D. Lee Jackson

Words and Music

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“Composers Play” Interview Up On YouTube

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

Composers Play LogoI 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:

  • Part One
  • Part Two
  • Part Three

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!

Filed Under: composing, music Tagged With: composing, Duke Nukem, music

Calibrations Now Available on Bandcamp!

Posted on 2018-11-23 Written by D. Lee Jackson Leave a Comment

Small CD FrontI never thought I’d find myself doing this, but I’m celebrating my own Black Friday Event!

Calibrations, my debut solo album, is now available for download on Bandcamp! Here’s the link to the album:

https://leejackson1.bandcamp.com/album/calibrations

Calibrations contains the entire soundtrack to “Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour.” It also contains a track included with the game but not used, plus three new songs exclusive to the album. There’s also an interview with yours truly conducted by Jake “The Voice” Parr of The Cyber Den radio show, and a reading of liner notes and special thanks by Jake and myself.

There are big advantages to buying Calibrations at Bandcamp. You can download the album tracks in lossless WAV, AIFF, or FLAC formats if you want. Also, you’ll get bonus content, including high-resolution pictures of the cover, back, liner notes, and CD art, plus a bonus track of The Cyber Den Theme! All of this is available at the low price of $10 for the album plus the bonus content! (Of course, you can download individual tracks without the bonus content for just $1 each.)

Grab your copy today, and please spread the word!

Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour is ©2016 Balls of Steel, LLC, and published and distributed by Gearbox Publishing. Duke Nukem is a registered trademark, used courtesy of Gearbox Software, LLC.

Filed Under: album, music Tagged With: album, Bandcamp, Duke Nukem, music

Grabbag High Definition Remaster Available!

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

Radiation LogoI 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. 🙂

Duke Nukem and the Duke Nukem logos are registered trademarks, used courtesy of Gearbox Software, LLC.

All other trademarks are property of their respective companies.

Filed Under: composing, music Tagged With: Bandcamp, composing, Duke Nukem, music

Musical Hardware Havoc

Posted on 2018-10-04 Written by D. Lee Jackson Leave a Comment

PianoIf you’ve been following me on Facebook, you’ve seen that I’ve had a couple of issues with music hardware over the past few weeks. If you haven’t, you might want to read on. There could be one or two educational points within.

It all started with a vintage synthesizer. Many years ago, I bought a Yamaha CS6X.  It’s a very powerful synth, but circumstances have prevented me from using it in my music. That changed recently, as an opportunity to write more music presented itself. So, after I purchased a dual-level keyboard stand, I convinced my wife to haul the keyboard out of storage for me. We plugged in the power and the cables, then switched it on. I went to play it.

No sound.

I tried playing it through Cakewalk by Bandlab via my Arturia Keylab 88 controller. The level meters showed that a MIDI signal was going to the right place. Still no sound. I tried fiddling with the front of the patchbay. Still no sound. I messed with the cabling on the mixer. No sound at all.

That’s as far as I could go. You see, since I’m disabled (and still healing from surgery to fix a broken foot (a story for another time)), I can’t get to the gear that I originally assembled — in other words, the back side of the patchbay, where the problem likely exists. I’m going to have to wait until my son has time to come over to the house and help me. Don’t worry, he’ll be compensated.

The music hardware problems don’t end there, though. Another one hit me after a software upgrade. Allow me to explain.

Back when I started working on the Duke Nukem 3D 20th Anniversary World Tour project, I purchased a copy of Native Instruments’ KOMPLETE music software bundle. Talk about a powerhouse! It has samplers, synths, sound libraries, and more, all in one rather expensive bundle. Over time, I upgraded to the even more powerful (and more expensive) KOMPLETE Ultimate bundle. I’ve been using it ever since.

On or about October 1st, the latest and greatest version of KOMPLETE Ultimate became available. Of course, I had budgeted an upgrade to it, so I made the purchase and watched with great anticipation as the download commenced. Over thirty new sound libraries were included with the upgrade, all (I assumed) for use with the KONTAKT sampler that is part of the package. I assumed wrong. When the upgrade was finished, I fired up KONTAKT and looked for the libraries, only to find none of them listed in my database.

I went looking for them on my hard drive. When I found them and dug into them, I discovered to my dismay that they were designed for use with a piece of music hardware that Native Instruments builds and sells. That hardware is called MASCHINE. (Native Instruments does all the capitalization, not me, by the way.)

Sigh.

My options were few: either live with the fact that I had all of these untouchable sounds, or hunker down and buy one of the versions of the MASCHINE hardware. After some negotiation with my wife, I finally decided upon the latter. I chose to buy the entry level model, the MASCHINE MIKRO Mk.III. I got a good deal, thanks to the help of my sales representative at Sweetwater Sound, and by the time you read this, that model should have already arrived. It hasn’t as of this writing, though, so I’m looking forward to seeing how it works and am hoping that it doesn’t cause any problems with my Cakewalk setup.

Both my wife and myself have had about all of the music hardware problems we can stand for now. All I want to do now is write music. Please.

Filed Under: computer, music Tagged With: computer, Duke Nukem, music

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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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All donations go toward the creation of more music. Thank you very much!

Find My Music Via …

  • Lady Tygress' Suite and Other Commissions

  • Duke Nukem Tank Tracks

  • Derivations

  • Calibrations

Follow me on Bandcamp

Follow @leejacksonaudio

Recent Posts

  • New Music Collaboration In The Works 2023-03-23
  • An Audio Silver Lining 2023-03-07
  • New – “Song of the Weekend” Archive Online 2023-02-10
  • Heart Issues Under Investigation 2022-12-29
  • “Lady Tygress’ Suite and Other Commissions” Album Released! 2022-11-04

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