Mark Hansen Music - LDS Rock Music - Free Downloads

Mark Hansen Music - LDS Rock Music - Free Downloads
Get the new CD, "The Third Time" HERE




WARNING: Listening to this music doesn't require parental approval. It's a bit of clean rebellion. It keeps your outlook up and your hope alive. It's got strong drums and screaming guitars. It pumps you up and drives your life. It's a hunger for exploration. It chooses the right and returns with honor. It's music you don't have to confess to your bishop.

It's not your parents' "Saturday’s Warrior".

It's "A Joyful Noise"

Monday, January 31, 2005

I've just gotten another mailer for "Latter-Day Songs" prepped. It goes out tomorrow! There was a whole buncha signups over the weekend, which is really exciting! The site hasn't been up more than three weeks, still isn't either indexed or at least not ranking well on the search engines, but it's already generating more traffic that my own music site!

MRKH - Mark Hansen
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Sunday, January 30, 2005

We had another "How beautiful" choir rehearsal yesterday, and it was fun! I think we're going to try and record on the 11th. We'll have to see if that works out.

One of the choir members, as we were winding down, pointed out something I said. I'd been talking about the line in the final chorus that goes. "How beautiful/ How beautiful my soul/ When I say to Zion/ Your God Reigns" I was talking about the dissonance that happens between the choir, the melody, and the guitars at the end of the second phrase, at "soul", which creates powerful tension, and is resolved at the first syllable of "Zion".

Anyway, one of the singers mentioned, "Did you hear what you just said?"

Uh, no...

"You said, 'The interesting part of this line is that there's a lot of dissonance in 'My Soul' which gets resolved in 'Zion'!"

When I told that to John (who wrote the choral parts), later on, he said, "Wow. That's like the traveller who unpacks his bags, and finds something there that he didn't start the journey with!"

MRKH - Mark Hansen
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Monday, January 24, 2005

Well, I got up this morning and I was so enthused for my work last night that I did a little more playing. I'm still working the bugs out of having Cubase on a new computer. It seems like every time I launch it it hangs for a different reason, and it takes sometimes three tries to make it stick. Frustrating.

Then, I'd gotten this email from a friend of mine who lives in Europe (I've never met him face-to-face) about doing some collaborating, so I started working on some quick samples to send off to him.

One of them is called, tentatively, "I don't wanna Dance With the Devil" All I have so far is the chorus. Here's what I've got so far...

"I don't wanna dance with the devil any more
I won't take a chance on my soul any more
I won't take my glance off heaven any more
I don't wanna dance with the devil any more"

So, I'll send that off to him and see what he can do with it for a verse...

MRKH - Mark Hansen
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I've just finished a rough mix of "Desert Flower", that tune of John Newman's that he and I worked up last spring. Morey had come over and cut some drums, and I'd played guitar and bass on it.

But the timings were a bit sloppy on a lot of it, so I went into it and used the time warp function of Cubase to clean up the timings. That's tricky to do across several tracks, like you have to do in drums. I can hear a lot of flamming still, but overall I think it's cleaner.

MRKH - Mark Hansen
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Saturday, January 22, 2005

Kind of an interesting day for me today. Yeah, I've been struggling with my computer, but I got a post from a friend (Thanks, Matt!) and I think he's nailed the solutions.

Anyway.

This morning, after getting the kids to help clean up after their pajama party, and getting them off to the neighbors, I headed over to the church where I met up with a few enthusiastic souls willing to learn the choral parts to "How Beautiful". I'm going to record it again, and work it out this time. It was a small group, only 5, but we had a GREAT time doing it. I really feel that this particular song came through me, instead of from me.

And many many thanks to John Newman for his incredible choral arrangement!

Then, I went to Provo for a few sessions and presentations at the LDS Film Festival. One of these years, I swear I'm going to make sure that I can attend the whole thing, and check out all the presentations and the screenings. I always feel awkward, I don't have the time to really meet a lot of people or hang or anything.

Still, I did manage to achieve the primary purpose for going in the first place, and that was to pass around some demos. I got one in the hands of the Halestorm Entertainment rep. It was cool, because when I introduced myself and shook his hand, he said he'd heard of me before. That was cool.

I always get nervous doing that sort of thing, but I pushed myself to go and share and network. I'm glad I did!

MRKH - Mark Hansen
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OK, everyone repeat after me, "I love my computer, I LOVE my computer, I L O V E my computer..."

I hate my computer...


MRKH - Mark Hansen
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Monday, January 17, 2005

Been busy this last week, but not much recording to show for it. I've gotten all the computers and the home network set up and that's been really cool.

The big news is the first Latter-Day Songs newsletter just went out! I'm so stoked for this. If you're reading here and want to check it out, just click in and see!

MRKH - Mark Hansen
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Tuesday, January 11, 2005

I haven't gotten much actual music done this week. Our house has been in turmoil. For starters, we've been shuffling the roles of our family computers, and setting up the home network. As a result, I've had to transfer lots of hardware from box to box, and make sure that the new music box is configured for audio. Lots of files to be transferred from one to the other, etc... I've learned a lot, but I haven't gotten anything musical done.

MRKH - Mark Hansen
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Saturday, January 08, 2005

So, today, I gave Jodi a burned copy of all of my songs for "One United Generation". As we were listening to it, all was going along well until we got to "Out of the Chapel". I guess I hadn't listened to the final mixes, because when the time came for the guitar solo riffs in the second verse, they weren't there. I was surprised. It wasn't like there were dropouts or crackles, the track wasn't there. Everything else was just fine.

So, I had to go back and open up the files. I must've tried burning 4 or five mixes of the song with different switches flipped before I finally discovered what was wrong. Yeesh.

So, now, I have to reburn all my demo CD's, and re-weedify and install the song for my webssite...

Yeesh, again...

Then, I was reading in this music recording magazine and they had this poll of their editorial staff. They were each throwing out their wish list for cool recording plug-ins and features for recording softwares. I knew mine right off, so I now present:

The Hoover: A "Suck" filter

It allows you to filter out everything in your song that sucks. You can set it for a general broadband suck filter, inserted into the stereo bus. In this application it would filter out the overall suckiness of the song, leaving nothing but a hot, happenin' track. Or, you could select from any number of narrow-band presets, like the "Suckin Up the Mud" to leave your bass track crystal clear, or clear up that wobbly and pitchy vocal track with "American Idol". It'll filter the "Suck" right out of whatever ails your tune.

Another idea! They have Amplifier emulators that simulate a Mesa/Boogie, a Fender Twin, or a Marshall Stack, and they have Mic Emulators that can fake an AKG 414 or a $2000 Neumann. Now all we need is a Vocal Emulator! That would be cool. I could cut a track, insert it in, and with a few clicks of the mouse make myself sound like Geoff Tate, Steve Perry, or Rob Halford. You could purchase upgrade presets, too, like the Harmonizer that would make me sound like the entire group of N'Sync, or even the Mormon Tabernacle Choir!

I'm gonna be rich!

:-)


MRKH - Mark Hansen
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Sunday, January 02, 2005

I got a little time to myself this evening, after putting Brendon to bed. Jacob's up at the hostpital again, and Jodi's with him, so it's kinda quiet here. So, I fired up my microphone and did some vocals. Nothing major, just some experiments and scratch tracks.

I cut "Yesterday and Today" a couple of times. Not bad. Still obviously scratch, though. Nothing keeper. But it's good to have some guides in place.

And then, remember when I'd recut the guitars for "Turn it Up" in B flat? I finally got around to resinging it. It sure feels better in my chest voice, and I can flip up to the higher octave for the final choruses easier, too. But still, I wasn't even shooting for anything keepable.

I even experimented a little with the melody for "One United Generation" an octave lower. I'm not sure how I like that.

I've also been starting to contact people to get together and form a choir to re-attempt the choral parts in "How Beautiful". Like I mentioned, I think that's one of the ones I'm going to start the new year with. What other one I do in the first quarter fluctuates and flip-flops every time I think of it. I really have a lot of songs that I'm very excited about waiting in the wings.

MRKH - Mark Hansen
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