Final Release: November 26, 2020
Production: 2011, 2019-2020
Genre: Electronic, Orchestral, Moody
Album Length: 43 Minutes
Availability: mr4music.com
Summary: Generation 4 is the final album of “Phase 1”. Phase 1 being all the music I first started from 2008 to 2011 then finished throughout the rest of the 2010s. The album is primarily electronic with heavy use of orchestral instruments. The sound is best described as music you would here in a movie or a video game. This project is a good example of the style of music I naturally lean towards when composing without any goal in mind.
Production: All of the original demos for Generation 4 were created in 2011, the same time Game Covers and The Void were started. None of the songs would be touched until many years later. Once The void was finished in 2019 I went through all of my remaining demo songs to see if any of them were worth salvaging. This was also the same year that I switched over from Pro Tools to Studio One as my production software. There ended up being several really cool demo tracks that I felt were worth my time to complete so I selected thirteen of them that would make their way onto Generation 4. The album title stems from the fact that this project is my fourth original album. I fine tuned what I had thus far and then exported all the individual tracks out of Pro Tools and into Studio One for further composing.
In 2020 I set a final deadline for the 26th of November, because that just seems to be the day of the year that I like to release projects. There were still a lot of changes and additions being done to the structure of the songs. I was now making use of Studio One’s virtual instruments along with manipulating the already recorded tracks that were created with Pro Tools. This process was a bit slower then I would have preferred because I was also learning the ins and outs of Studio One simultaneously. After the creative process was complete it was time to move onto the dreaded mixing stage. The mixing process went by a little smoother then previous projects because I had learned what not to do. Mixing was still a soul crushing experience for me simply because of my lack of real experience when it comes to this process. With all that said I am very happy with the final result of Generation 4.
Final Thoughts: Every album I’ve worked on up to this point has been a learning experience. With this album in particular I learned how to use Studio One, the software I’ll be using for the foreseeable future. This album was by far the easiest for me to finish compared to the nightmares that came before it. This must be proof that I’m starting to get better at producing. Another thing I find interesting about Generation 4 is that it’s my favorite album to date and it originally started with the mentality of it being the left over B sides project from everything that came before it. This is the first album I’ve created that I’m able to listen to without feeling a sense of failure. I still don’t consider myself to be on the level of a professional music producer but after completing this album I have a new sense of hope that I will eventually get there… Preferably before I get old and die.
