Project 2025
By horatiuromantic on December 29, 2024 8:41 pm
Hi everyone! Here's my final piece for 2024, a premonition for 2025 that I hope will give you a good end/wrap-up of the last year and a good start for the new year!
I'm proud of what I've accomplished this year in terms of music, and you weeklybeats friends are a massive part of it! So thank you from the depths of my heart! 
And congrats to all of you who managed to finish the year with however many tracks!
The YEAR 2024
In summary, this year I released an album, made lots of songs and played many concerts in Europe (well ok one concert in Romania, and like 6-20 in Denmark depending if you count the open mics as concerts), and made a lot of video recordings that I'll process over the next period and put up on various platforms, probably mainly youtube which I invite you to follow.
The past few weeks I didn't do WB which is a shame but since August 2024 I played close to 20 concerts out of which ~13 were my own music, 8 were SOLO concerts out of which 4 were fully (!!!) improvised, and some of the others were also heavy with improvisation but also with my songwriting, played my album with a band, and uhhhh so many open mics and various jams!
I feel like I really stepped up my music game this year (esp the last half) and will continue to work on improving and expanding my music practice with more collaborations, a funky band, more solo concerts both improvised and written (composed?) music, maybe both guitar and piano based .... !??! Of course a lot of synth stuff too, and singing/spoken stuff etc. Basically a lot going on and a lot of directions to explore, and maybe even with some luck get closer to making a modest living from music (wouldn't that be a dream!!!). Currently I'm at half a rent from a few months of playing concerts, which I feel is quite something!!! but of course it's nothing in the grand scheme so I def gotta crank that part of it up.
The most exciting musical project of all for me is the improvised storytelling that is also hinted in this track. Altho when it's only solo, it has a different vibe, than when I can do it with a band, where I am free to explore the storytelling while the other musicians are providing support and reactions and helping to drive the story and the energy. I hope to develop this into a really unique thing that I can take around to some festivals at some point! Since you weeklybeaters are all over the world maybe it could be cool to travel around and play in different places and do like a tour where I also meet you physically to hang out and make music together! It would be so nice! Just have to find the excuse to come, via some kinda opportunity to play, festival gig or whatev... maybe it's just a dream.
The YEAR 2025
My musical plan for 2025 is to write more and better songs, record some, play more with my band (and with other friends), maybe even play at some festivals, and generally learn about how I can get paid for my music (without too much compromise).
Speaking of cashflow, I also just started a Patreon where I'll try to gather some of the people who are interested in keeping a closer eye on my creative process, and why not, give people a chance to support me in exchange for extra behind-the-scenes access. If you're interested in following it even for free I'd be very grateful! Let me know if you have experience with it or want anything in particular shared, and I'd be up for shaping it towards that. Also let me know if you have a creator account yourself, or rather prefer a different platform. I'm not in a position to support right now, but I am happy to follow...
https://patreon.com/horatiuromantic
About Project 2025 (the track)
I made this track as a spiritual successor to all the Levi tracks from the beginning of the year, and with the improvised storytelling flair that I want to pursue further. I jammed a bit to find a groovy bassline, settled on some funky sounding electric piano chords to set a mood that I can play around with, and then went to town telling the story. Later, the other elements started happening, and I basically did the track minute by minute, or like section by section - the intro, then the next part, etc. doing it vertically so the sound is there all the way, rather than finishing each layer of instrumental before the next.
I recorded it with my trusty SM58 thru my audio interface (Volt 476) in Romania, where I'm currently celebrating the holidays with my family.
I used LA2A compressor on the voice, and a send for TAL reverb 4, UAD brigade chorus and UAD galaxy tape echo.
I used my fav electric piano from UAD with the built-in effects - leslie speaker, chorus, delay.
I used UAD minimoog plugin for the bassline and the screaming synth. The midi controller I have has a pretty decent pitch bend mod wheel so I had fun with that. it's the Fatar Studiologic VMK88 old midi keyboard - so good! great heavy action, lots of knobs. Oh yea bass goes thru a UAD fairchild 660 for extra grit, but not sure it's needed after I tweaked the bass filter to leave more high end after listening on laptop speakers.
I used Levi the drummer (remember him?) plus "beat machine" Anton, also a drummer from logic that plays the ...beat machine. I added Fairchild 660 compressor to Levi to make his drums have more OOMPH.
I used wack strings from Logic to add that extra layer of "thought" when the story gets to that point. Curious to hear what people will be reminded of - for me it is def a callback to headhunters herbie stuff altho I tried not to steal stuff but rather go with the sound I feel the need to hear.
Final mixdown with some tape effect, some eq to boost the bass and high, and some compression to glue it all together. My "mastering" setup heheh.
Oh yea! Surprise in the track is that my mom did actually interrupt while recording to go to lunch! I decided to keep that section because it fit the vibe of the track.
THANKS TO YOU
Thanks for reading and listening and thanks for all your WB contributions this year! Proud of this community and being part of it! Hope to hear many of you during next year, and of course back again in 2026! Can't believe it's been already a year!!!!!!!!!! Feels like we started yesterday!
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