Dominant Fury

 Hi again,

well... here goes another song: "Dominant Fury" is a 3 min long cinematic orchestral song. It features a calm first half section and an epic second half. It has some Middle East flavor, as it was created to be used in the premiere of the Digital Combat Simulator Campaign "Raven One: Dominant Fury", which takes place in that part of the World. 

The campaign was created by Baltic Dragon and is based on the book trilogy "Raven One" by Kevin Miller. This new campaign is a prequel of the successful DCS "Raven One" campaign, also by Baltic Dragon. 

Baltic Dragon provided some guidelines about what kind of song he had in mind and gave me feedback during the creation process of the song. This is the result:

This is the audio version:

 

The song was featured for the first time on this preview video of the "Raven One: Dominant Fury" campaign:

 It also appears at the end of Air Combat Sim Podcast Ep. 30, where the campaign was previewed:  

 

Days later the official trailer of the campaign was released, featuring the whole song:

 

 It also appeared in the campaign's quick guide video:

Hope you like it :)

Kindest regards

Happy new 2022 and a new song!

 Hi again folks!

so, 2021 has passed and we have a brand new year to waste. And with it comes a new song! The Fighter Pilot Podcast requested a new song to be used as theme for the whole 2022 year. Once again it had to be a metal song, so that is what I created!

The final version wasn't the usual song though. It had been created to be easily editable by the podcast production team so it could be cut or looped to created the bumper of each episode depending on the needed lenght. Thus it had a long 45 sec loopable intro, followed by two different sections separated by a few seconds so the trails of the first one didn't overlap the second section and they could be used independently or merged, depending on the needs.

Once finished I created this edited version which you may consider a "normal" song. Anyway, here it is:

Hope you like it. As always, take care out there and see you here again soon!

Regards

"The Raven" - Orchestral section

 Hi again,

a couple of days ago someone posted a comment in the YouTube video of one of my old songs ("Entering Battle Reprise"). He/She suggested me to create more music like that (orchestral/epic). 

Truth be said I haven't created a lot of songs like that in a long time, mostly due the kind of projects I'm involved with lately needed rock/metal songs in most cases.

But then I remembered "The Raven", a song I did last year for a campaign that was being developed for DCS World, a Flight combat simulator. This song started with a short rock introduction and then a longer progressive metal section. After that comes an orchestral theme, which was calm in the beginning, but then evolves and becomes an epic piece.

So I decided it was probably a good idea to publish that orchestral section separately. I've just uploaded it to Bandcamp and also to YouTube, using as video the trailer created for the campaign when it was released. Here is the video:

And If you just want to stream the audio here it goes:

I hope you like it!

Regards 

The 80s are back!

 Welcome back folks!

In case you didn't notice: the 80s are back. Haircuts, clothing, movies and of course... music. Yes... even John Mayer has released an album with sounds, art and videos like the ones we had during the eighties.

So... believe it or not my next song had to be inspired by that decade. I can't deny I dig a good amount of the music and movies that were done back then (others was utterly bad though). I listen or watched them quite often, and for some time I have wanted to create some music with the kind of sounds we were listening on the radio or as movie soundtracks then. But I didn't really sit to do it. Until I was offered the opportunity to create a theme for a new podcast focused on the F-14 Tomcat. If you don't know what that is: does "Top Gun" rings a bell? Yes... that airplane :) So, the podcast is called "F-14 Tomcast" (I love the name, hehe), in case you feel inclined to give it a listen.

Anyway, with that movie in mind I created this song, "Catapult". The name is descriptive enough if you're interested on jet fighters, aircraft carriers and that kind of jazz. And for this special occasion I've even created a music video. Here it goes:

As always the song is also available as audio streaming on Bandcamp:

 I have to say that despite it's not perfect  I'm quite proud of the final result. I think the goal was achieved (sounds like the music you may expect hearing while watching a jet fighter movie from the 80s) and I think my recording and mixing are improving. And I kind of like the song itself too.

Enough talking... hope you like it.

See you on the next one!

So... that was fast!

 Hi again folks,

a request for a new song for the Warbirds series came out of the blue last week and I just had a few hours to create it before leaving for the weekend. 

 So I came up with a couple of ideas: a hard rock song that was discarded, and this one. Is just a simple metal song, and I created, recorded, mixed and master it in around three hours, so... that was fast! and also that means it's not that well rounded, but a deadline is a deadline! :)

Hope you enjoy it anyway!

See you soon!

Celebration!

 Hey folks,

I hope you're doing extremely well :)

Year 2020 is coming to an end, and it's also the moment when The Fighter Pilot Podcast has reached its episode 100th. To celebrate such special event I've composed this new song "Celebration":

Believe it or not it started as a funk/disco song inspired by Kool & The Gang's "Celebration". Then it morphed into a kind of western movie soundtrack But in the end it has ended as an orchestral fanfare, very, very far from the first version of this song.

I do hope you a Happy New Year (Xmas has already passed but let me wish you a belated Happy Christmas too). Let's hope 2021 will bring back some of the things we've lost during 2020.

Regards

The Army Song

Hi once more folks,

how is it going? Is the Summer being hot enough? :)

Let me introduce you the last song being featured on The Fighter Pilot Podcast: "The Army Song".

When I was asked to create some music for the upcoming "Army month" this song instantly came to my mind. It was obvious that a punk/rock cover of "The Caisson Song", or "Army song" as is called nowadays, was going to be the perfect choice. So here you have it: a two minute long version with a lot of guitars. I'm sure it will almost invite you to march while listening to it! ;)

 

"The Raven". Or a proper epic song.

Hi again folks,

 

 Summer is already here, and is time to show you some new music!

This new song is quite different to the ones I've been releasing lately. Instead of a fast paced, direct 2 minute long song this one is not short by any means (6:36 min), and is the kind of song I love: longer, with a lot of different sections and music styles and epic.

It has been created to be used in the Digital Combat Simulator F-18 Campaign "Raven One", created by Baltic Dragon and based on the book "Raven One" by Kevin Miller. I had less than a week to complete it, so there's a lot of space for improvements and I'd be glad of change some parts and do a proper mix if I get the chance of releasing an updated version. But you have to accept how creating music for a specific project works: a deadline is a deadline.

You'll see it is anything but boring, and it gets better as it gets going... It starts with a short and calm rock guitar section (which I'm not totally happy with but I reached the tight deadline before I could replace it with anything better) and then turns into a progressive metal section, which I like quite a lot, despite I'd have liked to get even better...

 

But don't worry, if you're not into metal it doesn't last long anyway: at 2:35 the songs leaves behind all guitars and drums and becomes an orchestral theme, similar to some song you may hear as part of the original soundtrack of a movie. It starting quiet and calm, but it evolves constantly, reaching at the end its most epic section, with the whole orchestra, including the choir and all the rings and bells (literally). 

 

Be patient and listen it untill the end, you'll see why I wrote that it gets better as it gets going. Hope you like it. Enjoy your summer! :)

A new decade, a new podcast and more rock!

Hi folks!

Xmas is already over and we're well into 2020 at this point. With the new year and decade comes a new song for a new podcast: the Air Combat Sim Podcast.

Despite is different to the Fighter Pilot Podcast this one is also focused around combat airplanes, but from a different perspective: PC combat flight simulator, as DCS, IL2 and the likes.

The team behind it requested me a rock song to be used as main theme and I came up with this idea after several tries. It sounds like a 80s guitar hero song, as that is what comes to my mind when I think about that kind of thing (yep, I grew up watching those cheesy 80s air combat movies...)

Hope you like it! :)

Xmas is almost here, so let's drop some bombs!

Hi again!

December is "Bomber month" on The Fighter Pilot Podcast, and for this mini series I was asked to create a specific theme.

Being bombers not particularly fast or agile I had to create something resembling that. So, some old school heavy music was needed.

I was playing guitar in my parents' garage back in the 90s when I came up with a riff that was that kind of thing. Despite I didn't intend to do such thing it sounded (to me at least) like Black Sabbath. I remember recording it on cassette with a friend playing some home made drums (don't ask) and it sounded great on that big space, reverberating from wall to wall, which contributed to make it sound even heavier.

When I was requested to create the bombers' month song I remembered that riff, and thought it would make the trick as bomber themed song. So, I recorded and mixed it trying to sound similar to the earliest Black Sabbath albums of the 70s.

The overall recording, mixing and mastering process tries to bring that vintage sound back too: how instruments sit on the stereo spectrum, the tape noise, etc. Is my personal XXI century homage to that sound!

The guitar, which uses the Laney amp model Tony Iommi used back then, is doubled and panned to the right, while a saturated bass is panned to the left. The guitars' reverb is panned to the left too to create a wider guitar sound, which was a mixing trick used back in those days.

I kept a heavy sound for the drums with a lot of reverb also. No fancy playing, just "caveman" playing and fills.

The song was used for first time on the first episode of the Bomber series: The B-17 Flying Fortress.

Anyway, hope you like it!

If you want to listen the full episode click HERE.

Kindest regards

Summer is over, but we keep the summer mood on with this new song!

Hi all,

yeah, well... Summer is over. We're back at work and the rest of our daily routine. But this last song I've published kinds of keeps the happy mood of the Summer on!

Meant to be used in a podcast episode out of the "aircraft series", the goal was to create a more festive song. But it couldn't go "full party mode", it had to have a quick pace to fit the opening of the episode while keeping it tamed and with a happy mood. So, what came out was a straight and simple rock song, even with pop touches (that drum pattern is anything but used on metal).

The song was released on September 22th 2019, as the "Cargo song" featured on the C-2 Grayhound episode, but was created, recorded and mixed during early August. If case you want to listen the podcast episode where it was featured just click HERE. Hope you enjoy the song! :)

And now a space themed song

Hi again,

well... the next episode of the podcast: "Fighter pilots in space" was planned to be released on September 20th. For that one I was asked if I'd be able to create a cover of  David Bowie's famous "Space Oddity" song.

Beyond my worries regarding the copyright infringement that may mean creating a cover of someone else's work I was willing to do it. I do really respect Bowie's contribution to music and I've always loved that song. As I'm not getting money or monetizing this one on any way (I'm also not uploading it anywhere) I accepted the challenge and came up with different versions.

The one I liked the most was one which contained a  punchy post-rock section, but Vincent kindly discarded it (I guess he likes hard rock but up to certain point), so I had to take a more conservative approach and in the end created something that he found more of his taste.

There are two slightly different final versions that are in fact used in the episode: the one used as outro is longer, and it's  first section was closer to Bowies' song. The second, which has been used as intro, had a different initial section in the form of a chord based mellotron (while the other one had just a melody line played by the mellotron) and different drums approach.

I have to admit I don't really like any of these two. But we ran out of time doing tests so these are what I got. Hope the listeners will feel the theme of the episode properly.


Oh, almost forgot... apart of the cover I also created a 14 minutes long song which was meant to be used as background music during the episode. It's basically a guitar improvisation with space-ish synths on the back. I did enjoy creating it and I think it would have fit fine, but Vincent don't like the idea of having background music behind the speech so he didn't use it.

Anyway, as I'm not sharing the "Space oddity" cover I'll share this song with you instead - CLICK THE IMAGE TO LISTEN IT. Hope you like it :)

Regards

New music!

Hi again,

I know haven't published any new music lately (despite I kept playing and composing). But today is the day music comes back to this blog! :)

Just a few months ago I started to listen Vincent "Jell-O" Aiello's The Fighter Pilot Podcast, a cool podcast about fighter pilots, their planes and that kind of stuff.

Fighter pilots and planes? Yep... since I was a kid I've loved jet fighters and warbirds, and despite in real life I never had the chance of being too close to them I've enjoyed them on simulators and books all my life.

Thing is I'm enjoying that podcast so much that I offered Vincent to create music for it. And he accepted! It's going to be focused only on metal/rock genres, so don't expect to find any orchestral songs there. But for me is exciting anyway because as you already know I love these music genres too!

Here's the first song I created for the podcast. It's going to be featured as intro and outro (there're two differents versions of it) on episode 16th, which will go online on June 1st. If you want to listen it just click the "Play" button below:



And that's all for today! I'm sure I'll be back very soon with more music created for The Fighter Pilot Podcast :)

Kindest regards