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! :)

Back from holidays and new song!

Hi again folks,

summer holidays are almost over for me. Just came back from a couple of weeks of relax away from the city, but before leaving I left one song ready to be released (well, it was more than one, but the rest will be released later). As always it's a one minute long metal song. But that's what bumper music for fighter pilots' podcast is all about, isn't it? :)

If you want to check the podcast episode where this song has been featured click HERE. The episode is also available on all big streaming platforms, including Spotify and YouTube.

During this two weeks of holidays I've been playing guitar around 6 hours a day, so expect to have new songs comming soon ;)

I hope you enjoy the rest of the summer. I'll be back soon, that's for sure...

Enjoy the song!

New song and Happy Summer!

Hi again folks,

 Summer is already here and here goes a new bumper song for The Fighter Pilot Podcast.

This one is inpired on a renowed german industrial metal band, and despite it wasn't originally meant to be used as song for the spy aircraft episodes Vincent prefered it to the one I created for them. So be it :)

This song was composed and recorded on February 2019, but hasn't been released until the SR-71 Blackbird episode has been published. I love this amazing spy aircraft since I was a kid, so I'm extremely happy to be involved somehow in something related to that rocket-like plane :)

Hope you enjoy the Summer. I'm keeping myself really busy creating more music, despite that isn't showing up here. But it will, eventually... :)

Kindest regards

Ridin'

Welcome back,

another ten days have passed and I've released another song. This one is a metal cover of the famous Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries", which is part of the second opera of the "Der Ring des Nibelungen". The fade in and fade out sections are original though:

Story behind is: there were plans to feature helicopters in the Aircraft Series of The Fighter Pilot Podcast, so we needed a song which could be linked to them easily.

It didn't take me too long to remember the famous movie "Apocalypse Now", where the original song was played through loudspeakers mounted on US helicopters while they attacked a North Vietnamese village.

Again, I didn't have a lot of time to record and mix this one, but It worked OK for the episode. Hope you like it.

As always you can get the full podcast episode here. The song appears at the begining and the end of it:

www.fighterpilotpodcast.com/episodes/040-h-60-black-seahawk/

Back to composing orchestral music. Well, kind of...

Ahoy friends,

so, next song on the "To-Do" list was an aircraft figher dedicated song. But putting it short, after I finished it Vincent thought it would probably fit better as music for other kind of aircraft. I'll talk you a bit more about that song very soon, as will be used in an episode which will be available probably later this month.

Anyway... Let's back to the song I was actually going to talk about, shall we? It's the "Antisubmarine aircraft" song. Thing is: the next podcast episode on the list was going to be focused on the S-3 Viking, an antisubmarine aircraft, so I was asked to create something that could fit there. Kindly enough Vincent suggested me to go towards the kind of music you can hear on submarine movies like "The Hunt for Red October" or "Crimson Tide".

Frankly this was unexpected. Until now Vincent always wanted to have rock songs for the podcast, but the soundtracks of these movies were orchestral. Not that I had a problem with that... actually it was quite the opposite! I was really happy to have the chance to visit again the kind of music I created for games and documentaries in the past!

Is worth saying Vincent pointed out also that he'd like to have a more punchy section during that song, and I imagined he'd like to have some rock there, so I focused on trying to blend both things in the same song.

Thus I decided to create two demos: the first one was basically orchestral, while the other one had a lead guitar with the orchestra supporting it on the background. As I anticipated Vincent prefered the second one. From that point the song evolved into a full "guitar hero" song, but I really had problems fitting the orchestral section among the drums, guitars and bass.

By the time I finished the song I got two different versions: on the first one the orchestra followed the chords of the rhythm guitars. The second one had an orchestra that didn't follow the guitars but had their own melody lines. This one also had a slightly different lead guitar track. In the end this second version was the one I sent to be used on the episode (due lenght limitations it had to be cut though).

But before sharing the songs with you please note the following: due I only had a few days to create the music for this episode I'm afraid to tell I don't consider it as a full-final version. I had to do my best with the time I had, so I just tried to get something acceptable enough to be used. Even if I got a finished structure for the song (which of course could be improved) the mixing and the mastering had a lot of room for improvement, as I had very little time for them by the time I finished the recording process.

Anyway, here is how the song version used on the episode sounds:

In the case you want to know how the other version sounds (the one with the orchestra following the guitars chords) here it is too, but remember: this one was never used on the show:

Hope you like them!

Two new songs for the start of the new year!

Hi everyone, and Happy New Year even if January just passed!

so... yes, this should have been published at the begining of January, but sadly I've been too busy to do it until now. Sorry!

The thing is that after I had a videocall with Vincent regarding what's coming on '19 for the Fighter Pilot Podcast it became clear that this year's schedule was going to be even tighter in terms of music needs, so I had to start working on new stuff right away before even posting here what I've had been doing during December.

Anyway, during December I was working on two different songs:

1. The first one was the "UFO song". This song appeared for first time on episode 35th (January 2nd), which featured an interview with a retired fighter pilot who had an encounter with an UFO during a training mission back in 2004. The events that unfolded then are well documented so you can read and watch videos about it all over the Internet.
   
   Going back to the music the idea was having a song that could fit on that theme. Besides it should have an intro section which allowed to introduce the event and create some atmosphere. Thinking about it I thought it would be cool to have a synthwave style song for this one. I've been listening a bit of that music lately and I think it fits the UFO theme quite well (may be because I grew up during the 80s and there was all this "E.T", "Third phase encounters", etc. all over the place at that time.
   
   I only had a few days to create this one so it's not that polished, but considering the time I had I think It didn't turn that bad.
   
   
   
   
   
   The full episode can be listened here (is also available on Spotify, iTunes, etc):
   
   www.fighterpilotpodcast.com/podcast/035-ufos/
   
2.  The second song is what we've called "the jingle". The idea here was having a light piece of music that could be used to play in the background while announcing sponsors on the show. Vincent sent me an example of the kind of song he'd like to have and I ended up creating this kind of bluesy song, featuring a lead Hammond organ and a blues guitar on different parts of the song.
   
   
   
   
   
   The song appeared for first time at the begining of episode 35 also:
   
   www.fighterpilotpodcast.com/podcast/035-ufos/

 I hope you like both songs. Rock on!