D. Lee Jackson

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Commissions, and a Fall in Winter

Posted on 2022-02-14 Written by D. Lee Jackson Leave a Comment

Montrose.is/gamesTime to report on another completed commission! While nowhere near as complex as the Ereis Overture commission, this one was difficult on a completely different level. It involved rock & roll that mixed a 70s sound with modern electronic drumming at breakneck speed. Not an easy pair of sonic textures to blend, but in the end the client was happy with the result. (I can’t share the result, unfortunately, because it is for a game that is still under development. Sorry.)

Speaking of the client, I would like to extend my gratitude to the husband and wife team behind Montrose.is for commissioning me to write this piece! They have been the best pair of folks that I’ve worked with in a long, long time. I wish to thank them for putting up with my hit-or-miss compositional process in the start: I take a while to get rolling, but once I do, watch out! 🙂  Please pay their website a visit, and if you have some free time on Saturday nights at 9pm Eastern Time, please head on over to Montrose.is/chatting for some good talk and some livestreamed art! (warning: can occasionally be NSFW).

Now for some other news. You may have noticed me missing from a lot of the usual places on the internet lately (Facebook, Twitter, Scribophile, etc.). That’s because I had a rather nasty fall on February 5th, the Saturday after the big ice storm hit the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. This was during the melting phase. I thought I’d heard rushing water outside our house, so I put on my shoes and jacket and went outside to investigate. I didn’t make it one step out before I slipped on black ice on our concrete patio. I fell forward and landed face first, hard. I had no phone with me, and I was in one of those, “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up” scenarios (I’m old, plus my knees hurt), so I crawled from the patio into the house and then onward to the living room to get my cell phone. I had to have Google call 911 for me because my glasses were so badly bent and scraped/gouged that I couldn’t see to dial the number (I’ve got a Google Pixel 6, so thank the maker for “Hey, Google!” built-in). To make a long story short, I wasn’t badly injured aside from some soft tissue damage, but my glasses were almost totaled. I’m lucky they didn’t shatter, but I can barely see through what’s left of them.

I managed to pull everything together and do work on my commission for Montrose.is, but that’s about all I was able to handle without getting a major headache. I’m still on hiatus from everything else, save for this blog entry (and for the next commission, on which I’ve already started work). Once my $400 lenses (you read that right – $400) come in, I’ll be fully back online. Until then, I’d appreciate it if you’d spread the word about this blog post for me across the social networks. Thanks in advance for your help!

Filed Under: commissions, composing, health, music, personal Tagged With: commissions, composing, health, music, personal

New Commissioned Single Out Now

Posted on 2022-01-28 Written by D. Lee Jackson Leave a Comment

Ereis Overture Single CoverThanks to commissions, it’s time to announce the release of a new single! This one is dropping today (Friday, January 28, 2022), and it’s the result of a client by the name of Mr. Peter Campi, who wanted music that sounded like the works of composer Miklós Rózsa, with a little bit of John Williams tossed in. Mr. Campi wanted something that evoked the sounds of the sinister side of the Roman Empire, but in an outer space setting, all within 3 1/2 minutes. Not an easy job to fill.

The end result is a work that I’ve named “Ereis Overture.” I will let you guess at the meaning of the word “Ereis.” The overture pushed me in ways I’ve never been pushed before. First, I had to unleash the forces of a pair of virtual instruments I invested in last year but have never used until now. These instruments, created by Aaron Venture, were his Infinite Brass and Infinite Woodwind virtual instruments. They’re quite the powerful beasts, and I fear I haven’t tamed them – I’ve only managed to get into the same arena with them, thanks to the help of a new piece of hardware, the TEControl USB MIDI Breath Controller. I also had to learn how to use the percussion part of another virtual instrument library, that being the Sample Logic Virtual Ensemble Trilogy. (Fortunately, I caught a break when it came to the strings – they were supplied by the Mighty Roland SC-88Pro.)

I wasn’t alone on my journey through this piece, thank goodness. This time, I had a special beta team helping to guide me as I wrote and produced the overture. This secret group of folks, who I call the Night Hawks (in homage to the late drum corps out of Houston with which I marched in 1984), worked with me on the project for several weeks, and they were incredibly helpful. I’m recruiting new members for the Night Hawks as I transition into work on my next commission. The recruiting is taking place in my Facebook discussion group.

Anyway, Ereis Overture is officially out on Bandcamp! I hope you’ll purchase a copy, but if you’d like to hear a preview, here’s a player for your listening pleasure: 

Filed Under: Bandcamp, commissions, composing, music, single Tagged With: Bandcamp, commissions, composing, music, single

Parts Bought, Commissions Still Open

Posted on 2021-12-06 Written by D. Lee Jackson Leave a Comment

TechnologyReaction to my announcement of limited commissions being open has been astounding. PCGamer first picked up the announcement, then USA Today published an article about it! As a result, I got quite a few e-mails about commissions, and have since signed agreements to do several of those. In fact, I’ve already finished my first commission, and I’d like to thank the commissioner, Fernando Calvo Schiappacasse, for trusting me to get the job done!

If you will remember, I was opening commissions primarily so I could finish buying parts for a computer build.  Well, thanks to what I’ve done so far, along with an eBay sale of some excess laptop RAM, I’ve been able to buy the remainder of those parts! The last part, the motherboard, was purchased over the weekend and is en route. I’m extremely grateful to finally be able to do this.

Does this mean that I’m going to close commissions, now that I’ve bought my parts? Not by a long shot. There are end-of-year bills to pay, and I need to boost the household income. There are also other items I’d like to buy for the finished new Music Computer, like a breath controller for composing more lifelike brass and woodwind parts with Cakewalk for Bandlab. So, for the foreseeable future, I will be keeping commissions open.

Once again, if you are interested in a commission, please drop by my Commissions page. I look forward to hearing from you!

Filed Under: composing, computer, eBay, music Tagged With: commissions, composing, computer, eBay, music, personal

Major Announcement – Commissions Open

Posted on 2021-11-20 Written by D. Lee Jackson Leave a Comment

Clock CrushWell, the computer build was coming along nicely until household finances reared their ugly head. I am now $529 away from completing the build, and that’s where I will stay until at least after the first of the new year. I’ve made great progress in getting things together using just my own money and have dipped into the household budget just once on a pre-Black Friday item that was about to run out of inventory.

So, I am officially on hiatus now. No more purchases from the household account. The only allowed purchases until January 2022 will be ones that will be made with funds I have in my own personal bank account. Therefore, as of this moment, I am open for limited commissions. See my Commissions page for details. Do you know anyone who needs a few minutes worth of music written for them? Have them contact me from the Contact Page and we’ll set things up.

Since I’m on Social Security Disability retirement, there is a limit to how much I can earn in any given month, We can discuss that when you contact me, since it will affect how much music I can write in a given month. I do guarantee, however, that I will be offering high quality product for the price we negotiate, whatever the limitation may be. 

Back to the computer parts list: at first, everything I make will be reinvested into the computer until I can bring the new build online. That’s the main reason for me opening up commissions at this time.

Now, allow me to post what I’ve got and what I’m missing so far:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type Item Price
CPU Intel Core i7-12700KF 3.6 GHz 12-Core Processor Purchased For $465.46
CPU Cooler Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler $119.02 @ Amazon
Thermal Compound ARCTIC MX-5 Incl. Spatula 4 g Thermal Paste Purchased For $7.58
Motherboard MSI MPG Z690 EDGE WIFI DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard $346.39 (not bought yet)
Memory G.Skill Flare X 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL14 Memory Purchased For $411.34
Video Card EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 6 GB SC ULTRA GAMING Video Card Purchased For $585.63
Case Fractal Design Define R5 ATX Mid Tower Case Purchased For $135.30
Power Supply SeaSonic FOCUS 750 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply Purchased For $113.65
Case Fan #1 Noctua A14 PWM chromax.black.swap 82.52 CFM 140 mm Fan $26.95 @ Amazon
Case Fan #2 Noctua A14 PWM chromax.black.swap 82.52 CFM 140 mm Fan $26.95 @ Amazon
Keyboard Microsoft LXM-00001 Wired Ergonomic Keyboard Purchased For $49.62
Custom Noctua NM-i17xx-MP83 chromax.Black, Mounting Kit CPU Coolers on Intel’s LGA1700 Platform (Black) $9.63 @ Amazon
Custom (SSD) Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD – High-performance storage for desktop and laptop PCs -SKC3000S/2048G Purchased For $426.57
  Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts  
  Total $2724.09
  Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-11-20 04:50 EST-0500  

The total of unpurchased parts comes in at just under $529, as mentioned earlier. The biggest issue is the motherboard. All the rest is CPU Cooling and case cooling. Once that’s taken care of, the system can start to go together. BTW, that total of $2724.09 includes the unpurchased $529 worth of hardware. Just so we’re clear on the matter.

Anyway, you see how close I am, which is why I’m so eager to do a few commissions. Please allow some time for me to go through any that I might get, if I get any. Thank you for reading!

Filed Under: composing, computer, music, personal Tagged With: composing, computer, music, personal

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Hello, and welcome! My name is Lee Jackson, and I'm the composer of "Grabbag," the theme to the video game Duke Nukem 3D, plus music for Rise of the Triad and Shadow Warrior (the original). I've got four albums out, with tracks on Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp, and SoundCloud! Read More…

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Find My Music Via …

  • Lady Tygress' Suite and Other Commissions

  • Duke Nukem Tank Tracks

  • Derivations

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Recent Posts

  • “COME GET SOME” the Collaboration Single is Out! 2023-05-26
  • Still Naming That Tune 2023-05-22
  • Name That Tune 2023-05-13
  • New Song – “Pavane” – On Bandcamp 2023-04-09
  • New Music Collaboration In The Works 2023-03-23

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