Whenever I'm writing a new track, like many musicians I'll often dig out the synths and VST instruments, hoping that I'll come across a sound that makes me think, "Yes! That sounds awesome!". A lot of the time I'll come across a preset that I'll tweak slightly simply because it hasn't quite got that 'something' that I'm after. But other times I'll tweak it simply because I feel bad for just using a sound that I didn't design or spend any time creating myself; some will criticise this approach saying that it results in lazy production. Or does it? The way I see presets is that they're there to be used! So many famous musicians and bands have used factory presets in their greatest tracks. If we're buying expensive hardware and software then I would expect them to be loaded with banks full of sounds designed by experts in sound design. I know hardly anything about sound design. I haven't got the patience to sit down and create a sound from scratch; tweaking switches and settings for hours just to end up with a sound that, although may sound good on its own, actually sounds shit when I mix it into my latest creation. Besides which, I want to get on with the track, not bugger about with a synth-board full of technical bits I don't understand. The fact is, I can't see the point in spending hours making a sound when I know that there's a preset out there somewhere that sounds almost exactly the same as the one I would have spent all that time making. But in saying that, I don't mind spending a little bit of time tailoring a sound - as long as the synth I'm using makes sense to me. I treat synths as games, messing around with the controls until I find something I like - the technical side of it simply bores me and yes, maybe underneath it all, that's my underlying problem. I used to use a synth that had a 'randomise' function on it. It would just create a completely random sound on nothing more than just a mouse click. Fantastic idea! I didn't have to mess around with settings and I could just click till I came across a sound I liked. I don't understand why more synths don't include this feature. Yes, it's lazy but hell - it worked for me! Don't hate the presets!

I'll be completely honest here, I've been utterly crap in keeping in with the SoundClick community over the last year or so. The boards have all changed, many members I spoke to on the boards seem to have disappeared and I haven't posted any new output for ages. A couple of years ago I used to do loads of reviews and my views were generally well respected. However, I got bored of doing them. I could post ten reviews and only ever get two or three comments in return, even some of them with just a 'thanks for the review'. I'd post these reviews in order to get some discussion going on them. I was quite a harsh critic, although I'd never say 'this is crap' - reviews like that are never helpful to anyone and only serve to knock the confidence of the musician. Harsh, but fair - with constructive criticism. I think one of the reasons why I got bored of writing them was because 90% of the tunes were never very original. The artist would take a program like Fruity Loops, wack a load of preset synths together and some crappy sounding drums. It got boring. Don't get me wrong, there was a lot of quality material coming from a lot of artists and those were rightfully handed many a review of praise. The good tracks made me want to review. I admire Steve Gilmore for his persistance in reviewing hundreds of tracks every year. But I guess a multi-genre reviewer has far more to chew on than someone who just specialised in Electronica. However too many bad, average or simply unoriginal tracks simply took the edge off reviewing. I still reckon I'll get back into doing it one day. When - I don't know. As far as my own music is concerned, writing on my third album is well underway. There are about three or four tracks I've been working on that I have yet to release into the Internet wilderness, but it'll all work its way on soon. So anyone hunting for new Frequen-Cee material; it's on its way! :)

Although I've been writing music for nearly ten years now, the one area that I do struggle with is the mastering aspect. I'll write a track, but often find that the volume or eq can vary differently between my tracks, even the recent ones. Although I have read articles about mastering, I'll be honest about it - technical parts bore me. When people start talking about frequencies and article get into technical jargon, I simply loose interest. All I'm after is a few basic pointers, a few of tips and tricks and even going as far as 'Idiots Guides'. I just want to get on with things. Maybe one day in the future I might take up a music course, but for now I'll just continue experimenting. On the music side, I have written a new track called HardFast - a very hard big-beat track with - ironically - decent mastering! I've renamed Perfect Surrender to 'Take It On' after adding some vocals to the track. Actually, that's one of the main areas I want to focus on for my third record; vocals!

Although I don't make any money from my music, I still have two CDs of 12 tracks that I consider to be official albums as such; even though I've written well over 100 tracks. Both albums took me two years each to write, for which I wrote about 25 tracks for each album before selecting the best 12 for each one. For this third album I've written about ten tracks so far and I'd say that 6 possibly 7 of them are album worthy. It's important though to keep in line with progression. My first was very much rave influenced, the second was industrial breakbeat, but I'm not sure about the third. At the moment it's turning out to be more a grunge big-beat affair, which I don't mind at all, but I don't want to repeat the same stuff as I did before. Saying that though, I've written a new track which is far more chilled and relaxed. It's called 'Perfect Surrender', it's a more atmospheric piece with loads of pads and piano lines. It'll be online soon, but I think it goes with the usual flavour of my records where I like to produce at least a couple of chilled tracks, rather than just straight forward banging dance all the time. Gives the record a big of depth. I've got quite a few new tunes I need to put up on the web actually, so watch this space!

I've been doing a lot of experimenting with the sounds that I use in my music; the way I structure my tracks, the overall concept of them and how they sound overall. Usually you can tell when you've got a decent track on your hands because it feels 'natural' rather than you fighting to make something work. In the recent Electronica tournament, I wrote a track, called Devolve, that I really struggled to make work. I liked the two ideas that I had for it, but I struggled to make them 'flow' together. Nevertheless I put it up against my competitor (the excellent Smashed Toy), and it pretty much got panned. The voters told one thing I already knew, but kind of denied it to myself - it didn't sound finished. So I went back to the drawing board and started experimenting a lot more with the track - and bought myself a new VST instrument. The result was something that felt completely fresh and opened up a whole new range of opportunities for me. The new version is called '(D)Evolution - a nod to the old, crappy, version! This new VST instrument has allowed me to produce a whole new range of sounds, and over two days I wrote a completely new track that sounds like it means business. Synths and sounds that I made from scratch - no synth samples that I've found myself falling into of late - and something that I feel really proud of. It's a hard dance track called Underworld and I'm hoping to but it online this weekend.