The latest in Wandii World

Hey guys! =)

Hope you are all well! There’s not really a great deal of new things to speak of at the moment, but I’ll give you the low-down of recent times.

General

At the moment, I am still working (having been here since March 2009) at the NHS as an Audio Typist/Data Clerk.  It helps to earn the extra pennies to buy more studio equipment!  But who knows how long the position will last much longer for… temporary jobs are tricky.

I bought a Wacom Bamboo One tablet on Friday!  It’s neat   My second passion (second to producing of course!) was always Photoshop, 3D animation/modelling, texturing, compositing, video editing, etc.  I wanted to work for ILM or Pixar when I was older!  Though I saw ILM as the ‘holy grail’, hehe.  So anyway, I had some fun with that tablet over the weekend.  It’ll be cool to try it out in ZBrush, as it’s pressure-sensitive too!  Okay, enough digital 3D geek talk.

What’s new with music?!

A new Karanda track is 99% complete!!!!  I’ve been working on it for some time now, and it features vocals from my good buddy David Call!  The vocals and lyrics are infectious, so as Jochen Miller would say: brace yourself

The Karanda Show is going wonderfully as ever!  And this month our guest will be Element One, which will be great fun no doubt!

As soon as I finish this new Karanda track, I have to start on a Karanda remix.  Infact, there’s a couple of remixes in the works, as well as a couple of other originals which are in early progress.

You may have noticed, but “Karanda – Karanda” was released, as was “Karanda – In Motion”!  So you can grab those from Beatport.com if you’re interested =)  No news on our Lyon Echo EP (“Sphinx” and “Grumpy but Gorgeous”) or our release on Inspired (“Shuffle” with Mark Eteson remix).  Hopefully we’ll have some news soon about those.  I’ll be sure to post any news on Karanda.co.uk.

So all is well here, really!  Still plodding along, still producing and working, still alive!!  I guess this is more of a general update rather than my usual indepth descriptions of recent happenings =]  But yeah, things are just fine at the moment.  Oh, and did you see the CDJ-2000′s?  GIMME!!!!

See you all soon!  Hope you are doing great! =)

Take care,

Wandii =) xo

What’s new in the land of Wandii?

Hey guys! =)

I know, it has been a while again!  Sorry.  So what is new?  Well, Andi and I have recently finished up a new Karanda track which is heavily heavily Wandii’fied (you will know what I mean when you hear it!   Let us just say that it has major uplifting and epic chords and is one hell of a full-on trancer!!!  So, YEY! ).  It is infact the third track I have ever finished in Ableton, and I think perhaps one of my best produced to date.  So I am really happy with it!  We’re trying labels now.  I want to thank Andy Moor for his feedback and input regarding the mixing and EQ’ing.  It helps to have opinions from different pairs of ears   Oh, the track is called ‘Rewind’ (we played an unfinished verison on TKS — the finished version sounds sooo much better!!).

This weekend I am going down to Worthing to visit Andi again, and to chill out on the beach!!  I have the whole of next week off too!  So I will get lots of producing done hopefully.  I have started a new track already!  This one is a little less adventurous than Rewind, but still really nice melody-wise I think.  A little more predictable, but they can not ALL be crazy Wandii melodies…  Why not, you ask?  Hehe.  Well, we are focussing on the Karanda project, that is why!   But ‘Rewind’ was just bubbling up inside of me and a I needed to squeeze out a big epic trancer just to fulfill that part of me of which you might be familiar with!! =)

There is not much else new really!  I AM helping out with some films at the moment, and I will be doing sound effects (foley style amongst other things) and the scores, but it is all very early days with that.  But I certainly do enjoy composing for films and games (I helped out some friends who are making a Half-Life 2 mod called ‘Dire’ a little while ago).  Apart from this, I am just focussing mainly on Karanda!  Our radio show is going well and we are thinking about starting a second show (since TKS is only aired once a month at DI.fm) so we have a show on twice a month.  The problem is, there are ZERO available slots at DI.fm… so IF we do a second show, it will either be on various other online stations, or purely available as a podcast.  We are not sure yet, but we certainly want to be putting a show on for you all more than once a month!!!  Big time!!!

I have the new iPhone 3GS 32gb now, and I shall post pictures (and perhaps videos) from my journey to the south this weekend.  I am in love with the iPhone, despite the hefty price tag it comes with…  Hehe.  I have “synced” my Pikchur.com account with my Twitter account, Facebook, Flickr and Friendfeed, so that when I send a photo to Pikchur it automatically updates all of those accounts for me.  Lazy I know, but being somewhat of a self-confessed g33k, I do love it! =)  You can also post your exact coordinates with the iPhone too, which shows up on Google maps… but be careful with that if you have a bazillion followers   Stephen Fry has done it before, and people went and found him!  Haha.  Luckily his followers/fans are generally a nice crowd.

Anywho, I am being a bit random and general now.  But I just wanted to update you all a little and to let you know I am still alive and well!  I hope all is well with you.  I will be back soon, and you can always see the latest Wandii or Karanda news at Karanda.co.uk (same site as Wandii.co.uk).  Oh oh, I am in the process of designing a new website design from scratch too.  I have been learning to design WordPress templates, as you do… =]

See you soon!  Have a great day/week/month/life! =D

Take care.

Wandii xo

Wandii travels to Worthing, BBQ, Star Trek!

Hey! =)

How are you all?  Well now, there’s certainly been many travels that I’ve not written about since my last post on here.  I guess I just fell out of writing these things.  But I’m in the mood!

On the Friday just gone (8th May) I took the day off work to head down to Worthing to stay with Andi (my musical partner in crime, the other half of Karanda) until Sunday.  It was his birthday on the 6th (Weds), so we were celebrating that! =)  Here’s a day-by-day account of the.. days:

Friday

The train journey to Worthing took a little over 4 hours (longer than usual).  I think it was due to some engineering works on the railway tracks.  So, having made it through a very busy London St. Pancras/underground, I made it to London Victoria and caught my connecting train headed to Worthing.

During the journey, I discovered that my crappy old Sony Ericsson Walkman phone could actually log onto Twitter!  This pleased me, somewhat   hehe.  So I was tweeting throughout the weekend, as you can see here: http://www.twitter.com/wandii

Eventually I arrived at Worthing (West Worthing station) and Andi picked me up from there.  The first thing we did was go and get some FOOD!!   Which consisted of one of our favourites: chippy chips and pukka pie.  Oh yeah!  Chicken and mushroom pie for me

That same night (we’re still on Friday =]) we just chilled out and played Call of Duty: World at War online on the PS3.  My best buddy Yogii logged onto his PS3 back home in Leicester and we played against each other =)  Then we watched Friday Night with Jonathan Ross.  Tom Hanks was on, and he totally stole the show!  Such an amazing actor, great entertainer.  Easily one of the best.

Saturday

We woke up fairly early, watched a bit of TV and then went for a little back-to-back mix on the CDJs.  We also played about on Ableton and put together a mashup (secret!) and started a new track.

Eventually it came to 4pm and we had to leave to head of to Andi’s mother in law’s place for a big late-birthday celebration (this was really the point of the entire weekend).  The BBQ was wonderful, and it was great to see so many people again!  They’re all wonderful people and have welcomed me in very graciously.  Also, there was home-made banoffee pie – Andi’s favourite, and now, one of my favourites.  Yum! =D

After the BBQ, a bunch of us went out into town and visited a couple of bars before ending up a small seafront club that had a “90′s night” on (my friend Calli would’ve loved that!).  Unfortunately, the DJ was terrible, and Andi and I should’ve been behind the decks (we could’ve played Robert Miles’ Children and Binary Finary’s 1999!!).  But nooOOoo =]  heheh.  It was a blast though, I must admit.  Even with the DJ playing the tracks to the point of distortion (could see the mixer/clipper peaking in the reds, ow).

The club had an outside third floor for smokers.  Remember, this is a seafront club.  A moment in particular that I feel is worth mentioning to just about everyone (I was having one of my “Wandii moments” as Andi calls them, hehe) happened at around quarter to one in the morning.  Pitch black outside, the dark ocean straight infront of us from this third floor, but the moon was just above the horizon, and it looked amazing against the ocean.

It was just one of those moments.  You know, you take it all in, and see everyone around you having a great time and enjoying themselves (I was too!!  but you know what I mean).  It was great =]  Unfortunately there are no photos from this trip =[  My camera bust, and my phone camera doesn't work either.  I'm planning on getting an iPhone in a few months, as soon as the new model comes out (it's supposed to have video recording, a better camera in general, and a far better OS - but all of the Apple stores say nothing about this if you ask!  But other sources say otherwise!).

We got back to Andi's place at about half 2 in the morning (that's 2:30am - I've recently discovered that saying things like "half past" or especially "ten to" are unknown sayings to some countries!  How nieve of me).  We pretty much went straight to sleep!

Sunday

The next morning, we got up a little later (as you'd imagine =P), checked the cinema times and then headed over to Chicester (the nearest cinema).  We picked up Andi's Dad who wanted to come along with us.  So, as the title of this post may have given away, we went to seeeee... STAR TREK!!  And, dudes and dudettes, it tauxtally RAWKS!!   Seriously, I want to go and see it again!  I'm thinking IMAX this time though   It's not in 3D unfortunately, but it'll still be incredible!  Possibly this weekend, nearest IMAX is in Birmingham (I live in Leicester, incase you forgot!).  Simon Pegg was class too, as always =]

So I suppose that about wraps things up!  I caught the train from Worthing at around 4pm headed to London Victoria.  Took quite a while to get there due to the engineering works, diversions and what not (at one point it was almost diverted through Portsmouth ffs!  lol).  Busy undergound yet again (Friday and Sunday – two worst days for travelling :S).  Eventually got back to Leicester at 9pm, where moca bear (Yogii) was kind enough to pick me up in his sexii Mazda RX-8, hehe.

I hope you all had a great weekend too!!  I’ll be back soon I guess =]  Take care peepingtons.

Wandii xo

New personal blog

Hey!

Just thought I’d start a more personal blog here on WordPress   Karanda.co.uk and Wandii.co.uk are really just for everything to do with my life in music.  I’m gonna import my old Blogger.com news into here if I can.

More soon!

Wandii xo

NEW 3ghz Intel Core 2 Duo PC!!

Hey guys!! =D

It’s true! I finally received a hefty advance from a record label, and almost immediately I went and purchased all of the components for my new PC! You see, I’ve been researching for a few months, trying to figure out the best parts I could afford to buy. So, I ordered them on Tuesday (5th) and they arrived on Wednesday morning! I was so impressed, and happy of course! =D

So, Wednesday evening, I took all of the parts over to my bro’ Dave’s house (he’s far better with building PC’s than myself), and he put it all together for me (thanks dude =D)! Before I show some photos of this event taking place, here’s the PC spec:

Case: NZXT HUSH Silent Case (Black)
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz
RAM: OCZ 2x1GB DDR2 1066MHz
HDD: 400gb Hitachi SATAII
Graphics: nVidia GeForce 8600GT 512MB DDR2 PCI-E
Soundcard: M-Audio Audiophile 2496
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P35-S3G
PSU: Xilence 480W

All of this (minis the soundcard, which I already had) came to just under £400. Good, no? I was so impressed with the company I bought it all from, that I’ll mention them here. Aria!

And here’s some photos of the PC being built:

> Still in the box…

> Testing it for the first time! =D

> My new PC at it’s new home!!!

> The final setup is complete. =O

And finally, let me tell you that… FL STUDIO DOESN’T LAG ANYMORE!!!! With TONS of VSTs!! I’ve only gone up to 40% CPU, and that’s with 3ms buffer! Did you hear me? 3ms!!

So, there’s a new Karanda track on the way called ‘Sphinx’, and it’s sounding really cool I think!

I’ll be back soon, take care guys! Love you all! =)

Wandii =) xo

Wandii supported by Paul van Dyk, Markus Schulz, Andy Moor!

Hey guys! =)

What a crazy couple of weeks this has been! Since my upcoming release on Andy Moor’s label AVA Blue (my track ‘Wandii – Beautiful Dirt’) has started promoing, I’ve been getting a lot of attention.

I’m told that Paul van Dyk likes my track! Woot!!! Nothing cooler than knowing an original inspiration and pioneer in the trance scene approves of the work I’m doing! =)) Also, of course Andy Moor (#30 DJ in the World) is supporting the track which means the many listeners of his show ‘Moor Music’ have heard it now.

And Markus Schulz (#13 DJ in the World) played it on his show the Global DJ Broadcast this week, which airs to millions of listeners worldwide. And my good friend and fellow producer Ken Spector has my track at #1 position on his radio show chart which also airs to millions worldwide. So, needless to say, there’s been a lot of exposure in the past week or two!

Aside everything with ‘Beautiful Dirt’, this week I visited London with my bestest buddy Yogii and his sister and her boyfriend. King’s Cross St. Pancras still looks cool everytime I get there, I don’t get sick of the sight (yet)! That’s the station that we end up in directly from Leicester. We went to the Motor Show at ExCel, next to the Thames river in London. This motor show comes once every two years apparently, and it was the first time I’ve been to one!

We had to hop onto the Underground and take a few different trains and lines to get to ExCel. During the course of the day, we passed by Liverpool Street a few times.. those of you who’ve been following my blogs for a few years will understand what (or who) I was thinking about during those moments =( Anyway, HAPPY face, lol, here’s Yog and I after we got out of the Underground and were headed to ExCel:

The cars (and women, let’s be honest) were incredible, and they even had a few cars from a Top Gear episode (the one where they had to make Police cars), so that was hilarious to see! You could go right up to them and touch them, and I checked out Richard Hammond’s one up close.. soo funny! Here’s a pic’ of Clarkson’s:

They also had a big Honda show on in a mini arena type set-up, where they had entertainment on stage and a bunch of cars and motorbikes in the arena doing tricks. They even had some free-runners come on and do some tricks over obstacles whilst some cars were going about, it was so cool! I love free-runners!! Check out some of these pics:

Yeah, they had the Asimo robot there too, which is apparently made by Honda! Very cool, it did a little dance! Hehe.

And now one of my favourites, a Porsche <3…

And to end the day, Yogii got close with the girlies =)…

After hours of walking around ExCel and checking out everything, we left sore-footed and headed to the Underground to Oxford Circus, where we would go and find somewhere to eat. After plenty of more walking up and down Oxford Street, we ended up in Pizza Hut (of course), where we each had a medium pizza (I had meat feast with extra tobasco, yum) and a couple of Pepsi’s (they have no Dr Pepper in UK Pizza Hut’s =((.. bah). Then we went for a pint at a pub, and I had my favourite, Kronenberg 1664! All in all, a good day, though very tiring in terms of walking!! But I love travelling and I love London! =D

Anyway, I hope you’re all doing AWESOMELY! I’ll have more for you soon, promise! Take care everyone, speak soon.

Wandii =) xo

Back to London, Andy Moor remix, Karanda Show, moving out!

Hey guys! =)

I hope you’re all doing well! Well, my best friend/bro Yogii and I are heading off to London next Thursday for the British International Motor Show!! I’m quite excited about it, and Yog’s ecstatic (he’s more or less an enthusiast! I just enjoy watching Top Gear, lol!). So that shoud be great fun =) I miss London! Not been in a while.

So the other week I was chatting with Andy Moor (my track ‘Beautiful Dirt’ will be out on his label AVA next month on August 18th! It’s promoing now =]), and he asked me to do a remix. He sent me the parts for his new track with Carrie Fisher called ‘So Much More’ – it’s beautiful! I actually managed to produce a remix (I say “actually” because my PC is uber laggy at the minute, and it’s hard to produce! I’m building a new PC very soon after Armada send me an advance for a track I signed!).

Andy Moor didn’t really like my remix as it was, but, I really and truly appreciate Moor’s honesty, and he gave me some great feedback! It’s fantastic to be able to talk with him so casually and exchange feedback with each other. Very cool =) So I’ve since been attempting to ‘fix’ my remix, but it’s tough because of how laggy the project has become in FL Studio. Hopefully I’ll get there with it, it’s an honour just to have had Andy ask me!

Anyway, Andy Moor and Ken Spector have been playing my track ‘Beautiful Dirt’ to millions of listeners, so I really hope that this release will bring even more light to my name and help myself and Andi C get our Karanda name more recognised too!

Our radio show, The Karanda Show, will be on this Saturday on www.DI.fm (trance channel) at 6pm GMT, 1pm EST, 7pm CET. If you haven’t heard it before, it’s the radio show that myself and Andi C present together! Karanda is our project, and we signed our first ‘Karanda’ track to Alter Ego a few months ago (still waiting for remixes on that one! =]).

So it seems as though that within a year or two I need to move out of here and into a place of my own, for reasons not worth delving into on here! =) But, yeah, it seems as though this is the case! For those of you who might not know yet, Moonrising Records (the record label I co-own and run with Bruni Bergeron) have stopped signing new material for a while. We’re taking time off to focus on our own productions! All the more reason that I can’t wait to build my new PC

Anyway, the reason I bring that up is that my plan is to finish organising all of our upcoming (and final, for now) releases, get that all out of the way, and then take up a temp’ job here in Leicester, save up £2K or £3K, and then move down south closer to the beach and closer to London. I’ll take up another random temp’ job down there then, but the money I’ll have saved will compensate for a while! That’s my extremely *rough* plan!! Luckily I have bought all of my producing studio equipment already, none of it on finance! So I’ll be set! =)

A few days ago I received an invite from Andi C to his wedding in November!! I can’t wait! I’m so excited and SO very proud of him and happy for him and his fiancé! I’ve known them both for 4 years now and it’s zoooomed by! It’s going to be an unforgettable day =) Everyone attending the wedding will be staying in the same hotel for one night down in Worthing (near Brighton, it’s where Andi lives) that the wedding ceremony is going to take place in. Wandii is gonna’ have to look smart for once and wear a suit! Ahh s’ok really, I like dressing up Hehehe.

Okay, that’s enough of me waffling on for now! I’ll post more soon, take care guys!!

Lots of loveee,
Wandii =) xo

Free tracks, and I’m on a new compilation!!

Hey guys! =D

I thought that it was about time that I give a couple of tracks away for free download on here. ‘No Love Lost’ was available once before some time ago, but was taken off. It’s old, it was made in 2005, but I still like the melody and may remake it at some point soon. So here it is again, along with a new one called ‘Tribute’, which is one I dedicated to Paul McLean (John Avenida). I hope you enjoy the melodies!!

– DOWNLOAD MP3 – Wandii – Tribute (2007)
- DOWNLOAD MP3 – Wandii – No Love Lost (2005)

Lastly, on June 9th, Judgement Sundays 2008 will be out from Ministry of Sound, mixed by Judge Jules. It will feature my remix of ‘Global Warming – Far & Away’, which has just been released on MoonNRG (Moonrising Records). Jules played my remix 5 times on his BBC Radio 1 show and also interviewed me for the show.

More soon!! Take care! =D

Wandii =) xo

Interview on BBC Radio 1!

Hey! =D

I hope all is well with you all! =) I just got off the phone with Judge Jules, where he interviewed me for a couple of minutes for his show on BBC Radio 1. As of tomorrow, he will have supported my remix of ‘Global Warming – Far & Away’ (which is an upcoming release on Moonrising, so, woo!) for 4 weeks straight. I’m really happy! =)

Also, it seems that Ken Spector and I are finally signing a track we did together to Coldharbour! So I will finally be an artist on Armada, woooo! =) Markus Schulz really loves the track we did, and we think it’s going to be huge. Ken’s recent track with Gilbert Renoir has been really successful, so fingers crossed for this new one too!

Also, my track ‘Storybook’ which was release on Presence Trance (their first release too) has received trance tune of the month in IDJ Magazine! It’s all going really well at the minute. I’ve also updated ‘Karanda – Karanda’ and Manuel Le Saux is going to remix it. He is also the guest this month for my and Andi C’s radio show on DI.fm, The Karanda Show.

I actually finally got to meet Manuel Le Saux (Manny) last week on Friday night! Andi C, Oly Street and myself travelled up to Leeds for the night for a great lineup!! Manuel Le Saux, Lange, Alex M.O.R.P.H., Woody van Eyden, Genix. It was an amazing night! Manny was wicked as always (GAG!!..um, in joke ), and here’s a photo of myself, Manny and Andi C:

Our hotel for the night was..cosy. A little too cosy *nudge nudge Oly* – but otherwise, a decent night’s sleep! Having said that, we got only 4 hours sleep, and still missed the hotel breakfast downstairs!! Some git told us it finished at 10.30, so we went down at 10 and it had just finished. Pfft =)

That’s all for now!! Back soon, take care everyone.

Wandii =) xo

General updates!!

Hey! =D

I hope you’re all doing well!! =) Let’s see, what’s new.. last week, Judge Jules supported my Wandii remix of ‘Global Warming – Far & Away’ (upcoming release on my and Bruni Bergeron’s label Moonrising Records) on his BBC Radio 1 show! So, that’s huge!! He also supported the ‘Acute Remix’ of my track ‘Wandii – Storybook’ (first release on label Presence Trance) a couple of weeks before that.

I’m working on quite a lot of tracks at the minute!! I keep starting tons of tracks, which is good because I’m getting a lot of ideas out and having a bit of a creative flow.. the only thing that’s holding me back from finishing most of them is that my PC is too laggy But I’m going to make sure some of them get finished, mainly a new Karanda track called ‘Soulseeker’. Meanwhile, I’ll save up for a new PC, too! =)

On Friday, I’m heading up to Leeds for the night with Andi C and Oly Street, to see our buddy Manuel Le Saux’s UK debut!! I can’t wait! It’s going to be awesome. The rest of the lineup is fantastic too, with Lange, Woody van Eyden, Alex M.O.R.P.H., Will Holland, and Genix (a fellow Leicester guy like myself!). So, I think you can see that it’s going to be HUGE! I’ll try and take some photos. =)

The Karanda Show on DI.fm (the radio show I host with Andi C) is going REALLY well!! We’re averaging over 3700 listeners every month, and this month we have Manuel Le Saux as our guest (go figure ). Last month’s guest, Onova, was HUGE!! He’s awesome =) Such a nice guy, and his guest set went down sooo well on the DI.fm forums. Please tune in this month if you have the time! We’ll be on the DI.fm trance channel at 6pm GMT on Saturday, April 26th. Always the fourth Saturday of the month.

That’s about it for now really, stay tuned!! =) Take care!

Wandii =) xo