User:Vagenda

Vagenda is my ghost-name, and avatar through which I publish my artwork online, and through which I engage in online games.

I am a solo performer. I would love to have a band that could play all the things I write, but so far that has never been the case. Currently I live far from those I grew up with, and through the encouragement of the online gaming community, and friends on Twitch.tv, I've decided to start recording and publishing my music.

My first album, "The Nerado Black Sessions", is a labor of love, primarily covering songs that I wrote in the 1990's. Two cover songs on it were written by friends I grew up with, and one cover, for very special reasons, is Sweet Child O' Mine, originally by Guns N' Roses. Everything you hear on the album was written, arranged, performed, engineered, mixed, mastered, produced, and promoted by me (except for the writing and copyrights towards the three aforementioned cover songs, of course). I've done all the vocals with Vocaloid, and nearly exclusively used Hatsune Miku English v3. I've developed ways to enhance how human she sounds, and ways to affect her attack, pronunciation, and tension so to help her fit into some styles better than she could straight out of the Vocaloid software. It's been a great experience learning to program her. If anyone would ever like to try to sing in her place on something sometime, I'd be open to exploring that possibility.

Every single song has a very personal backstory. Stylistically, the album is all over the map. I hope that doesn't deter anyone from exploring it. It range covers heavy metal, jazz, classical, gospel, folk, rock, alternative, afro cuban, opera, funk, latin... I know most people will check out the first 25 seconds of one song, and never look further - but I thank everyone of you who does take the time to dig deeper and finds something within those 26 tracks that comes to mean something to you.

I was a big fan of Slash and Randy Rhodes. To that end, regarding consistency, every guitar part that you hear has been recorded two times, separate takes. One take is the left side, one take is the right side. The final section for "Restless Afternoon", for example, has 9 separate guitar parts - meaning 18 guitar tracks. Randy was the inspiration for the technique, as this was how he recorded all his rhythm tracks. I've done so for rhythm and solos. The consistency required was also inspired by a movie I once watched where Slash was recording the "Hey Stupid" solo for Alice Cooper, and Alice exclaimed how incredibly consistent Slash was from take-to-take. I wanted to try to emulate that. I think it really helped the tone.

I believe in the idea that music is a right, not a privilege. I commit to that ideal by offering all of my music that I release free on ReverbNation. I pay to make that happen, and I choose ReverbNation to facilitate this over any other site because it seems to be the only one that doesn't alter the MP3's that I upload. Quality is important to me.

Payment should always be optional, and for those that truly just want to show support via a purchase of the album, those options exist, but are not mandatory. I'm just one person recording and programming parts in my living room at the end of the day. All I want is to see my music get heard, liked, listened to, shared - it is against my personal beliefs to see finances hinder that process. So, for those that want to know where else the album can be obtained, here is a quick list:

Spotify - https://play.spotify.com/album/41TEPOXvfMl4lvQYubEhNq

Amazon Music - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01B45HYJ4?ie=UTF8

Tidal - http://listen.tidal.com/album/56659501

Microsoft Store - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/music/album/vagenda/the-nerado-black-sessions/8d6kgx0jpkhq

Microsoft Groove - https://music.microsoft.com/artist/vagenda/az.10CB4A00-0200-11DB-89CA-0019B92A3933?target=web

Google Play - https://play.google.com/store/music/album/Vagenda_The_Nerado_Black_Sessions?id=Bvs7n732uphvwsrgf2uqkzxxcha&hl=en

SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/vagenda/sets/vagenda-hatsune-miku-2016-the

iTunes - https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/the-nerado-black-sessions/id1078966623

Deezer - http://www.deezer.com/artist/2466811

MediaNet - http://www.mndigital.com/content-experience/music_content/albums/385871057/Vagenda/The_Nerado_Black_Sessions/

MediaNet (2) - http://www.mndigital.com/content-experience/music_content/overview/2183707/Vagenda/

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ij9-VnLdwc&list=PL4OXqKTITh5wKMtuOh6wg9Doo7tUzKoX7

Fandalism - https://fandalism.com/vagenda

Wavo - https://wavo.me/vagenda

Bandcamp - https://vagenda2.bandcamp.com/releases

Outside of music, I also game online with this identity. It originated with the BETA testing of an MMO called DC Universe Online. I met a league that all wrote custom backstories to their characters that they created. I also have one called "V is for Vagenda" here: http://vagenda.enjin.com/forum/m/22541743/viewforum/4581211

This backstory is now also available in the BLOG on WordPress, and linked to my profile on this site.

I also wrote a Sorcery Healing Guide for that same game called "Pulse" available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx-s6T1gBcTTdDVFT0xlOGJpQ3c/view

Feel free to say hello anytime should you ever encounter me in a game, or on any of these social media websites:

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/vagenda

Google+ - https://plus.google.com/108264536840850420437/posts

Twitter - https://twitter.com/Vagenda2

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmTZ9-uHxo76v5jVV5Wtgnw

Blogger - http://visforvagenda.blogspot.ca/

Official Website - http://vagenda.enjin.com