The Greatest Ambient Chill-Out Albums 2. Orbital - 2 (The Brown Album)



 Orbital - 2 (The Brown Album)

1. Time Becomes - 1.43

2. Planet of The Shapes - 9.36

3. Lush 3.1 - 5.39

4. Lush 3.2 - 4.40

5. Impact (The Earth is Burning) - 10.27

6. Remind - 7.57

7. Walk Now.. - 6.48

8. Monday - 7.05

9. Halcyon + On + On - 9.28

10. Input out - 2.11

Orbital's second album, also known as 'The Brown Album' isn't strictly an Ambient Chill-Out album as such, in fact it's more of a rave / techno album. Anyone who has witnessed Orbital live will confirm it's far from chilled out, with many of the tunes from the Brown Album providing some of the most euphoric and intense parts of their live site.

In particular, Orbital live at Glastonbury on the two occasions I've seen them have both been the most incredible live experiences I've seen. 

Luckily they have now got back together and have a great new album totally geared to play played at huge outdoor festivals, so the brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll are still going strong with their totally unique blend of electronic dance music.

 You can read all about them here: Orbital

Again, I first discovered Orbital through my friend Ash (Dj Operon - Golden Orb Records) who had Orbital's first album (The Yellow Album - CD) on CD. I loved this one too, as it had total classics such as 'Chime' and 'Belfast' on it, but it was when our friend Matt lent me a home made tape titled 'Ambient Techno' that was basically tracks from Orbital - The Brown Album and Aphex Twin's 'Selected Ambient Works Vol1' mixed together.

I completely fell in love with every single tune on the tape and had to buy both albums in full immediately. I had a few gatherings / parties at my house that year (1995 / 96 I think) and the real stand out tracks that remind me of those wonderful times are Lush 3.1, Walk Now, Impact (The Earth is Burning) and Halcyon+On+On. This means that while I've been raving to Orbital live and their tunes many many times, I've listened to them while relaxing and chilling out many more times that that.

This is perhaps one of the things that has made Orbital stand the test of time due to the fact their tunes are intense when played loud and relaxing when played at home.

As usual I've created a YouTube playlist for the entire album and any remixes I could find here: Orbital Brown Album

1. Time Becomes

Track One - Time Becomes is the intro to the album and according to Wikipedia is a looped sample taken from Star Trek - The Next Generation played through left and right channels until one cycle of phase difference has happened (apparently). Also this was intended to make listeners think they had bought a mis-pressed copy of the first album as the sample is also used in 'The Mobius'.

2. Planet of The Shapes

I didn't see 'Withnail and I' until a few years after I heard this, so had one of those 'ahh' moments when I first saw the opening sequence. This makes it even more poignant for me as it became one of my favourite films straight away. Planet of the Shapes is quite a chilled track, but has one of Orbital's sections where it sounds like lots of chiming clocks melting - this is echoed again in 'Are We Here' on 'Snivilisation'. Great breakbeats show the trademark analogue feel of Orbital's sound and a great start to the album.

3.Lush 3.1

For me this is the real start to the album. One of the greatest synth lines (there are a few on here!) ever that still gives me goose bumps every time I hear it and kicks of a stunning, classic orbital tune. The main riff is an almost flute like analogue synthesiser riff, probably created on a Roland SH101 or similar synthesiser. I've seen Orbital play this live and it's even better than the album version - just awesome.

4.Lush 3.2

This is a much more acidic, intense second half to Lush 3.1 with a thumping drum / bass rhythm that goes right through the entire track. This again works so well played on The Other Stage at Glastonbury coupled with that amazing light show and is one of the most 'techno' moments on the album. The subtleties of this tune is all in the hypnotic repetition, which again creates a real crescendo moment in a live setting.

5. Impact (The Earth Is Burning)
Both times I've had the honour to see Orbital at Glastonbury this tune has been one of my favourite moments. This is partly due to it always being a favourite Orbital tune of mine anyway, so hearing it in such a magical setting was always going to be special. The drums and bassline are classic Orbital, sounding better and better the louder they are turned up. The TB-303 acidline adds another level, builds tension and again sounds utterly fabulous both live and on the album recording. The breakdown seals the fate of this tune to being an all time Rave classic, with (now) old-skool breakbeats and horns making this a real festival moment.  However the soaring, spiralling synth tune that comes in towards the end of the tune is a great example of why this album can still be called an Ambient Chill-Out masterpiece (even though this tune is clearly a Rave / Dance track), as the beauty with Orbital is that when played at lower volumes the intricacy and sheer sonic quality of the sounds take on a soothing, hypnotic feel.

6. Remind
Another great track, perhaps the most 'techno-trance' sounding tune on the album.
I'm not sure I've heard Remind live in an Orbital set but it 'reminds' me of a lot of the R&S / CJ Bolland style techno that was coming out of Belgium at around the same time the Brown album was released.
Due to the slightly darker / trippier four to floor techno sound of this tune it became widely used in underground DJ sets at the time. I never realised until researching this that Remind is actually a version of Orbital's remix of 'Mindstream' by Meat Beat Manifesto - listen to the original here: MINDSTREAM . You can hear some the beats, samples and tunes used from the Meat Beat tune but the way Orbital remixed this completely warrant it's inclusion on the album as a track in it's own right.

7. Walk Now
Another absolute classic Orbital live set moment and quite possibly the first track that really got me in to Orbital's music. Starting with a didjeridoo sound similar to Aphex Twin's classic of the same name (Ethnic sounds were used a lot more in Techno & Trance of this era, which always added to the tribal feel) this is a real tension builder. The part where the tracks stutters Orbital really drag out live for maximum effect when the scrambled, 'computer loading' style main riff drops in. From there on it's a straight ahead rave-up for the rest of the track. Another thing I love about Orbital, especially within the tunes on the Brown Album is the length of time the actual beats go on for between the drop-out sections. There's a beautiful simplicity within Orbital's main kick drum / bass patterns that really create a hypnotic feel that just draws you in and let's you loose yourself within the rhythms. That's why this tune, among many others on this album are classics across many different dance music genres and showcase a level of sound quality and programming that make Orbital totally unique.

8. Monday
Less of stand out track than 'Walk Now' or 'Impact' and again much more of a Belgian Techno R&S sound.
Great programming and production again though and almost house sound to the shuffled TR-909 drums.
I'm sure I heard this in various DJ set's at the time - anyone know of any remixes or links to DJ sets where this is played (or if you mixed it in a set yourself?) let me know!
This is a clever inclusion on the album for exactly the reason above as it gives consistency and flow, something I'm sure Orbital meticulously plan for all albums and sets - check the whiteboard in their studio for an insight into this here: Orbital in the Studio.

9. Halcyon and On and On.
Perhaps one of Orbital's finest moments, certainly one of their most successful tunes. As I'm sure most people know the vocal is a sample of Opus III's classic 'It's Fine Day' (here's the link just for old time's sake: Opus III). I think the story went something like they were messing around on a record deck with the track and sampling / looping / reversing the sample and ended up with the basis for the track. I'm sure there's loads on the web and Discogs etc about the full correct story here, but the most important thing here is that Kirsty Hawkshaw's of Opus III incredible, ethereal and moving vocal sound add magic to pretty much any song they grace. Orbital have often used snippets of well chosen pop tracks in parts of their tunes, especially in their live sets (Listen out for Belinda Carlisle and Bon Jovi!) In this setting this gave 'Halcyon' a sound that instantly made it recognisable whilst becoming a fantastic track in it's own right. The pad sounds at the beginning are perfect for large scale crowds and always raise a huge cheer, but are make the track sound perfect when chilling and listening at lower volumes.
Reversed Kirsty Hawkshaw samples aside, the rest of the tune is just perfect dance music (also used in the soundtrack for Hackers which looks so dated now, but worth a watch if you haven't seen it before or for a while!).  A fantastic end to a classic album.

10. Input Out
Typical, Tongue in Cheek ending for Orbital, this is a looped speech sample rounding of the electronic sound of Orbital. Loading sequence complete and all that..

Here's a list of the entire Orbital back catalogue with links to Amazon CD's and Downloads - let me know if I've missed any!

Orbital - Orbital (Yellow Album)

Orbital - 2 (Brown Album)

Orbital - Snivilisation

Orbital - Insides

Orbital - The Middle of Nowhere

Orbital - Blue Album

Orbital - The Altogether

Orbital - Wonky

Orbital - Work (Best Of 1989 - 2002)

Orbital - Live at Glastonbury 1994 -2004

Orbital - 20

Orbital - Back To Mine

Orbital - Diversions (US Import)

Orbital - Peel Sessions

Orbital - Beached (Beach Soundtrack)

Paul Hartnoll - The Ideal Condition

Orbital - Times Fly (Single)

Orbital - Chime (1990 Original Single)

Long Range - Madness and Me (Phil Hartnoll Solo Album)

The Greatest Ambient Chill-Out Albums of All Time Part One - Orb - U.F.OFX

PART ONE. 1. ORB - U.F.ORB

1. "O.O.B.E." – 12:51
2. "U.F.Orb" – 6:08
3. "Blue Room" – 17:34
4. "Towers of Dub" – 15:00
5. "Close Encounters" – 10:27
6. "Majestic" – 11:06
7. "Sticky End" – 0:49

One of my dearest friends, Ash (DJ Operon - http://www.goldenorbrecords.com/) had a copy of this on tape and I must have either borrowed or got a copy somehow.One of my dearest friends, Ash (DJ Operon - http://www.goldenorbrecords.com/) had a copy of this on tape and I must have either borrowed or got a copy somehow.

Lots has already been written on The Orb as artists, founding member Alex Paterson and his many collaborators. You can read all about that at Wikipedia: ORB

I'm going to review the album from start to finish and I've created a You Tube play list so you can listen while reading. I'm also going to include all remixes and alternative versions I can find of each track and add these to the end of the play list.

1. O.O.B.E The first track on the album starts slowly but never fails to make me want to lie on my back in a field, stare at the clouds and listen. This is perhaps the most 'ambient' track on the album, with lots of delayed speech and sound FX fading in and out of the mix. As the pads wash through your mind, the hypnotic synth and bass lines take over, leading you into 10 minutes of blissful ambient music. I've included the Peel Session and Live 93 versions on the You Tube play list, as these are all just as brilliant and different in their own right.

2. U.F.Orb The title track of the album fades in from O.O.B.E seamlessly, starting with a similar ambient feel. The sounds, effects and speech, including Radio Moscow samples are more urgent however, and soon give way to the first real beat, giving away the techno and acid-house influences behind the albums creation, stemming from the main room sounds playing in the clubs where Orb played in the chill-out room, such as Paul Oakenfold's Land of Oz night at Heaven, London (wish I'd been there to hear it!). Despite U.F.Orb being actually quite upbeat, it still maintains the overall ambient feel of the album and doesn't feel out of place with the rest of the album.

3. The Blue Room I couldn't find the album version, so I've added the full 40 minute version on the You Tube play list. This isn't a bad thing, as it's probably my favourite piece of music and 15 years after first hearing this I still never get tired of listening. The first 10-15 minutes of Blue Room are just magical ambient music, with gorgeous synth pads and otherworldly speech sounds melting around Steve Hillage's soaring guitar work. Once the beat kicks in, you are soon treated to Jah Wobble's classic bass line. This sliding bass, Ambient Dub sound defines the overall sound of the Orb and is used in various forms in many other Orb tracks.

4.Towers Of Dub The start to this always makes me laugh and reminds me of giggling uncontrollably with my mates at the ridiculous sounds. Despite the humorous and light hearted feel of this track it's still a wonderful piece of music. This is the most dub-influenced track of the album (the title is a bit of a giveaway) with a heavy dub bass line and loose, reggae feel percussion. The layers of echoed synthesisers and samples, including a dog barking and a great harmonica solo keep the overall space-like feel of the album alive and keep interest and attention levels throughout the tune.

5. Close Encounters I love this track, it was written in collaboration with Slam who of course have had huge success in their own right as a Techno / House act and wrote the classics Positive Education and Eterna. Due to this collaboration, Close Encounters is by far the most upfront, conventional (to a point!) dance tune, with a real driving House feel. The Orb's influence is all over this too however, with more and more echoed sounds fading in and out, giving the track a far depth than a Slam track in it's own right. This is a great example of ambient music creators collaborating with dance producers to utilise the best of both worlds, and I'd love to hear modern examples of artists from different genres working together in this way.

6. Majestic is another showcase of the classic ambient dub techno Orb sound. Another great sliding bass sound (not sure if this one is Jah Wobble, as it sounds more like a synthesiser) worms it's way around heavily  filtered and echoed drums and sound effects. This really is a showcase of all the sounds of the album and provides a fitting end to an incredible musical journey.

7. Sticky End. This is just some weird sounds at the end of the album, I can't find it on You Tube and I think I've lent my fifth copy of U.F.Orb (it never comes back, but somehow you don't mind!) out so I can't even listen. But from what I remember this was some squelchy gurgling sounds that made you wonder if the album had finished or not. A great tongue in cheek end to the album however.

The thing with The Orb, especially within the first three tracks of U.F.Orb is that although in essence it's Electronic music there are so many layers of audio that the whole sound takes on a life of it's own, way beyond a simple set of loops and synth sounds. A whole kaleidoscope of speech, music, sound FX Orb - U.F.Orb You Tube Playlistand many other sounds fade in and out constantly, serving to create a complex sound scape that gives you something different every time you listen. For me this meant the The Orb were almost like a musical 'magic-eye' picture, something that you had to learn how to listen to and could never be taken in with just one go.

I think I bought it shortly after hearing it on cassette then about 2 or 3 times on CD as it's just one of those albums that everyone loves and borrows and you don't really mind as you know they'll be happy and having a good time the next time they listen to it.

I think this must have been around 1994, so a good few years at least after it was first released.

This prooves that good music is timeless, even though the scene that actually spawned The Orb is long since changed.

Even though some would argue The Orb's 'Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld' is a superior album (and in someways is), for me U.F.Orb will always have to be number one, purely for it being the album that started my journey into Electronic music all those years ago.

Click here to purchase the full, Deluxe version of U.F.Orb via Amazon here: U.F.Orb

and also The Peel Sessions,  Live '93 and The Blue Room , all of which all well worth owning.

If you like the U.F.Orb it's also well worth listening through the rest of their huge back catalogue as there are many other classic and wonderful moments to be heard:

Orb - Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld - This is a classic album in it's own right which I'll be reviewing separately.

Orb - Pommes Fritz

Orb - Orbus Terravum

Orb - U.F.Off (Best Of)

Orb - Orblivion

Orb - The Complete BBC Sessions

Orb - The Dream

Orb - Metallic Spheres (Feat David Gilmour)

Orb - Batter C

Orb Remix Project: Call of Duty - Auntie Aubrey

Orb Remix Project - Auntie Aubrey 2

Orb - Bicycles & Tricycles

Orb - Baghdad Batteries - Orbsessions V3

Orb - Cydonia

Orb - Okie Dokie

Orb - Orbsessions 2

Orb - Orbsessions 1

Do You have a favourite Orb track / album / memory? Are you an Orb fan - how did you first discover them? Post a comment below, we'd love to hear from you!!

The Greatest Ambient / Chill-Out Albums of All Time

As Ambient / Chill-Out music, especially from more dance and electronic acts, has been one of the major musical influences on both my life and my musical production I wanted to catalogue and detail my top 10 Albums. Given my tendency to waffle and reminisce I then realised having just one blog post to sum up all the albums would be more like an essay, so I'm going to review each album one by one and post weekly. I'll have links in there so you can hear excerpts and tracks to see what I'm talking about, along with links to purchase the full album (which I of course strongly recommend!)

OK, here  I've got all of these on CD, cherished and in a stack separate to the rest of my CD collection, most of which is still in boxes since the last time I moved house.

These are all albums I NEED to have in my life, I need to have them near me, either on iTunes, CD, Vinyl or on a memory stick. They have all been on most of the journeys, holidays and adventures I've been on in my life and have never failed to engage, excite, relax and above all make me happy.

Some are classics that most people will see as obvious, others are a bit more obscure but all have got a very special place in my heart that means I'll always, always come back to these life changing musical moments till the day I die (Going to have to write a similar post for Rock, Hip Hop, Metal, Techno, Trance and Rave soon!). Anyway, enough of the sentimental warbling for the moment, now for the music!

Below is a list of all albums I'm going to be reviewing over the next few months:

The Orb - U.F.Orb

The Orb - Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld

Orbital - Snivilisation

Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 1

Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 2

The Future Sound of London - LifeForms

Global Communication - 39.57

Brian Eno - Music For Airports

Boards of Canada - Music Has The Right To Children

Boards of Canda - The Campfire Headphase

The KLF - Chill Out

The Orb - Orbus Terrarum

Orbital - Brown Album

How To Use Business to Business Sales Techniques To Market Products Online

I've probably mentioned before my day job as a pencil salesman.

I've not really expanded on this before this update, but for the last eight years I've been working for one of the world's largest office supplies groups and risen steadily through the promotion levels from working as 'grunt' field sales rep with a daily sales target of £500 to a Corporate Account Manger looking after millions of public sector business.

Although the job sometimes makes me feel a lot older I'm still only 33, so there is plenty of time to work out exactly what service I give to my customers in my day job, and replicate that with:

A) My Music

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B) Any other on line business or product.

Whilst doing my current on line social media marketing course I began to co-ordinate my thinking on how to give an on line customer that I have prospected and closed (regardless of the product or service they are buying) exactly the same (excellent) customer service experience as the business I work for in my day does every day.

Although this entire thought process is going to be developed into a fully fledged sales strategy once I finally launch my business plan I've been:

A) Exploring this thinking and comparing the Sales Sequences I've been trained on and use every day with marketing strategies introduced by http://www.janeheatonassociates.com/ and through various sales training courses I've undertaken during my career.

&

B) Researching this further by scanning and reading some of the many E-Books and Blogs giving hints and tips to build websites. I've learnt about affiliate marketing and developing multiple on line revenue streams - (try www.entrepreneur.com/ ) and setting up sites with http://www.adwords.google.co.uk/ in order to make money and drive traffic. I've also learnt about applying the thinking that the internet is only a medium for supplying information, and in that respect is no different to the Television or Radio for advertising a product or generating interest (try http://www.vicjohnson.com/ )

This leaves me to then split out goals for each of the on line streams I want to build and grow. Each one will have my sales experience and researched learning applied to them, however I need to take a holistic approach to most of my development work and realise all things will take time and need to be planted in good soil to work.

This allows me to look at all the sites I've done so far and say; OK they are all work in progress and will always continue to develop. When I look back at my first website I built in HTML / Dreamweaver about 10 years ago and compare how these sites look now, especially the Sense Recordings site I think the main thing that has changed is the ability to embed players and apps from social networking sites such as:

https://twitter.com/#!/SenseRecording
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sense-Recordings/172258012829953
http://www.myspace.com/senserecordings (although this still doesn't work as I said in my last post about Hoot Suite)

Not that I'm trying to add as many links as possible, but this is also a great place for me to store all the links in one place, talk about them and hope that someone reads this and clicks one.

The above sentence in a nutshell sums up what I've learned about on line marketing so far, in that just as in my sales role day job, honesty, integrity, humanity and a simple willingness to engage with people are the main factors that will create not just sales, but far more importantly, loyal, valued, long term customers.

In my experience and training (I was nominated for the British Excellence in Sales and Marketing Management (http://www.ismm.co.uk/events_besma.php ) Student of the Year 2010 and Sales Person of the Year 2013) I have learnt that sales must be split into two categories - New Business and Existing Business. Both of these are vital to the sustained growth of any business and you cannot have one without the other (unless you sell something to everyone already that they cannot get anywhere else - the business ultimate goal).

New Business is concerned mainly with 'prospecting'. This means using whatever research is necessary to discover (in marketing terms) who your customers are, what needs they have and what information can be created to align the product with their needs (and in sales terms) what is the best strategy to approach the 'prospective' customer in order to supply them with information you have, find out what they think of it and tailor the product to meet their needs so they buy it. The main characteristics that make successful New Business is overcoming customer objections to buying your product by understanding what they need and presenting this to them in a way that makes a compelling reason for them to buy what you are selling.

Existing Business is how the customer is looked after, further engaged with and developed into a strong and vital ally that will continue to happily buy your product for years to come. This is vital again as the customer who purchased first time will almost certainly never have spent to their full potential, so to simply sell a product to someone without finding out something about their reasons for buying, what they thought and what they would buy again is a wasted opportunity and the reason why New Business, although more or less vital depending on the product you are selling, is only ever half the story.

At this point you may be thinking what the hell this has to do with Underground Electronic Music, but stick with me!

By researching and applying the same tried and tested sales and marketing techniques used daily by businesses all over the world to a self built on line business, you can replicate the same things that find new customers and keep existing ones happily coming back and buying time after time.

I'm in no way going to go further into Sales Training in this post, but I will, as part of my live and functioning plan be exploring the sales and marketing acronyms such as:

 A.I.D.C.A - http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/AIDA.htm

P.I.F.P.C.A (Six Step Sales Strategy) - http://www.ismm.co.uk/news/

and so on to create an on line, automated process that finds and attracts customers the correct type of customer to my websites, gives them the correct information to meet their needs and provides a compelling reason for them to buy my product.

Again, taking a 'holistic' view point http://www.thefreedictionary.com/holistic (by definition looking at the 'whole' of something I can keep coming back to all aspects of this, especially my music itself to say, actually perhaps people have put a lot less effort in and, due to their music being amazing, have sold millions straight away.

Perhaps that's true, and furthermore all of my music could be complete rubbish (I like it anyway!) but by thinking about how I make these techniques work whether the music is any good or not kind of isn't the point anymore. Actually, if 9 million people message me and tell me all my tracks suck, then I've still achieved the same goal I set out to, which is supplying information to as many people as possible.

Whether this information is correct for them, or any good, at this stage is irrelevant to a point, as the point is they saw, read, listened or talked about it somewhere, generating more traffic and awareness.

Enough for now on this, I'll be continuing to develop my thinking on this area over the coming months.

Max

May Updates

OK next chapter in the ongoing development of Sense Recordings.

Firstly I've now hooked up www.hootsuite.com on the advice of www.janeheatonassociates.com in order to

A) Control which Posts go to which Social Media channels, including both Twitter feeds for 'Sense Recordings' and 'The Time UK Trance, Personal Facebook, Sense Recordings Facebook, YouTube and some other pages and user groups. Can't get MySpace to work as it keeps throwing up an API error message so will try again in a week or so.

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B) Schedule my posts so based on reports from www.tweriod.com my posts automatically go live on Twitter at the times the majority of my followers are online, so my posts don't get lost in the 'noise' on Twitter.

Hootsuite seems like it's got a lot to deal with so probably works best on a fast, preferably hard wired, internet connection, but is still pretty quick over my wireless. I'm planning to add more media channels to the dashboard as this develops, so need to create more profiles for sites such as google+ and anything else that looks worthwhile having a presence on.

It's then a case of creating a daily, weekly and monthly schedule using Time Management & Planning techniques from the legendary www.new-leadership.com to plan when I will post tweets, blog updates, new tracks and videos. This will form the main bulk of my plan for sustained consistency in my social networking, slowly and carefully building the awareness for Sense Recordings and ultimately it's music at the same time.

I aim to have this plan launched and fully up and running by mid June 2012, so by then all sites will be in place and I'm working a daily plan of simply posting and blogging (or not, depending on what the schedule says).

Next on the agenda is the uploading of more tracks from The Time over the coming weeks, with the aim to release a new track on either SoundCloud or YouTube each week as part of the blogging process. Anyway, that's part of the plan so it depends what it tells me to do.

I've now broken the 100 followers mark on Twitter, which is really showing me that targeted tweeting really works with certain approaches working better than others. The most rewarding thing so far has been engaging with other up and coming musicians, listening to their work and discovering so many new sounds. This in itself has been inspiring and I've now been watching random stuff like this:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Oeppl9F_aFY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Partly as I've been looking at getting one of these:

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/AOllf1S9Oes" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

and partly for some studio inspiration. Not that I'm planning on my next album sounding more like Dr Dre (although The Chronic is amazing) but more that I'm looking for different ways of writing and performing to really develop the next stage of Sense Recordings music.

Latest track posted on Soundcloud is The Time - We Are Alone (Shiny Mix) which is probably about 4 years old now and was one of the first tracks I wrote when I began doing more progressive trance-y music and calling it The Time (think I'd probably just watched Purple Rain and forgotten). It's one of my personal favourites as it's exactly the sort of music I love hearing blasting out into the night at places like The Glade or outdoor raves. It was written all on Cakewalk Sonar and most of the sounds are either Yamaha AN1x, eMU Audity or Nord Lead 2. Here's the SoundCloud link - enjoy!:

<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F47237452&show_artwork=true"></iframe>

More Soon

 Max

Customising Blogger

Today I had my third coaching and training session on Social Media Marketing from the wonderful and inspiring Jane Heaton - http://www.janeheatonassociates.com/

This is really starting to revolutionise the way I look at promoting on the web and actually making me realise that, with a carefully planned strategy I can actually hold down a full time job (as a high flying pencil salesman!) and have a consistent and regular internet presence. More on this to follow, as I have another 3 sessions left, by which time I'll have a go live date and a full strategy to implement. Until then I'm focusing on getting all social media tools in place.

Today I've been focusing on getting my blogger page doing the right things that fit in with my 'web based marketing strategy'.

The first thing that was pointed out to me about my new Sense Recordings blog page is that the logo / header needs to point back to the main http://www.senserecordings.com website as ultimately the blog is a way of directing people that are even vaguely interested in what I'm saying to what I really do, which is Electronic Music.

This isn't quite as simple as you would think, as there isn't an option within blogger to simply embed an 'a href = ' html link code into the upload feature for headers.

I found a great post below - How to Create A Custom Header in Blogger by Amanda Kennedy
http://www.bloggerbuster.com/2007/06/how-to-create-custom-header-in-blogger.html

I've just implemented the code and it works a treat! Follow the steps Amanda talks you through and it's pretty simple with a basic knowledge of HTML.

I now have my Blog optimised to drive traffic back to my homepage!

Thanks Amanda,

Max

Getting really into the web side of things now - Blogger seems very fast and easy to set up just how you want, so got a proud new link on the Sense Recordings home page.
Also got the new Twitter feed on the side bar of the Sense Recordings home page which looks ace and gives the home page an nice way to be updated daily from my iphone or where ever.
Nice to have a long bank holiday to do all this stuff this weekend, as the world of the pencil salesman is put on hold for the moment. Also got a few hours spare to do this while this wife to be is out trying on wedding dresses....