The mysterious Smallvirgin case

It was a cold and dark winter evening. As usual I sat by my computer and dug even deeper into the LMMS world. It was then, I saw it, on Soundcloud. The text read "Smallvirgin2". I clicked it and the browser opened the profile page full of LMMS material. At the point it was the best music made with LMMS I had ever heard. Then I noticed that Smallvirgin2 was followed by a certain Smallvirgin3... (War shout) AAAAAHH! It was a matter of seconds before I had subscribed to both of them. I calmed down, and as it turned out, I was right in subscribing. Smallvirgin3 had even better sounds than number 2. Smallvirgin3 was not followed by any Smallvirgin4, and that was fair enough, cause I spent weeks listening to all the songs.

- https://soundcloud.com/smallvirgin2

Norwegian Winter

- https://soundcloud.com/smallvirgin3

A logical thought struck like lightning another night: Where is the original? I threw myself into the chair, and at the third attempt I did not fall off. I scraped some ice from my computer - Norwegian winter - and fired it up.

I was right. Again! And I swear I listened to the sounds on this page too! They were not bad at all. "You can hear that this was an early stage", I thought that time. However I am personally far worse today... Some days later I eventually thought: "Something stinks". The smallvirgins were from France, and they all quitted making music around the same time. I began to think that they all were the same person, and just enjoyed playing with our heads...

You might think I am crazy, mohaha, but I´m going to prove otherwise! From the soundcloud profiles we get these few facts: Smallvirgin is occupied in Paris (or near Paris... I would have chosen a big city near me too...). Smallvirgin2 lives in the commune Ivry-sur-Seine just southeast of Paris. Smallvirgin3 has chosen a big area the region Île-de-France, this region includes Paris and thus Ivry-sur-Seine. Strange, eh?

Previously I wrote: "I swear I listened to the sounds on this page" when writing about Smallvirgin´s soundcloud profile. That is because a hot summer day the page suddenly was empty. Now, I am pretty sure I listened to this artist´s sounds. How could an artist with no sounds get 48 followers? EXPLAIN THAT DOUBTERS.

- https://soundcloud.com/smallvirgin

That´s when I had enough. I let some people know that I had decided to investigate the case, just in case the smallvirgin-killer decided to do something drastic, and started the investigation. I had done some research before and basically continued from there. After 3 seconds I was finished. A quick search on youtube had brought me to what appeared to be the smallvirgins youtube channel. DUN-DUN-DUUUN! I had not tried that before

I discretely sent a message, and 14 hours, 13 minutes and 43 seconds later (brace for impact) I got da Bomb. And by that I of course mean a message in return. As it turned out, I was right. Again! For the third time :-D Marvelous. Smallvirgin said that, yes, those were his previous accounts. He moved on to youtube when the third soundcloud-account reached the limit of a free account. So he´s alive! I´m alive too. End of story.

And now a tiny review of Smalvirgin, who I assume called himself Thomas for a reason. The newest songs are amazing, however most of them are remixes or Smallvirgin sample beats as he call them. Nevertheless they are beautiful and he has proved he can make his own songs too. Look for the [Smallvirgin Intrumentals] -text for original compositions (or anything which excludes remix and sample). He has made songs in many different genres, but the smallvirgin sound is always there, just like with the David Nimmersatt sound. So ambient is a description which mostly fits.

We are talking a couple of releases or more every month, so hurry up subscribing!

http://www.youtube.com/user/Smallvirgintube

David Nimmersatt (LMMS Artist)

Listen to David Nimmersatt

David Nimmersatt is his name and he sure loves his reverb! Artists might not dare to add heavily with reverb  on their music because it could be too much, and people are definitely going to complain, but this brave fellow does not fear it, and he has nothing to fear. It seems like he easily keeps within scale even when there are some tricky portamento going on.

Sometimes strange music, but never out of tune and it is extremely interesting. Maybe that is the German way? His sounds is for me the sounds of calm LMMS. It is THE calm sound! Aaaahh so chilling. Here we got an artist who is not even trying to fail in dubstep, hardstyle, techno or trance with LMMS. Why would he when he certainly knows what he is doing and it sounds good? Ok, he actually has released a hardstyle track - according to himself - but I am sorry, even that turned out beautiful. Piano, synth-strings and background-pads are common sounds in his compositions. Drums keeps the tempo.

What kind of genres can we push on him? Ambient and house maybe. Lately his tracks have gotten a more house feeling and better mastering. That is an example of improvement, and we all like improvement! David is constantly producing and he often gives away the project files on the lsp. So be sure to check him out there too and maybe learn something!

http://davidnimmersatt.blogspot.de/

Spade (LMMS Artist)

Listen to Spade!

The young and promising Adrian Cardwell, known as Spade, is already quite known I would say. 75 followers on Soundcloud is more than most amateurs can brag about. With his own official site already up together with a own Facebook site, he seems successful so far. And the music is of the highest quality I must say, and of course it is the music we care about.

On his soundcloud site he has said that he does not keep within one genre, but tries them all. I would say he - at least on the current date - is mostly mixing and making electronic music. Also dubstep and house is two fitting genres. He uses a lot of catchy rhythms and melodies, which I guess is what describes good music... Sounds and instruments which often are heard in the songs from this genious are: synths, piano and house-drums.This is not noisy music. It is sometimes calming even with drums, and Spade definitely has managed to keep the tunes beautiful and controlled. Dubstep could be somewhat messy, but I think Spade has a strict order in what old people would call chaos with bad telephone sounds (dubstep).

Many of his tracks is so good that it is hard to understand how this could be made with LMMS, but he states that it is just pure LMMS. He is just as good at mixing as Macrowave, or better, and Macrowave uses Ardour! If someone is going to get famous making music with LMMS, this guy right here is very close, at least with his music. Now go listen to his tunes before he moves on to Ableton or Logic .

http://spadeofficial.com

LMMS 0.4.14

The new version of LMMS comes with a bunch of new features and improvements. About time, some of us might say, it has been over a year since the latest release. Now the final version is here! I haven´t really got around to make use of all the features yet, but I´ll throw my opinion at you anyway.

A feature I personally like is the auto-naming of soundfonts and VSTi´s. It comes in very handy if you have a file and you don´t remember which soundfont or VSTi you used. Of course it also means you don't have to name all your different tracks strange names... At least my tracks often got some weird names. A strange thing I found was that if I opened old tracks made in 0.4.13 the names I had given them was overwritten by LMMS. Not a big deal, I ain't working on them no more, however if I were it would definitely be a problem. So I suggest finishing all songs in 0.4.13 before going to 0.4.14.

I am not the best guy in the world when it comes to mastering, perhaps less successful in mastering is more fitting.I have never tried to master a song in another program (Audacity, Ardour), which probably is the best thing to do, and so I have yet to actually need the feature "Export Tracks". I have tried it once, it worked, and so I guess it will be well accepted by many of you, and me in the feature.

The auto-save feature could be nice, but I have also experienced that LMMS crashes when saving in the middle of a play, and thus I have learned to save regularly and not in the middle of a play.

Just to get this article out before 0.4.15 arrives I quickly finishes now. I got the Hydrogen import to work, and I have used Hydrogen before. I somehow find that it is easier to produce good drum patterns in Hydrogen, and so with an easy import to LMMS this is getting really interesting.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/lmms/files/lmms/0.4.14/

Radiarc (LMMS Artist)

Listen to Radiarc

Radiarc is a LMMS artist with amazing music! Guess I like his songs because they are what one in the past would call classical, but nowadays we just tend to call them epic... He himself describe it as cinematic and orchestral, and if you have ever watched a thrilling movie, you know what kind of music Radiarc are capable of making.

Piano, strings (violin, cello) and epic drums are three sounds you will find in most of Radiarc´s music. The style is very often a calm combination of these and other sounds. Even though the music in most cases is beautiful and chilling, look up for the exiting changing in style which could happen in the middle of a calming phrase! WOW, it is both exiting and beautiful at once. Also electro can be found in his archive. If you ask me, it is too good for just being experimental.

He has made a lot of songs, so you will have a lot of amazing material to listen to. And the masterpieces continues to pop up! With a tendency of releasing one song every week, you should start listening right away...

Radiarc on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/user/PCHU13