SchallWelle Awards Voting

Like last year I'm nominated again for the SchallWelle awards. Together with Remy Stroomer this time with our collaboration album 'PrimiTiveS'.

You can find Remy & Synth.nl in: Artist 2013 international
And PrimiTiveS in: Album 2013 international
Bring out your votes (also the simple instructions are explained here):

http://voting.schallwelle-preis.de/
I wish you all Happy Holidays and a Merry Christmas (if you celebrate it of course).

New Synth.nl website with HTML5 Media player

I just launched a new version of the Synth.nl website. The design is still the same, but under the hood it is now based on Joomla 2.5 where the old website was based on Joomla 1.5. I did make some adjustments to the design as well. It should load a bit faster now. I did rearrange some content: The interviews, reviews, pictures and videos are now accessible directly from the main menu. I think they are easier to find this way. But there is also some new stuff.

First of all I incorporated a new mailing list. It is now easy to subscribe and unsubscribe directly on the website from the 'newsletter menu' under the main menu. This is the first newsletter from the new plugin. I did delete all the old logins since it was full with spam accounts. Please make a new account for yourself if you want. It is now a bit harder for spammers since I use a Captcha verification.

The biggest change is the new HTML5 media player on the website. I used to have a flash player on the old website and got some complaints in the past because not all browsers support flash anymore. Especially on Ipads. Now it should work in all browsers.

I also uploaded new sound excerpts of 5 PrimiTiveS tracks. They are all 5 minutes long. So you get a good 25 minute impression of this over 70 minutes long album that I made together with Remy. I guess that should be enough for you to decide to buy it and support both me and Groove Unlimited my record label.

You can find the new player and PrimiTiveS excerpts on this link http://www.synth.nl/PrimiTiveS

Please help me to test the new website for errors. If you find anything please send me an E-mail on michel@synth.nl

Thank you very much for all your continued support!

Bellerob - Paper Planes Fan Video

Bellerob did it again! This time he made a very nice video with the track 'Paper Planes' from the PrimiTiveS album by Remy and Synth.nl Enjoy !

Interview with Bruce Gall on AR FM about PrimiTiveS

Bruce Gall from Sunday Synth at the UK radio station AR FM did another two hour special. This time on the PrimiTiveS album I did together with Remy Stroomer. Bruce played all 9 tracks from the album and in between he did an extensive interview with me. It was broadcasted on the airwaves and also on the web stream. I cut out most of the commercials, so it is a bit lot shorter now. You can listen to most of the album though. I hope you will enjoy it and buy the album of course when you like it. You can find a copy of the interview here: http://www.synth.nl/interviews/AR%20FM%20Interview%20(07-04-13).mp3

PrimiTiveS available as MP3 and FLAC

I have good news. PrimiTiveS is now also available from the download shop of Groove Unlimited. You can chose between two formats. Either 256 Kbit/s MP3 or Full Quality FLAC. Both files include the complete artwork. You can pay with PayPal or Ideal (from The Netherlands) and after your payment you get an immediate download link in your E-mail. All very easy and it saves you shipping costs if you are from outside Europe. You can find the download links on these URL's:

MP3 -> https://shop.groove.nl/gr-198-mp3
FLAC -> https://shop.groove.nl/gr-198-flac

More information on the album here: http://www.synth.nl/PrimiTiveS

Two more PrimiTiveS tracks on Elektroland Radio

Here is another chance to listen to two more tracks from the PrimiTiveS album by Remy and Synth.nl. They were played by Bjorn Jepessen on his radio show Elektroland. This radio show is also available as a podcast online, so you can download the show and listen to it whenever it is convenient for you.

You can find Bjorn's Elektroland show on this URL: http://www.nattefrost.dk/elektroland/playlist.htm

Ambient Visions Interview with Remy & Synth.nl

Remy and myself were recently asked to do an interview with Ambient Visions about our collaboration on PrimiTiveS. We gladly accepted this of course. Remy and I both answered half the questions and it is all about how we met and how the album evolved. I think it is an interesting read. So if you are interested you can find the whole interview on this URL:

http://www.ambientvisions.com/primitives.htm

[Release] PrimiTiveS by Remy & Synth.nl

First of all my apologies that it took so long to write this message. I have been very busy with work the last few days. But here is the good news:

PrimiTiveS was finally released on CD on the 6th of April! It was released during the E-day festival organised by our record label Groove Unlimited. So after 1,5 years of work it is finally there! Both Remy and myself are extremely satisfied with the end result. I think the music is a good mix between Remy's music and my music, but we both would never have made this on our own.

You can read a bit more on the album and listen to some samples on my website. The samples are just short fragments. Everybody agrees so far that the CD is much better than the samples :)

You can order the CD from these places:

http://www.groove.nl/jump2.php?artiest=synth.nl
http://www.desertedislandmusic.nl/

It will be available later on more places like CDBaby.com as are my other albums and it will also be available later as digital download in both MP3 and FLAC format. This can all take a while though. I will let you know when this happens.

The first reviews are also in already. You can read them here:

http://www.synth.nl/reviews-primitives/blog (don't forget to press 'Read More') on them. So far the reactions and reviews are very very positive :) We are both very proud of course!

Last week Bruce Gall of Sunday Synth did a 2 hour special on the album including an interview with myself about the creation of the album. I got permission to put it online in case you missed it. It will be an opportunity to listen to most of the music of the album as well. I will put that online soon and let you know.

So don't wait and order your copy now. You won't regret it :) Please let me know if you need any assistance in acquiring the album from your country. Thanks for your support!

I hope you will have as much fun listening to the album as we had creating it.

You can find more info here: http://www.synth.nl/PrimiTiveS

PrimiTiveS on Dreamscape Radio

Here is the first chance for you to listen to a track from the upcoming PrimiTiveS album of Remy & Synth.nl. Ron Boots plays a part of the openingstrack from the album on his weekly Dreamscape Radio. The track is called 'Underground Tubes' and it slowly warms you up for the rest of the album. (we hope). The whole track is 12 minutes and 18 second long. I hope you like it. You can listen Dreamscape Radio on this URL: http://www.dreamscaperadio.nl/. The show will be online for a week so be quick to listen to it.

Quick Update on PrimiTives and E-Day

I have a quick update on PrimiTiveS for you: Everything is done for PrimiTiveS. Wouter Bessels has done an excellent job on the mastering and everything is of now to the mastering plant. I also send out the first album previews to some radio stations and the reactions are very positive. I already got 4 interview request from that, so keep posted for news on those. I also replaced the sneak preview clips I uploaded last week with the final mastered version. You can find them on the usual URL's: http://www.synth.nl/PrimiTiveS and https://soundcloud.com/synthnl. of course this is only mp3 quality so the actual CD will be much better. More good news is that E-day goes on for sure! Enough tickets are sold now so you can definitely pick up your copy on Remy's stall on E-day 2013 on the 6th of April in Oirschot in The Netherlands. More info http://www.e-live.nl

PrimiTiveS Sneak Preview

I promised to get back to you when I had some sound clips. I have put together a short mix with sound clips from the first masters I got back of all the tracks of the PrimiTiveS album together with Remy Stroomer. The mastering process is not complete yet, but this will give you a good idea of the music and the overall sound of the album. You can listen to them on both my SoundCloud page or on my own website. Here are the URL's:
https://soundcloud.com/synthnl + http://www.synth.nl/PrimiTiveS
I hope you like them.

PrimiTiveS pre-order possible from Groove Unlimited

Remy and myself finished our work on our PrimiTiveS album. Wouter is very busy now for us doing his mastering art. We can hardly wait for the final release on the 6th of April. In the mean time Groove Unlimited is already preparing the release as well. From now on you can already pre-order the album from the Groove Unlimited CD shop. If you want to get it as one of the first I would say go to the website an order your copy. We will have audio clips available very soon, but I guess when you like Remy's and Synth.nl music you don't have to wait for that ;) You can pre-order your copy on this URL: http://www.groove.nl/jump2.php?artiest=synth.nl. If you want to be sure you can also get your copy first hand on the E-day festival on the 6th of april in Oirschot in the Netherlands. There are still tickets available. More information on http://www.e-live.nl/. More information soon!

PrimiTiveS Artwork Animation

I made a little animation of the artwork for the upcoming collaboration album together with Remy Stroomer. This animation and all the artwork was made in Cinema 4D.

New E-Day 2013 Website Design

Twice a year Ron Boots asks me to make a new design for the yearly E-Live and E-day events Groove Unlimited organizes. This this it is E-day time again on April the 6th. I made a new header graphic based on all the pictures he got from the artists and tried to make it look a bit like they are all on stage. I hope you like it. There are still tickets available by the way for this fabulous event where also the new CD 'PrimiTiveS' by Remy and myself will be released. So some listen to some nice electronic music concerts there and pick up your copy of PrimiTives from Remy and me personally. More information on http://www.e-live.nl where you can also have a better look at the new graphic I made.

PrimiTiveS Artwork Pre-Renders

This weekend I had another studio session with Remy Stroom in my studio. We are really almost done with the music for the album now. There is only one more studio session planned for the final touches. We also finished the artwork for the album now. I made some pre-renders of the artwork so you know what it will look like when it is finished. It always gives a nice idea to put the images on a jewel case for a rough idea. I thought it would be nice to share there views with you. I presented the cover before but in the picture on the left you can see the pre-render of the front of the CD.

And in the picture on the right is a render of the back of the CD. You can also find the track list here. As you can see the CD hold 9 tracks and it will be approximately 72 minutes in length. Today also Ron Boots visited my studio and we listened to the album. He agreed with us that this album is a good mix between Remy and Synth.nl and that it is music neither of us would have made on our own. I hope that gets you excited :) At least we are for sure.

And here you can see what you will see when you open the CD. There is also a little story about Remy and myself and how this album came about. In the mean time this story is also on my website together with the track list on this URL http://www.synth.nl/Primitives. Here there will be some audio material to listen to as well very soon and the links where you can pre-order the album as soon as that is possible. I will keep you posted on that. I hope you like the artwork in the mean time. Btw. You can click the pictures for larger versions. More information coming soon!

PrimiTiveS Studio Session with Remy and Wouter

At the moment Remy and I are working hard on finishing the collaboration album we are working on called 'PrimiTiveS'. Recently we had another session in my studio and this time also Wouter Bessels joined us. Wouter is Remy's mastering engineer and he will also do the mastering of our upcoming album. It was nice to chat a bit with the both of them, but we also did some hard work. Remy and I played the last lines of music so from now on it is only producing, mixing and mastering. The hard work has begun.

Wouter didn't stay all day, but we discussed a good bit about what we would expect from his mastering work. I worked with two different mastering engineers so far and they all have a different approach I guess. Wouter sure knows what he is talking about though so I have confidence in him :) He did like the rough mixes we have so far, so I guess we are getting somewhere soon. We have to by the way since the dead line is nearing. We discussed with Wouter that we would have to deliver track end februari. And that is soon.

This weekend Remy is coming over again and we have another final session planned in the first weekend of March. That will be the last chance to make any alterations. This weekend we will also finalize the artwork and we will probably share that with you after the weekend. We already determined the track names etc, but now also the track lengths are knows, so expect an update on that soon as well. I know you are all waiting for audio samples. You can expect those somewhere next month I guess. It is getting very exciting for me 2012 was a year without any release, so I cannot wait to get some new music to you guys. Keep on reading here for more news :)

PrimiTiveS Cover and Release Date

Just before the end of the year I had another meeting with Remy Stroomer to work on our collaboration album called 'PrimiTiveS'. Initially this project was planned for 2012, but we didn't make that deadline. We did set another dead line though. The release of this album is planned for the 6th of April during the yearly E-day festival in Oirschot that is organized by my record label Groove Unlimited. We also worked on the artwork some more and in the picture on the left you see the cover of the album. The album will be released by Groove Unlimited and will be for sale as a regular CD and and MP3 and FLAC download. I hope to update you with more news, artwork, soundclips etc soon. But I thought this was good news to start 2013 with and I wanted to share it with you. We are going to work some more now on the final mixing, mastering etc. Talk to you soon!

E-Live 2012 Report

On the 27th of October I attended the E-live festival in Oirschot in The Netherlands. This Electronic Music event is organized yearly  by my record company Groove Unlimited. The day started with a nice event. The official release of the first release by Jeffrey Haster aka Synthex. His CD is called Pythagoras and I was glad to see that he sold out the 25 copies he had with him that day. Congratulations on the new album Jeffrey. I think it is quite an accomplishment for a 13 year old. I'm sure he will go a long way. You can get this album on the same place as you can find my music http://www.groove.nl/

After that I had to find Glenn Main. He traveled by plane from Norway and asked me if I could bring my Roland GAIA SH-01 again for him. That was no problem of course, I did the same thing for him when he played in Germany last year. Here you see us both in a very nice pictures taken by Aleksandra Przybylska who came all the way from Poland to visit the E-live festival. Thank you very much Aleksadra for the nice pictures you send me! Oh and the Synth.nl T-shirt you see in the picture was made by my wife and kids. Thank you very much for that as well girls :)

Then I got another nice surprise. The day before E-live I got an E-mail from Rob Papen telling me that his upcoming Book + DVDs about sound design were finished. He filmed for the DVDs in my studio last year and we kept in touch since then. So  I asked if he had plans during E-live and he didn't actually, so I invited him to come. I wasn't sure yet if he could make it he said, but eventually he did :) It was nice to talk to Rob again and a lot of people visiting the festival recognized him from his time in Nova and Peru. I hope it inspired Rob as well to make some music of his own again. My wife took this nice picture of us and Rob insisted in holding my Apollo album since he knew it liked it a lot he said. A nice compliment for sure :)

All in all I had a great day. I watched 3 concerts in total Glenn Main, Ruud Heij & Gert Emmens and Space Art. For the rest I had no time unfortunately. Normally on a day like this I'm very occupied by talking with everyone. I enjoyed myself a lot, but these days always fly by. There was also a set back. I planned to have the new Primitives album that I'm making together with Remy Stroomer ready, but we didn't make the deadline. We are still working on it. It is more work than we anticipated and we are both very busy as well with other things. I will keep you updated on the progress, but there is still no definitive release date set. I guess good things need time. All in all I have a great day and I probably forget a lot of stuff in this post, but one thing I don't want to forget and that is to thank Ron Boots and the rest of the E-live crew for yet another great E-live!

New album with Remy will be called Primitives

At the moment I'm very busy working on a new collaboration album together with Remy Stroomer. We did a lot of sessions together in both our studios and things are getting shape. We have about 68 minutes of music divided over 9 tracks. I personally think this is going to be a very special collaboration. The mixture of Remy's Klause Schulze orientation and my Vangelis influence and also both our love for Jean Michel Jarre's music will make this a very interesting mix I think. We are still working hard and we were still planning for a release later this year, but we do not dare to name a release date yet. But we did decide on an album title. The album will be called 'Primitives'. We will let you wonder about why. I'm also working hard on the artwork. More details will follow as soon as possible.

Both Remy and myself will be present at both the Electronic Circus Festival in Guterloh Germany (http://www.electronic-circus.net/) on the 22th of September as on the E-live Festival in Oirschot in The Netherlands (http://www.e-live.nl) on the 27th of October. We wont make the release for Gutersloh, but Oirschot we are aiming for. I'm just not sure we will make it, still lots of work and we don't want to rush it. We WILL have a sneak preview with us though so you CAN take a listen for sure already. Talk to you soon!

Working this weekend on album with Remy Stroomer

At the moment I'm working hard on the mixing and production of the album that I'm collaborating on with Remy Stroomer. It is always more work than you think. Remy is coming over this weekend so that we can make some decisions together on the mix and production of some tracks. We are both very busy at the moment and sometimes it takes a while to get tracks back and forth over the internet. Sitting together with time dedicated to the music will help the progress of this project I guess. I'm looking forward to working with Remy again this weekend. I'll let you know how it went after the weekend.