- Looming Encounter
I have been sitting on my latest EP release for over a year. It was mixed, mastered and graphic work was complete – I just had to pull the trigger. But I couldn’t. Something was not sitting right, or I guess in this case, something was not sounding right.
You see, I suffer from high frequency hearing loss. I get annual hearing tests, and thankfully they are about the same each time, but you see it in the curve, the high end acuity is not there anymore. But there is something else too, something that I have learned is called “recruitment.” This condition, strangely enough, starts to make high frequencies louder in my mind the longer I listen to them. It’s more perception than it is reality, and I experienced it a lot when I was putting together my Christmas release last year titled O Holy Night. And at the conclusion of that release, I told myself, that I couldn’t trust what I was hearing and therefore the new EP release I was planning on releasing after the holidays last year was shelved, as I began to rethink my strategy.
So at this point you may be thinking, no big deal, get someone else to master it, but there is the rub, it costs money to get a good mastering engineer for my style of music, and let’s be honest, Spotify royalties are not paying for that. So instead, I began to work with a new method, which is called “reference” mastering. That is where you find something that is similar and use it for reference. I basically had to retrain my ears that what was sounding awfully rich on the high end was not being heard that way by others. So with this new skill and some trusted musician friends to check my work, I completely redid the mix and master for that shelved release. And on November 21, 2025, you can finally hear the new T.O.D.D. release called Encounter.
So, why call it Encounter? It comes from the lead piece titled “An Unexpected Encounter.” I composed this one a few years ago and I have always received strong, positive feedback from those I previewed it to. The track has a pulsing rhythm that reminds me of Blue Man Group, but it is also mixed with distorted strings, guitars and violin. While composing it, I envisioned a secretive underwater mission that launches from a boat and then they unexpectedly encounter a bioluminescent humpback whale; mesmerized they all take a moment to absorb the experience before moving on with their mission.
The next piece is something that I composed while on spring break with the family one year. They were off on the slopes and I was enjoying uninterrupted personal time. Since it featured steel pedal guitar like an earlier piece I titled “She Let’s Go,” I decided to call this one “She Takes Hold.” It is one of my favorites on this new release.
The third track was almost tossed in its earlier stage of development, because it just didn’t seem to move me at all. It was an experimental track based on a music library that is supposed to allow for easy film/TV scoring. I decided to take as many elements as I could overlap and still have it sound good. I then filled it out with original electric guitar scoring. This scoring library is called “Cinematrix,” so I gave the track a pun-like name of “Sin Matrix.” But it just sounded like something that should be under a film’s dialogue; it just didn’t stand out and that is when I had the idea to find dialogue from one of those old sex ed movies from the 50’s and intersperse samples from those films. I found an ideal candidate that was free of copyright called How Much Affection (1958). Once I had those samples in there, the track could stand on its own and was worthy of release and worthy of a new title, “Sin Matrix (Desire).”
The final track on the EP is something I composed after I learned that Daft Punk was breaking up. Daft Punk is one of my favorite bands and I especially loved their work on Tron Legacy. So I started the piece with a brass fanfare, in their honor ,and then I moved into something that sounds kind of like Daft Punk, but also sounds like me. It is electronic, but also has strings. At one point, I joked with myself that it is by T.O.D.D and features The Other Don Dixon. Hopefully get the humor in that. In the end, I called it, appropriately, “Adieu.”
Now for the artwork. I chose my visualization of “An Unexpected Encounter” as the foundation for the cover artwork. I found a great picture of a whale that was royalty free from NOAA and modified the heck out of it to make a neon blue, bioluminescent whale (see cover artwork above.)
For the inside sleave, I went with the “agents” of the underwater mission, who see the luminous whale receding into dark waters. The original image was royalty free from the Department of Defense. It didn’t feel so strange using that over a year ago when I was working on the artwork, but now . . .oh, well, it is done.
And for the traycard, I chose another angle of our featured whale.
One thing you may notice is that the third track is listed as “Desire” instead of “Sin Matrix (Desire).” I originally was thinking that I would use the shorter title, but a year later, I changed my mind.
So look for the new release to be available in all the usual places on November 21st! - Am I Late? Or Am I Early?
In my haste last year to get a Christmas EP out into the world before Thanksgiving, I realized today that I never actually posted anything about the release on my website. Today, I am remedying that and you can check out samples and learn where to hear last year’s release of O Holy Night plus get some insight on the release below.
Every one in a while, I do get into the holiday mood and dabble with some holiday music. My first was “What Child Is This?” also known as “Greensleeves.” I actually released this one as a single back in 2020, back when I knew far less than I do now about audio production, mixing and mastering, so I pulled the single, cleaned it up and put it in this release.
Later that holiday season, I recorded “3 Variations on ‘O Holy Night’.” Probably the most interesting variation of the 3, at least to me, is the 3rd, which is in 4/4, as opposed to the traditional 6/8 time signature of the piece. It gives it an interesting feel that is really punchy and upbeat. I invite you to check it out.
In 2021, I started working on something that was not holiday related at all, but I was really enjoying this pipe organ riff I was working on and as I gradually expanded it and added a choral section, the Christmas lyrics just came naturally:
Verse 1 – Dominus Sanctorum. Deus Nobiscum. Dominus Pastor
Verse 2 – Glory to God, in the highest. Born in Bethlehem; Our Lord Messiah.
In the end, I titled it “Cantat Pastoribus” which is Google Translate latin for “Shepherd Song.”
I didn’t get into the spirit again until 2024 when I started dabbling with an overlapping medley that I ended up calling “Celestial Christmas.” This piece has several melodies that overlap at given times:
“O Holy Night” with “Silent Night”
“Good King Wenceslas” with “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear”
“Angels We Have Heard on High” with “O Little Town of Bethlehem”
With these four recordings, I felt I had something worth releasing and since the majority of the content revolved around “O Holy Night,” I decide to name the EP as such.
Now for the art work. For the front and back cover, I chose Adoration of the Shepherds (1622) by Gerard Van Honthorst.
Adoration of the Shepherds (1622) by Gerard Van Honthorst As I mentioned back on my Pause release, I am a big fan of Baroque art and this is a great example with Jesus being the source of illumination. With this piece, I juxtaposed template lettering, mainly because it was antithetical to the nature of the painting, but it worked so well together (in my opinion).
Front Cover When you compare the painting in final front cover, you can see how I emphasized the illumination of the Christ child so that Jesus and Mary are the sole focus.
For the inside cover, I did little more than apply a severe gaussian blur to the source image to give me a nice background to work with:
Inside Cover And then for the tray card, I took my modified version of the painting used for the front cover (illuminated version), darkened the edges and then applied a blur to the edges to keep the focus on the subject matter. To be honest, the shepherd on the far left just had a face that was distracting and pulling attention away from the subject matter and I used subtle tricks to de-emphasize it.
Tray Card In addition to this release, I took some time and put together a Christmas music playlist on Spotify with some of my favorites. I hope you will take some time to listen to O Holy Night and playlist, once the holiday mood strikes.
- As Falls the Planet, So the Planet Falls
I sit here, on the eve of my birthday, 2 days shy of the release of my new EP titled Planetfall, and I take a breath and exhale. Between work, family and my music, I lead a very busy life. The release of my last album, Pause was actually no pause at all for me, as I immediately went into post-production, mixing and mastering of Planetfall. Why an EP you ask? I think I will save that for the next post, but for now, as I like to do, I want to share with you background information on the new release and artwork.
So why call it Planetfall? The title is inspired by the first track “Last Train Before Planetfall,” which itself was inspired by a particular Loki episode titled “Lamentis.” In this episode, the Loki characters literally board the last train before a planet comes crashing down upon them, but the music of the Loki series was also inspiring, with its rich synth textures (composed and performed by Natalie Holt); it brought forth a creative burst of energy and I composed “Last Train Before Planetfall” over the course of a few evenings.
For the album artwork, I again turned to Artvee.com for public domain content that would align with my album title. One of the earlier pieces of art that caught my eye was Selene (1880) by Albert Aublet, in which I modified to look like this:
And the above image was a pretty solid choice for nearly 2 years (yes, that is how long this release has been planned), but then I discovered Question to the Stars (1901) by Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach.
Question to the Stars (1901) by Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach This painting already had an ethereal quality to it and it seemed to match the theme of the other compositions I included on the EP (“Indulgence”, “She Lets Go” and “The Sprite Catchers”) and I only needed to add something to it to match my planetfall theme, so I simply added a planet in the distance obscured by fog and mist and came up with this:
The text layout and font choice, by the way, was done by my daughter, who will be pursuing a degree in graphic design next year.
The other great thing about this painting is that they came in a series, so I was able to select Capri (1851 – 1913) for the inside cover. Below is the original painting and how I modified it for the inside cover:
Capri (1851 – 1913) by Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach 
And the last painting in the series, I used for the back tray card. It is titled Asking the Stars (1851 – 1913). Below is the original painting and how I modified it for the back tray card:
Asking the Stars (1851 – 1913) by Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach 
The final thing I would like to point out is that between all of the images, I am trying to tell a story; the planet that the woman on the front is observing in the distance (the same planet being observed on the inside cover) is the same planet that the woman on the back tray card is located on, and she is observing back. Both are wondering what life is like on the other planet and will never know, and quite possibly, one planet will crash into the other. And we come back full circle to “Lamentis.”
- Pause
So here I sit, 9 days away from my new album hitting digital shelves, finally ready to take a pause. The songs are shipped off, I have updated the various locations I need to update and I can now sit and breath and take a pause, that is, if I didn’t have to tell you about the super cool CD cover I designed for the new album, Pause.
So why Pause? I decided on this title about a year a go, I think, when I noticed that a good portion of my tracks had some sort of rest or pause in them and it hit me that “pause” would be a good name for the album. I played around a bit with DALL-E for some ideas and I had one idea that I really liked (pictured below), but as I learned more about AI generative art and how they are not respecting artist’s intellectual property, I decided to ditch that idea, both out of respect and fear of legal retribution (dear unknown artist, if you feel the image below infringed on your art, please let me know and I will give credit or remove it).
An image from DALL-E using the description “two giant identical rectangular stone monoliths in the forest in the style of a polaroid photograph” So after ditching AI, I sought out some public domain art on the site Artvee.com. If you are not aware of this site, it is great for finding public domain artwork. I was seeking out something with two people looking off in the distance, but the image I found in the end offered me so much more.
Below, you can see the painting that I selected by Jósef Marszewski titled Nocturnal Landscape with Windmills (1864). I have always been a fan of Baroque art, with dark backgrounds and illuminated subject matter, so this painting caught my eye pretty quickly. While not a true Baroque work of art, it does have the spirit of one, I think.
Nocturnal Landscape with Windmills (1864) by Jósef Marszewski So let’s delve into what I really thought I could use from this painting. First of all, we have two windmills that are in a paused state and 2 is a very important number for this album because it is the 2nd album by The Other Don Dixon. You can see the same thing just to the right of the windmills with 2 people in a paused state looking out in the distance. So taking these elements from the painting, I came up with this for the front cover:
So here is where the layering comes into play. The first layer has the obvious “pause” symbol that we are all familiar with from various media players, but there is more to it than that because the pause symbol is like a Roman numeral 2 (II). Then as you look through the pause window, you can see the 2 windmills in a paused state and the two people in a paused state. Now let’s flip it over to see the inside cover:
On the inside cover, I featured the left side of the painting, which shows the windmill in a paused state, but I Photoshopped in 2 monolithic towers in the background to mimic a pause symbol. A lot of people I have shown this to have missed this detail, which is subtle, but it reminds me of the small details you used to find in album covers in the past.
For the back of the CD, also known as the tray card, I presented a listing of songs, but this time to represent the idea of pause, I used music notation and the “rest” symbol, which brings us full circle to the idea behind the title itself.
I guess a valid question at this point is did I print any CDs? The answer to that is, yes, a very small run for family and friends. If you are interested in purchasing one, feel free to inquire.
Thanks for taking the time to go deeper into my new CD cover.
- Cubey Cubby Music Studio
So sometime during Spring ’23, I was just not feeling good in the under stairs closet studio anymore. It had served its purpose to get me isolated from the rest of the house in order to compose, but I was just feeling too cramped and it was impacting my ability to work in there. My wife and I explored the option of expanding the house, which was basically walling in the back patio, but we were quoted $100,000 or more to do so. That is when I came up with the idea of creating my own custom space in the garage. Width-wise, it is about the same as the closet, but now I have much more depth, meaning I could actually push my chair back from the desk. I named it the Cubey Cubby Music Studio and you can see some pics below.
- Time for Some Catch-Up
So over a year since I posted an update. Back in January 2023, I projected that maybe the new release would be coming by Summer, but I was so wrong, wasn’t I (head nodding). But, hope remains. I just finished the rough mixes for the next The Other Don Dixon album, and I will hopefully have those polished in a few weeks, so yes, the new album is coming. However, it is not just the music that has to be completed, there are other things to do to prepare for a new release and one of them is getting the website caught up. So I am going to start sprinkling some updates on the site as I get the new album prepared, so stay tuned.
- Another Year
I admit that it has been a while since I have posted anything, but that does not mean that I am sitting idle. I will admit that my regular job (the one that pays) has kept me pretty busy since September, but I have found time to work on some material. Disappointingly, I did not work on a Christmas tune this year, as I was too busy working on a song for my wife as a present. It adds a major level of complexity when working with singers on the other side of the world and I have found over the years that I can only seem to focus on one composition at a time.
Over the holidays, I reviewed my new work to date and for T.O.D.D., I need about 20 to 25 minutes of good material before I am ready to start mastering a new album. For The Other Don Dixon, I am closer, maybe 15 minutes of material is needed. That doesn’t necessarily mean that a new The Other Don Dixon album will come before a T.O.D.D. album, it really just depends on how my muse strikes. Like today, the muse is not there, so instead, I am studying up on compression and EQing. If I were to be pressed into guessing when a new album will be released, I would estimate summer. Perhaps I will make my birthday a target release date, which I have done before.
To all of you that have supported me over the years, I offer my thanks; I truly appreciate you! I wish the very best for you in 2023. - Well That Is a Bit Strange
I just finished composing a piece of music as T.O.D.D., however it features The Other Don Dixon. How deep does the hole go?
- Maybe It Wasn’t a Dream?
Back in January, I talked about how I composed in the early stage of sleep and dreaming, 3 different variations on a composition I was working on during the time. When I woke up, I of course forgot all of it, but I wonder now if it just wasn’t stored deep in my conscious somewhere. The reason that I say that is because I just knocked out a variation on that original composition in a few hours without very little effort, at least the rough composition; mixing will be a completely different creature and will take a few days. So maybe it wasn’t a dream after all?
- So Busy
It has been some time since I posted to the blog and I apologize. As far as my day job goes, April is one of my busiest months and I have not had time to compose for some time, but that changed a few weeks ago when I finally made time to sit in front of the keyboard. I was playing around with a new cello library and I banged out about 8 bars that sounded fairly good together and it became the foundation to the new piece I finished last night. It was a bit difficult to give credit on this one; was it The Other Don Dixon or was it T.O.D.D.? I made a choice in the end and I hope you will agree when you hear it on the next album.
- Spring Break
Last week, my family and I went to the mountains for spring break. Among the coats, hats, jackets, skis and poles was my 24″ H x 15″ W x 13″ D plastic storage bin containing my laptop, 2nd monitor, MIDI keyboard, audio interface, mouse, speaker, headphones and miscellaneous cables. When set up in our room-for-the-week, I had a near-complete setup for composition. This is the first time I truly have been able to try out my travel rig, as the first time I tried to use it, COVID and lock-down started on day 2 or our spring break 2 years ago and we had to head back home.
I had this idea that with the family out skiing, I would be able to compose 2 or 3 pieces of music, but in reality, I managed to do only one during the week, which is actually typical speed for me. It was still enjoyable to compose outside of my regular elements and you will surely be seeing this composition on my next T.O.D.D. album.
Below, you can see my travel rig as packed and unpacked.
The Travel Rig (packed) 
The Travel Rig (unpacked) - CO – Hort
I recently found out that one my favorite musician cohorts (cohorts in the sense that we are both musicians, he much more than I!) has moved back to Colorado. You probably know him too, if you are familiar with piano music; his name is Michael Gettel. I have been waiting a long time for Michael to release a new album and he did so last week and if you are a Michael Gettel fan, you will not be disappointed. The album is titled The View from Here and I give it my full recommendation. It is available for purchase or on your favorite streaming platform, so give it a listen and if you are not familiar with Michael Gettlel, listen to his entire back-catalog. I especially recommend both San Juan Suite and San Juan Suite II.
Michael and his wife also run a non-profit to help kids in their area to learn music. To learn more, go here. - 50/180
50 Recordings
180 Minutes (exactly)
50 More? - Inspiration & Fun
I recently watched the Loki series on Disney+ and I was completely blown away by the soundtrack. I have noticed a recent trend in TV/film soundtracks to go back to the retro synth soundtrack style from the late 70s and 80s and this soundtrack for Loki by Natalie Holt took the spirit of that sound and modernized it at the same time. I highly recommend giving it a listen.
Anyway, watching (and listening) made me feel a little nostalgic for that 70s/80s synth sound so I turned to one of my favorite virtual instruments, SynthMaster2 by KV331. I was just burning through arpeggiator presets and I came across this classic sound that Jean Michel Jarre used on either Equinoxe or Oxygene and I decided to roll with that sound and do something that sounded like JMJ from that period of time. Of course, there is no way I can even think of matching his genius, but it truly was a lot of fun making it. I haven’t listened to JMJ for a long time and while composing this piece, I made sure to stay clear of his music to make sure I wasn’t ripping anything off and now that it is complete, I will need to go listen to make sure that I didn’t rip anything off subconsciously. If I feel that it is in the clear, I will release it on the next album (maybe by the end of the year?).
(P.S. I checked and I didn’t rip anything off. Phew!) - Lucid Dream-posing
This previous Sunday morning, I got up with my wife to help her and our daughter get out the door for a day of skiing on the slopes. After they left, I decided to lay back down in bed while waiting for my youngest daughter to wake. The evening before, I had begun composing my latest piece of music, which by the time I went to bed, had a rudimentary bass line and hints of a melody. Now when I compose, I quite often liken it to opening Pandora’s box, because it occupies a portion of my mental processing as I begin to compose in my head (remember, I only get a few hours in the evening to actually sit at the keyboard) and then the box is not closed until the composition is done. Well, as I lay there in my bed slowing falling to sleep, I know that I composed 3 different variations of the piece and as I was doing it, I was thinking to myself, should I wake up and go jot something down or hum it into my recorder, but no, those compositions are so simple that I will surely remember remember it later. Well, you have probably already guessed it, but when I did wake up, I couldn’t remember a thing. Who knows, maybe the compositions themselves were complete nonsense in my dream, but I really don’t think so.
Coincidentally, later that morning, I was browsing my news feed and came across this article from Scientific American. In this article, it talks about how they did experiments that seem to validate Salvador Dali’s method of using the early stage of sleep as a creativity tool. I then thought back to how my dream composing happened just in those earliest moments as I began to fall asleep.
One thing that I did take away from it all was add the accordion. I couldn’t explain it exactly, but as I working on the piece again later that morning, I inserted an accordion channel into the composition, not even using it, but more setting it as a marker of try this out once you get the melody down and that is what I did that evening and it worked out great. So I cannot say for certain if my dream composition had an accordion in it, but I would like to think so, at least to offer me an explanation of why I told myself to use an instrument sound that I never use.
Note to self: keep my recorder handy next time I go to sleep. I may need it. - Good To See A Friend
This Sunday, my best friend and causer of epiphanies (see my About page), Garland Prototype, came down for a visit along with his son. This is the first time we have seen each other in person in 2.5 years due to the pandemic. He brought down his portable music rig and I had a chance to see how he was making music now. The last time we visited this territory, he was using Reason but he is now using Bitwig. It was fascinating to watch this looping style of composition, which stands in stark contrast to the more linear approach I take with Studio One. Maybe one day, we will work on something together by swapping stems back and forth. In any case, it was inspiring to be with him again and I got back into the groove of composing last night; a very nice sounding piece featuring cello, violin and accordion. The accordion is not my go-to instrument by any means, but as I was composing, something told my brain (more on that in my next post) to drop in an accordion and it has worked out beautifully.
To good friends and good music. - New Year’s Resolution To Finally Build Myself a Website – – Check!
It is nearly the last day of 2021 and I finally completed my new year’s resolution to finally make myself a website. I wouldn’t call it procrastination, per se, it was only that when given the choice to make music or work on my website, I always chose the former over the latter. But a resolution is a resolution, so here in this last week of 2021, I finally decided to get it done.
In the future, I will use this space to talk about my music and accomplishments, and it may even be a good place to catch a sneak peak of upcoming releases, so stay tuned.
Until next time.
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The Other Don Dixon / T.O.D.D. 