behind the ghost, the making of ‘is this ghost’ by Careless light
My introduction to composing electronic music was through an old DAW called FruityLoops (now FL Studio). In FL I learned to love the piano roll workflow. If you’re not familiar with piano roll, it’s similar to a sequencer and also allows you to build chords and melodies easily. For more info, use the internet. Eventually, after writing 50+ songs in FL I decided to upgrade to a better DAW. I first tried an old version of Magix and found it to be rather glitchy. I then made the switch to Steinberg Cubase and found that the workflow was much, much different than what I was used to-but I loved it. It was very powerful and I learned a lot about recording while using it. After spending tons of time with Cubase and a midi controller I just forgot about piano roll altogether. Fast forward through years of other hardware/software combos to Ableton Live, which was sort of a re-introduction to piano roll for me.
As much as I love writing music on a computer I also longed for a portable device that had both a piano roll format and allowed me to compose entire songs...
I tried a handful of hardware devices but none of them did what I wanted. I eventually discovered the Synthstrom Deluge deep in a forum somewhere. At the time they were about to release the first batch and I missed the deadline. I believe I had to wait several months for the second batch. When they released the second batch I was on a walk with my kids and I was freaking out because I couldn't get a good signal. I added the Deluge to my cart and filled out all the required info and pressed submit, but nothing happened.
I thought I had missed out on batch two. I went through the process again and when I pressed submit it said that I had purchased two Deluges!
Another freakout occurred, but I was able to contact Synthstrom and they kindly removed one of my purchases. I instantly fell in love with the Deluge and started writing music on it right away. Synthstrom has amazing support and has fostered an amazing community of helpful individuals. Currently I have already created 137 songs/ideas. So, for ‘Is This Ghost’ I painstakingly went through and picked 13 of my favorite songs, imported about 180 files (in real time) into my computer and mixed them down. The album takes a step back into the original lofi sound of my debut release ‘Black Goo’. ‘Is This Ghost’ intends to tell a story with very few words and it’s chock full of nostalgic vibes-touching on important feelings and memories from my childhood. Chill and have a listen.