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Smooth Generation

 
Smooth Generation

Formed in 1996 by Terry Harkleroad and Marion Heath Moore Smooth Generation is a musical production outlet designed to spread POSITIVE messages to a world facin

54 songs
391 plays
1
Picture for song '01. Fire, She's Burning Me Down (The ALBM Dub Remi' by artist 'Smooth Generation'

01. Fire, She's Burning Me Down (The ALBM Dub Remi

Funky live drum loops, udo percussion, house drum machines, slide guitars, funky electric guitars, funky bass guitar, moog keyboard lead solo, and ambient keyboard riffs.
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Picture for song '04. That's It, I Love The Game (Original Dance Mix' by artist 'Smooth Generation'

04. That's It, I Love The Game (Original Dance Mix

Strong driving electronic / dance drums, low end synth bass, trance style keyboards, and vocal samples.
3
Picture for song '05. Live Wire' by artist 'Smooth Generation'

05. Live Wire

Hip-Hop / Trip-Hop style drums, low end analog bass, electric bass guitar with a fuzz pedal, hard rock electric guitar solo, piano, lush chord pads, turntable cuts, and haunting strings.
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Picture for song '08. I Love The Game (The ALBM Funky Disco Vocal Mi' by artist 'Smooth Generation'

08. I Love The Game (The ALBM Funky Disco Vocal Mi

Funky live electric bass, funky live drums, funky MPC style swing drums, wah guitar riffs, horn riffs, jazz piano riffs, and dub style vocals.
5
Picture for song '09. Can You Hear (The ALBM Old School Techno Remix' by artist 'Smooth Generation'

09. Can You Hear (The ALBM Old School Techno Remix

Banging techno / dance drums, bright percussion, strong techno keyboard riffs and stabs, vocal cuts, and tons of ear candy.
Please note: (anyone who purchases a single or an album) if you send me an e-mail after purchase on sound click and once payment hits paypal I will send you the higher bite rate MP3 if you request it. Formed in 1996 by Terry Harkleroad and Marion Heath Moore “Smooth Generation” is a musical production outlet designed to spread POSITIVE messages to a world facing an uncertain future. The sound of “Smooth Generation” fuses Rock, Soul, R&B, Hip-Hop, House, Techno, Ambient, Pop, and Drum & Bass into one undeniable sound. Their first release “Drift Away” (2000 / Vault Entertainment) received a very warm welcome from the college and indie markets. 2009 saw the release of their second album entitled “Revolution”. This digital only release is a precursor to the film in works by screenplay writer/producer/director Terry Harkleroad entitled “The Vault Of Lights”. 2011 sees the release of their third digital only album entitled “Dub Remixes, Dark Rock, & Funky Joints.”
Band/artist history
Many people over the years have asked me on countless occasions what “Smooth Generation” really is? Why do we (Terry Harkleroad and I) put out and/or release music for sale when we are not a band or even a couple of DJs on the road? What is the point of it all? What kind of music is “Smooth Generation” really supposed to be? For me “Smooth Generation” was an evolution that came about around 1996 in Nashville, TN. I moved to Nashville in the summer of 1995 from Boston where I was attending college at Berklee College Of Music. In Nashville I attended Belmont University with a study focus on business, music business, and audio engineering. During the first semester I found a small group of like minded friends (producers / engineers / songwriters / musicians) that years down the road would end up being life long friends and colleges. One of these people was a guy named Tim Parker. As Tim got to know me he found out that I was into the whole synth music world. (MIDI, computers, samplers, keyboards, and drum machines) Tim was roommates with a guy named Terry Harkleroad who was not attending Belmont. Tim kept telling me that I “had to meet his roommate.” Terry was also into the whole “electronic” music world, but in a very different way. His focus was on funk and straight up groove. At the time my focus was on pop, urban, techno, and electronic rock. Most everyone else I had come in contact with at Belmont had a focus on recording “live” musicians and had no use for the electronic / MIDI music world. At that time I had a very simple “Demo” type of home studio setup. A Macintosh Performa computer (with very little hard drive space and RAM) running a “General MIDI” program called “Trax” and a Tascam Porta 7 four track analog tape recorder. I had all kinds of different synths, drum machines, and samplers that I had collected over the years, but did not have the money to buy the additional equipment needed to synch all these pieces together to make a “Real” project studio. Terry had an Ensoniq keyboard (the EPS-16 I think) and a four track analog tape recorder as well. The way I was producing my tracks back then was by using my “General MIDI” program for the foundation of the track and then doing live overdubs with my Ensoniq KS-32 Keyboard and my arsenal of different guitars. Terry was recording his synths in stereo and then adding his vocals over top. I also had to employ the technique of “Bouncing” tracks so I could add all the parts I wanted on a song. (Bouncing is simply taking tracks one, two, and three and recording them together on track four. Then you would have three more tracks to work with. You lose control over the mix, but I had to do what I had to do) When Terry and I first got together he played me some of his work and I played him some of mine. Our styles were “night and day.” I really did not think that we would ever end up working together. I needed a vocalist / songwriter and not someone else making tracks. As time went on I would hand Tim tracks I had completed to see if he was interested in working with them as a lyric and vocal melody writer. He would take the tracks home and would co-write the lyrics and vocal melody with Terry. Terry would then come over to my apartment and record the vocal parts. We just kept doing this time and time again and at some point in the game Terry and I started working together as a songwriter / producer team. We still worked with many different songwriters, but did a great deal of writing on our own. Around the end of 1997 the world of digital recording was now coming into the price range of the “Common” man. I knew it was time to turn my “Demo” studio into a “Real” pre and post production studio. (Also I was feed up with having to book outside studios and dealing with the studio’s in-house engineers) I went to the local bank and got a small personal loan for $4,000. I then went right down to the local music store and paid in full for the missing items I needed to complete my home studio. Two weeks later I had in my hands a Mackie 1604 mixing console, a Tascam DA-38 digital multi-track recorder, an Opcode MIDI interface, upgrades for my Macintosh, and a Tascam DA-20 DAT two track recorder. (I also added the Mackie HR824 studio monitors and a Fostex CR-200 compact disc recorder to the mix around a year later.) Now I could use all my keyboards, drum machines, samplers, and guitars together in clear digital sound (Alesis SR-16 drum machine, Alesis Nano Bass, Boss SP-202 phrase sampler, Boss Dr Groove drum machine, Roland 303 Groove Box, Ensoniq KS-32 digital keyboard, Ensoniq ASR-10 sampler, and all my guitars and effect processors) The name “Smooth Generation” came about when Terry and I were working on a dance track that ended up being “Step Out On The Floor.” On verse one he was just improvising and that name came out. It just stuck in my mind and after a few more tracks we knew that was the name we were going to stick with. We were working on all kind of projects, but the tracks that had a more global electronic sound I started to put aside. After a year or so of banging out track after track I went through around fifty songs and put together our first release “Drift Away.” Shortly after getting the album mastered and ready for press everything took a major left turn. I had just completed college, but the digital impact of free music downloading from companies such as “Napster” was putting a tight rope around the record labels necks. In turn that affected all the businesses that worked with the labels. (Recording studios, Music stores, Publishing companies, etc) The publishing company I had worked at since first moving to Nashville was being merged with a bigger publishing company and most of the people I knew were being laid off and were moving out of Nashville. Terry had to move back to his hometown of Kingsport, TN to look after his son and my intermediate family was moving from my hometown of Fort Mill, SC to Daytona Beach, FL. I really had no reason to stay in Nashville so I sold my condo and headed to the “Sunshine State.” Once I was fully setup in Daytona I started to work on the promotion of “Drift Away” and doing production work for DJs. As time went on the businesses I was in with my family (Dry cleaners and Rental properties) started becoming more and more demanding. I lost contact with Terry and the music started to fall by the waste-side. I worked on music every chance I got, but my focus shifted from mainstream and club tracks to working on all kinds of short instrumental tracks to pitch to music houses trying to land placements in film, TV, advertising, web, and game spots. With my long workweek (Around 70 hours) I could only work so much. Around 2006 I got a laptop, a USB keyboard controller, and a copy of Reason 3.0. That was my “new” studio. (Since then I upgraded to version 4.0 of Reason and still love it to death!) Now I could take my studio anywhere I wanted. I sampled all the sounds from my old keyboards, drum machines, and samplers into Reason. I really had no more use for all that hardware I had collected over the years. (In 2008 I sold it all on ebay) Now I could sit on my laptop with headphones in my downtime at the business and work on music! On March 2nd 2008 I sold my part of the businesses I had a stake in and took some time off. I wanted to get my web presence up and going with my music production business and get my name back out there. I got a myspace setup for my production company “ALBM” productions and then decided to put one up for “Smooth Generation.” To my surprise Terry beat me to it. I e-mailed him and we started talking again after eight years of no contact. He was back in Nashville and was working on his movie screenplays, but wanted to get back to doing some music as well. Terry liked the tracks I posted on the web and wanted to write some lyrics to them. He recorded vocals in Nashville and then sent them to me via the Internet. I then put them together and mixed the tracks. In no time at all we had an album ready to go. Our second album was originally named “American Revolution” but later we changed it to “Revolution.” Our good friend Jason Bradford (Who did the editing, mastering, and CD layout for “Drift Away”) had an independent all digital distribution company that had a focus on independent music of all types. (Tone Box Digital Recordings = www.toneboxdigital.com) We sent the project to him and he loved it. In June of 2009 “Revolution” was and is on every major online retailer. We made a decision to only release the album in a digital download format. Terry and I already have an album of remixes and b-sides ready to go and are working on getting funding for three screenplays in which the music of “Smooth Generation” will play a major part in two of them. The future holds no limits!
Have you performed in front of an audience?
These days we only produce.
Your musical influences
Producers: Teddy Riley, Timbaland, Devante Swing, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, Al B Sure, Kyle West, Vincent Herbert, Kiyamma Griffin, Howie Tee, L.A Reid & Babyface, Organized Noize, Narada Michael Walden, Soulshock & Karlin, Carl Sturken & Evan Rogers, Mario Winans, Chad Elliott, Erick Sermon, Keith Crouch, Rodney Jerkins, Dallas Austin, Keith Thomas, David Morales, DJ Premier, Jermaine Dupri, Trackmasters, The Dust Brothers, Prince, Walter Afansieff, DJ Tiesto, Rabbit In The Moon, DJ Monk & The Trackmack, Josh Wink, Chab, Sasha & Digweed, Murk, The Chemical Brothers, DJ Shadow, DJ Krush, William Orbit, Charlie Clouser, Terry Date, Rick Rubin, Pete Rock, Kruder & Dorfmeister, DJ Icey, Bill Laswell, DJ Logic, Howie B, Derrick May, Jeff Mills, DJ X, DJ Magic Mike, Clivilles & Cole, The Basement Boys, Todd Terry, Roni Size, Omar Santana, Pierre Marchand, Jay Joyce, Matt Serletic, Steve Thompson, The Neptunes, DJ Lethal, Josh Abraham, Butch Vig, Daniel Lanois, Howard Benson, Nellee Hooper, Flood, Hakim AbdulSamad, Jamey Jaz, Bob Power, Stephen Lipson, Rob Cavallo, Kevin Shirley, Robert John “Mutt” Lange, Brendan O’Brien, T-Bone Burnett, Ry Cooder, Nigel Godrich, Craig Street, Suba, Dave Hall, Guy Roche, Ric Wake, John Creamer & Stephane K, Guy Gerber, Arthur Baker, Armand Van Helden, Joey Beltram, Guy J, Photek, Gui Boratto, Delfeayo Marsalis, Mark Rooney & Mark Morales, DJ Eddie F & Nevelle, Dr. Freeze, Terence Trent D’Arby, Mark Stent, Trevor Horn, The Runners, Freddie le Grand, DJ Matt K, Hive, & Stevie B! Much Respect!!!
What equipment do you use?
Only software these days. Use to use only hardware.
Anything else?
Smooth Generation “Revolution” By: Marion Heath Moore “Revolution” is the second “official” release that Terry and I put out as a band / production team and as an independent record label. Unlike the first album “Revolution” is an all-digital release made possible by our good friend Jason Bradford of Tone Box Digital Recordings. As a producer “Revolution” was my first digital only release. Being able to release projects without having to “press” up the product is a very revolutionary concept. The idea of never running out of stock had me from the get go. (I still LOVE CDs and vinyl just for the record) “Drift Away” was released in January of 2000 and “Revolution” was released in June of 2009. I never thought that Terry and I would ever release another project due to the fact I now live in Daytona Beach, FL and he lives in Nashville, TN. Once again just as all digital distribution made it easier to release the album new recording technology makes it very easy to record with someone who is miles away. I would record a track and send it to Terry via e-mail as an MP3 file. He would then write his lyrics and vocal melodies. Once that was completed he would record his vocal parts with engineer Milan Bogdon and they sent me the vocal parts (dry-with no effects on the vocals) back to me in WAV file format. I dropped those parts into my recording software and started mixing. I would send Terry MP3s of different mixes until we got the one we were both satisfied with. Once all the mixes were completed I mastered the project with my mastering software and dropped them to CD. The completed CD was then sent to Jason who converted the CD WAV files into MP3 files for all the major on-line music retailers. Being that it was (and is) an all-digital release all we needed artwork wise was the front cover image in a jpeg format. Once that hit Jason’s hands we were off and running! This project is a little more mainstream than “Drift Away”. “Revolution” also has more of a dark political message and an inward self-examination in the lyrics than any of our other works. The genres used on this project are: electronic, techno, instrumental hip-hop, pop, down-tempo, pop, and rock. For me this project is a testament to the fact that technology can truly bring people together in a positive way. Without me changing over to an all computer based recording studio, e-mail, and websites like myspace Terry and I may have never worked together again!
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