Theme Tune – Johnny Neo by SHOKIZM

Hi Guys and Girls!

Today I thought I’d give you a sneak peek at the theme tune I’ve been making for Johhny Neo. The main idea here was to create a cool and funky tune which was catchy without being too annoying. It was also important for me to capture that old-school/retro style that I loved from the 80s and 90s – but – and it’s a big but – without going fully chip-tune and without giving up modern production standards… I’ve also always loved Drum and Bass – ever since 1994 when I went to my first rave – to be honest I don’t listen to it so much at home these days (mostly hip-hop, indie/alternate and old school rock n roll actually!) , but if I’m ever going dancing with my girl or mates it’ll still probably be DnB for me!

With all that in mind I decided there’s really only one option for my personal taste – Reason – I simply love the way it emulates real studio equipment whilst giving you complete control over the sounds you produce and sequencing of your music. Some people think it’s a little amateur compared to Cubase but quite frankly that’s what I like about it……well, that and the fact it only about 20% of the price too! And in all honesty – there’s something so much more intuitive about twisting knobs and pressing switches – it really feels like you’re ‘making music’ rather than ‘programming music’ which is how I felt when trying to use Cubase at my mate’s studio. Coupled with my cheap electronic keyboard from M-Audio it’s a really great way to play around and just have some fun whilst creating your tunes.

Here I should also give a big shout out to DJ Psyche (catch him on Dream FM or via twitter on: @djpsycheuk) for giving me plenty of production tips over the years – such as cutting the length of my beats and how to settle the piano into my tune or making a strong bass without overpowering the other elements in the piece. Without his advice I’m pretty sure the Johnny Neo theme would be  a much messier sounding affair. (I’d also like to give a shout out to DJ Chilli from Slovenia and the Synkronics crew who I used to MC with when I lived out there!)

So that’s about it today – except of course, you can check out the tune below!

As always – please do leave a comment below – your opinions matter to me!