a dream.

It was an honour to work on this project the experience has been worth it.

Sadly, Beautiful Colours, the remix I did for a well known Canadian country artist, is sadly not going to be released due to request from the original band Duran Duran.  Given I know Roger Taylor would love to see this track released, it’s not surprising.

So if anyone from Duran Duran or their management is seeing this, I would love to remix Beautiful Colours if you do release it in the future!

In the meantime, Terminal Nexus, a demo snippet I released, is the beginning of the 8 minute plus remix of Beautiful Colours.  Look for the full “Expedition of Joy Remix” of Terminal Nexus coming soon!

DJ Warped Bubba just sent me his live megamix interpretation of Solarium.

Check it out!

http://mixlr.com/rikk-harris/showreel/polyatomic11/

Has it been three months since the release of Solarium?  Actually, longer at this point.  And we have not been idle here in Solarium-land.

Something Beautiful, Colourful

The first bit of news is something I have been alluding to for a long time on Facebook and it’s been one of the worst-kept secrets.  Several DJ friends of mine have known this for a while, it’s something that I am very proud of.

During the summer and shortly after Solarium was released, I was asked to do my first remix and it’s coming out shortly.  Let’s just say it’s not every day that you get writing credits along with Taylor/Taylor/Taylor/Rhodes/Lebon – Yes, the original members of Duran Duran.

Let’s just say, when I said to the artist I did the remix for, “I’ve got a track that I need your opinion on” and they don’t recognize that it’s their track just remixed, you know you did a great job.  That’s all I can say for now.

I did one mix of the track in question, and planned on using a variant for the intro to the new album.  Of course when you do that and make that intro piece a kick ass piece of music, you have to incorporate that into a much bigger mix.  So I’m doing both an album mix and a classic 12 inch mix.

Travels

Work has me on a bit of a non-stop travel schedule for the next few weeks having been to Dallas last week, Portland  after this week and then Christmas holidays between Vancouver, Victoria and Port Alberni BC.

In Dallas I had the mobile studio with me which includes my laptop, Logic Pro X, Ableton Live 9, Native Instruments Komplete 9 Ultimate and my MicroKorg 25.  There’s nothing like getting into bed with everything and starting writing.  Sadly or fortunately in the area I’m staying in, there isn’t much to do.  I’ve done this a few times in Dallas, in fact Sunset was mostly completed in Dallas at the Marriott DFW.  This time, the first track of the new album was completed at the Westin DFW and Terminal E of DFW.

For the Portland/Vancouver/Victoria/Portland jaunt I will actually be taking my Ableton Push to finally learn the beast.  I’ve always looked at it as something for playing live, but I really do need to learn how to use it as it has a bunch of great sounds and will kick up my writing to the next level.

Album #2

The as yet untitled album number 2 already has 5 tracks completed.  I’m looking to complete 6 or 7 more tracks in my own time frame.  I have no idea when I’m going to complete them as I have no specific time frame.

The concept for the album is simple.  Involving friends.  I already have the artwork completed and I am looking to collaborate with people on the album.  So if you’re interested in making a contribution, let me know.

That said, I have a new track uploaded to Soundcloud called “Terminal Nexus” a 128 bpm track which represents the direction in which I want to go with the next album.  This will be the first track on the album.  Special thanks to Myke Hutchings, Michael Morin and Drake Jensen for the inspiration behind Terminal Nexus.  You can hear it here:

vBlogs

I am long overdue for a vBlog.  Unfortunately the vBlogs I created during the remix project didn’t turn out properly so I am going to have to re-do them.  Doh!

That’s it for now!

As mentioned in my previous blog, Solarium, the first album from Polyatomic is now out!

• iTunes
• Google Play
• XBox Music
• 7Digital
• Spotify

Also, below is my first vBlog where I talk about:

• Solarium is released – iTunes, XBox Music, Google Play, 7 Digital, Spotify and more
• About the artwork for Solarium
• Bear+Bull Photoshoot
• Roland R-05, CS-EM10 Headphones – Virtual 3D Audio
• Inspiration
• Work starts on the second album!

Well we’ve hit another milestone tonight!

All the music – all 11 tracks – have been uploaded to our digital distributor! The date I’ve set for the release of Solarium is…. September 1, 2014! Now to see which sites get it up first.

In addition, the cover art for the album has been released.  The photo comes from my recent trip with Scott to San Francisco, flying up to Vancouver about 30 minutes from landing.

One of the worst kept secrets I’ve been keeping?  Probably not.

I’ve got an album coming out sometime within the next three months.  I am almost done the second last track, and have one more track to record.  It will be available for digital download and I am considering making actual physical product available as well.  See, it’s been a dream since I was a teenager to record an album and I decided earlier this year that it’s about time I did it.

What can I tell you?

• There are a few re-mastered tracks that were released previously on the album.  They’re just too good to pass up, honestly and releasing these will give these tracks a new audience.
• There will be 12 tracks on the album.
• 6 of the tracks are completely new as of this year, and I’ve very much been wanting to share these new tracks for a long time.  Anyone who has been following Facebook or Instagram knows I’ve been sharing screenshots as teasers.
• Every piece of the studio was used, including Roland’s SH-101 plug-out released two to three weeks ago.
• I also commissioned Steve Curtis for some additional artwork that represents me see the LittleGuy(tm) to the left.
• I’ve always said I wrote something like “Cinematic House” but the truth is that it’s really more like “Cinematic Trance”.
• I genuinely like each track on the album.  I’ve spent countless hours playing and replaying these tracks and in order and I am very pleased with it.
• There’s may be just one track that I don’t care much for on the album, but it’s still a fun track.  I’ll let you guess which track it is.
• The fastest track on the album is 140bpm.  The slowest is 120bpm.
• Rather than rushing, I actually took my time with the new tracks which is kind of surprising for me.  I liked to rush, but I really wanted to give this my all.  I was also quite fastidious with the new tracks.
• A track was in development for 5 years until I had a breakthrough in Dallas.  Sometimes it’s good to sit on ideas.
• I’m actually having a surprisingly difficult time using the Roland TR-8 on tracks.
• I kind of get why some bands like playing one of their first ‘big hits’, and while I’ve not had a ‘big hit’, I do consider “Perceptis (Morning Glory)” as that song.  I don’t ever want to be like Delirium and the number of times that “Silence” has been remixed.
  • I have the challenge that when Perceptis (Morning Glory) was first released on iTunes and on Bear Tracks 3, either I submitted the wrong version or just something up with the mix which is horrible.  I wasn’t happy with it.
  • As a result, you’re getting the official original version as a bonus.  You’re also getting the Ugly Bear Trance Mix that David (Ignatius Zoo) and I collaborated on.  There area other mixes available that he did which are all great but they’re not on the album.  Who knows, maybe I’ll release it as a ‘single’.
• Track topics and styles cover
  • Cars,
  • My impression of the last time I visited Los Angeles,
  • If this were the late 80s or the early 90s, I would have an acid house/trance hit,
  • A homage to Chris Sheppard inspired by LA Style, and the 90s rave scene. Complete, utter cheese!
  • Organic cinematic trance,
  • Industrial trance,
  • Life journeys,
  • My collection of sunset pictures,
  • Ethereal chill,
• The tracks do have a specific ordering that has been well thought out.  I think it flows nicely, but I also recognize that in today’s music environment that people want to download individual tracks.  The tracks stand on their own.
• The inspirations on the album were (in alphabetical order): BKS, Blank & Jones, BT, Depeche Mode,  808 State, Imogen Heap, LA Style, Love Inc, Robyn, Röyksopp, Saint Etienne and Vince Clarke.

So there you go.  Solarium – At your favourite digital music download store, coming soon.

Let’s just say, where I started 12 years ago versus where I am today is night and day.

I decided that I would install the MacOSx 10.10 Yosemite beta just to see what the impacts would be for those who use Apple equipment in their studios.

The first impressions of the operating system itself is that it is zippy. Boot up, Safari, application launching and responsiveness, Apple has done a good job!

Using logic and bringing in old logic project that use only logic instruments, I had no issues. Same with Garageband and Reason.  Everything has, so far, seemed to work without issue.

I have had some issues with Native Instruments Massive and Battery (I actually use Maschine, Komplete 9 Ultimate, Rise & Hit and Kinetic Metal).  Upon installing 10.10 it’s as if all of my Native Instruments software had to go through reinitializing setup and such.  After that, playing with the various NI software synths and packages, I have no issues using them in a project.

However, I did have a challenge when loading a track I completed in the past two weeks.  I didn’t lose anything per-se, but I am having to re-link up the actual tracks to the correct software synth and sound.  Specifically, Logic seemed to miss the link ups to Massive, which it said it couldn’t find.  This was just a matter of re-selecting Massive.  Then I had the task of selecting the correct patch and I mis-labeled the loops (mainly because I had copied from other tracks), losing track of what sounds I was actually using.

Somehow, this seemed to resolve itself.

The next issue I’m having isn’t really a big issue for me.  For some reason I’m getting a dialog box that says:

This is odd because I’ve not used Battery at all in this project, in fact the beats are generated by my Roland Aira TR-8 in this track.  It’s possible I may have loaded Battery during develop of the track to see if there was anything that I wanted to bring in.  Beyond that, Battery just isn’t used.

The workaround for this is to resave your project and everything is good to go.

I think the biggest tips I can recommend to relatively new folks is

• If you have the ability to name loops on a track, rename them to the name of the patch you’re using
• Before you load your project, make a copy of the project file or files and load from there
• Keep in mind, MacOS X 10.10 Yosemite is a beta, so I expect these issues to be fixed by the time Yosemite is available.  Don’t upgrade your mission critical hardware, and when you do, if you have the luxury of having an older system, to test on, you could do your testing on that system to anticipate what issues you might have.
• Software providers will make patches available for any issues and changes made in MacOS X 10.10 Yosemite.  These are early days of Yosemite.

What I’m doing is not for the feint of heart.

All issues I have raised have been submitted to Apple for review, and I’m trusting that the details are passed on to Native Instruments, so they can work together to resolve these issues.

All in all, I am pleased with Yosemite so far.

Erasure have released the first single from their album, The Violet Flame, “Elevation” on SoundCloud.  It’s a gorgeous track and I love the analogue synths that Vince Clarke is using, and while it’s not Andy’s greatest vocal, it totally works as a package and I’ve got it on constant replay and it tickles my funny bone.

A perfect pop song, and I’d love to hear a 12″ Mix.

I’m a huge fan of Vince’s Analogue Monologues which were recorded at his cabin studio in Maine prior to moving to New York City.  I’ve learned a few things from his series.

I’d say that analogue synths scare me – and they can be daunting, but the truth is, I’ve been using analogue synths, well, digital reproductions for the past 13 years between Reason’s Subtractor and it’s CV gates, and others.  I’ve got the MS-20EX, PolySix EX and AL-1 on the Korg Kronos X, as well the MS-20 on the iPad.  I’ve also got the Roland System-1 and TB-3 which are Analogue Circuit Behaviour synths.

Where I’m going is, I know I could be doing a lot more with analogue synths and hearing Elevation makes me want to explore these synths more.  Especially the PolySix and System-1.

(Then there’s Vince’s VCMG project with Martin Gore.  *DROOL*)