Thursday 14 July 2011

Let James Introduce you To Duncan James

Having developed a very strong interest in music at a young age, I invested in a small recording set-up in 1986 - a Casio CZ1 synth, a Casio SZ1 4-track sequencer and a Carlsbro Colt 45 Combo speaker with spring reverb. With these, I composed music for a six-track project entitled "The Dream - The Ambient Album". I began to write bits of music here and there and then strung them together to make complete songs. However, having soon realized that four tracks were a bit limited for what I wanted to achieve, I purchased two Alesis MMT8 eight track sequencers, so I had 16 tracks to record onto.

Around this time, I was in London visiting the London Music Show. A stall was selling the now defunct Demo Chart magazine, this featured news, tips, interviews with bands and a top 100 chart. I entered the chart several times, under the name of White with my highest entry being number 43. This opened up a lot of doors for me and I had a lot of offers to collaborate with other artists. Between 1988-1993, I contributed to "Words To Be Heard", part of the Birmingham Youth Show, performing songs of my own and writing for other people. This had made me realise my potential and so I re-recorded "The Dream". the new version consisted of eight pieces of music. Now, finally, the CD version contains 10 tracks. The equipment I have now is a far more powerful system from when I started in 1986.

By 1988, I had upgraded to a Yamaha DX7S synthesizer, Akai X7000 sampler, Akai S1000 sampler, two Alesis MMT8 sequencers whilst keeping the Carlsbro speaker. it has taken more than ten years to get it to the stage of what you see now.

My studio is used as a ‘project studio’ , all the music is recorded digitally via an Alesis Multimix USB2.0 digital mixer. When the tracks are finished, all the data (which is stored on the hard drive of my computer) is run off onto a CD, taken to another studio where it is loaded into Cubase, mixed, then mastered and the finished tracks recorded to CD. Artwork for the album covers and labels are designed using a dedicated software package.

In 1995, and recording under the name of Stickman, I answered an advert in the local press searching for local bands and musicians to appear on a showcase CD, it was through this that I met my producer and keyboard player. Together, we have produced several albums, written radio jingles and music for plays. I have also been interviewed by several newspapers, been published in magazines and featured on Mixology, a CD based DJ magazine and Inspire, an Australian website dedicated to creative people with disabilities.

The following year, Dream Music Productions was set up along with Patch UK - a programming sideline creating sounds for various synthesizers. To date, we have a healthy database of clients reaching across the globe stretching worldwide.

2007 saw me signing a distribution deal to have our album "Cyborg" distributed worldwide. "Cyborg II" was released in June 2008, and our third album - "Electro Love" followed in 2009. For details of where they available, please see my blog.

The latest project "So Good", which concentrates on various styles of music and is aimed towards the TV and film industry, was released on 1st May 2010. Along with this release, we changed our name to Duncan J. White Productions inc. Stick @ It Records.

Some of my tracks - "Funktify", "Fly Away" and "Guitar Boy" have been uploaded to another myspace site that I helped set up with a friend. This can be accessed by clicking on the band website address in the General Info section above. The tracks on the page are of different genres to what is uploaded here. Please do go and have a listen.

We are always working on fresh, new ideas. I am available for interviews, articles, publicity shoots etc. to help promote our labels.

You may find us on the following webpages by clicking on the banners directly below and enter "Stickman" or "Duncan J. White" into the search field. The type of music on these sites are of different genres to the tracks on this site. Twitter is a direct link. You can also find my music on two music library sites - these are Sentric Music and Moo Moo Music.

http://www.myspace.com/stickman76590059

duncan@duncanjames.f9.co.uk

Reported & Bought to you by James Monk

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