Category: composing

“Composers Play” Interview – “Rise of the Triad”

Posted on 2019-01-28 Written by D. Lee Jackson Leave a Comment

I have had the pleasure once again to have been interviewed by Scott Tobin, host of the “Composers Play” series of interviews. This time around, we discussed my involvement with the Apogee Software classic game, “Rise of the Triad.”

“Rise of the Triad,” or ROTT as it is commonly known, was my first attempt at writing a soundtrack for a video game. I was given six weeks to write 36 songs on my own time, more or less, and the result was one of the wildest soundtracks to ever be produced, thanks to the help of folks like Tom Hall, Mark Dochtermann, the late William Scarboro, and too many others to count. I had a great time composing the music, and I hope it shows in the interview.

With that, here is a link to said interview:

New Song Released – “What It Shall Be”

Posted on 2019-01-12 Written by D. Lee Jackson Leave a Comment

My first serious foray into the world of jazz/funk fusion is out and available for download from CD Baby as a digital single! “What It Shall Be” was released on Friday, January 11th, as an MP3-320 file. Grab your copy today at this address:

https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/leejackson12

There’s also a high-resolution 96KHz/24-bit version available on Bandcamp at this address:

https://leejackson1.bandcamp.com/track/what-it-shall-be-96khz-24bit-version

You won’t believe it when you hear it, but like all my other songs, this one was done “in the box” – meaning that no live musicians were involved in the recording. Only my trusty Roland SC-88Pro and several software samplers and synths were used. It still comes out sounding like a jazz/funk quartet, with a guitar, an acoustic bass, a person on keyboards (electric grand, organ, Mk.1 electric piano), and drums.

Geek insight of the day: I used XLN Audio’s Addictive Drums 2 on the song. I even sent off a copy of my finished product to XLN Audio to get their feedback. They were impressed! Said they liked the “ghost notes” I used. All the more reason to grab a copy and hear them for yourself.

Please spread the word!

“Composers Play” Interview Up On YouTube

Posted on 2018-12-03 Written by D. Lee Jackson Leave a Comment

I recently had the honor of being interviewed by Scott Tobin (website here, YouTube channel here) for his intriguing “Composers Play” series. Scott is a gentleman and a professional, and you’d do yourself good to look into his works. He conducted his interview of me over a two-day span (partially due to a power outage on my end) and then did an excellent job of putting together a three-part end product.

You can listen to the interview at these links:

Please help spread the word using the AddToAny icons at the end of this post, and of course, if you have any questions about anything in the interview, please don’t hesitate to ask using the Contact page. Thank you for reading!

Grabbag High Definition Remaster Available!

Posted on 2018-11-08 Written by D. Lee Jackson 1 Comment

I told you to watch for it, didn’t I? 😉

Now available on Bandcamp: the official 96KHz/24-bit re-recording, remix, and remaster of Grabbag, the Duke Nukem theme, done by yours truly! This new release has been created with meticulous care in an attempt to capture the spirit of my original 1995 recording as found on the Duke Nukem 3D Plutonium Pak and Atomic Edition CDs, but with as much clarity as possible. You can download your copy here, for free if you want:

https://leejackson1.bandcamp.com/track/grabbag-96khz-24bit-2018-remaster

Please note: to get the full fidelity recording, you want to select either the FLAC, ALAC, WAV, or AIFF formats for download. The MP3, OGG, and other formats will compress the file and not give you the full fidelity that the former formats will.

And now, the geeky details, for the audiophiles among you. The recording was, obviously, done at 96KHz and 24 bits, capturing sounds from my Roland SC-88 Pro (the original 1995 recording was done on an SC-88) into Cakewalk by Bandlab. All mixing was done inside of Cakewalk by Bandlab as well. Mastering was performed within Adobe Audition CC 2019. The end product was uploaded as a 96KHz/24-bit WAV file to Bandcamp.

As I said, you can download your copy for free if you want. However, a few coins in the tip jar would certainly be appreciated. 🙂

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