music Archives « Sasha M Online

Loaded: RELOADED out now

May 3, 2019 by Admin

The remix EP for ‘Loaded’ with Hasso and Sasha M is available for digital download today.

Staying true to the original track’s roots as an international collaboration, this EP, titled ‘Loaded: RELOADED’, contains three remixes by different producers from around the world: Clectica from Finland, RIKI from Italy, and Wariner from USA.

The release features album artwork by Nikkaroo Art from Singapore, with photography by Daniel Alejandro Gonzalez from USA.

Stream the EP on Spotify or purchase it on Amazon and iTunes.

Loaded (Acoustic) music video

April 22, 2019 by Admin

News

acoustic, Loaded, music, music video, original music, originals, video

Sasha’s first official music video is out now. Inspired by film noir and old spy movies, it shows Sasha emerging from a time of darkness and confusion to her finally calling the shots.

Watch the video:

Performance at HDB Community Week

June 8, 2017 by Sasha M

Work

a cappella, arrangements, auditions, beatbox, covers, gig, HDB, improvisation, jam, live looping, loop, music, performance, show

Last Thursday, my a cappella/beatbox crew Little Red Dots went for a performance as part of the HDB Community Week celebrations. It was a 30 minute set in the afternoon, outdoors (under a shelter though), and it was h-h-h-HAWTTT (mostly because we turned up the heat with our kickass performance!!!!!) We had a great emcee and sound guy though, and a nice crowd that cheered for us, and it was so nice to perform there 🙂

Yes, this is the only photo we took, and it was during soundcheck. LOL.

A little backstory on this gig:
Actually one of our members couldn’t make it for the gig. So we were going to go in as a three member group, and had to come up with all new arrangements for three people instead of our usual four. Then suddenly… another person couldn’t make it!!! So we held an open audition for someone to sub the person.

Quite a few people came to audition, and we’re very happy and grateful for the turnout… but after the auditions we realized that it’s Really Difficult to sub an a cappella singer whose parts are not scored, but improvised and then fixed afterwards by memory lol. (Yes, a little insight into the esoteric ways in which our a cappella-ish group thing works.)

We did manage to find a sub in the end, from within the a cappella / show choir community. But that sure was a lesson learnt, that a cappella singers who can improvise parts sure are difficult to substitute!

(Oh, and if you haven’t seen or heard Little Red Dots before, here’s a video we made:)

One thing we realized during the rehearsal process is that it’s very difficult to do a cappella with just three people (essentially only two people singing). So we had initially held aspirations of doing some incredible mindblowing arrangements like Freedoms Boombox:

Or even something simpler like this:

(Okay I am obviously a huge Freedoms Boombox fangirl but I guess these two videos are more than enough for you guys HAHA)

Anyway, the point is, we realized we are not Freedoms Boombox or anything close. So we scrapped the idea and went with a loop pedal. Which worked out great!

I have some video footage of our gig somewhere, so I’ll post an example or two up on my YouTube channel soonish. Meanwhile, many thanks to the very talented John Khoo from John and Deneice Glee Studios for performing this gig with myself and Jacky aka JK47! Hope we can perform together again in future 😀

Yeaa!

Online Music Production Course & SkillsFuture Credit

February 13, 2017 by Sasha M

Guides

audio, claim, course, credit, Cubase, DAW, development, digital, guide, music, online, programme, Singapore, SkillsFuture, tips, training, workstation

If you’re a songwriter, or singer-songwriter, you might accompany yourself on a guitar or keyboard. That’s great! But if you want to take things one step further, you’d also want to learn some music production, so that you can produce some decent sounding demos all by yourself (and not necessarily have to pay a producer just to create a demo).

And the best thing is, if you’re Singaporean (like me), you can learn online music production for free. Absolutely free, with your SkillsFuture Credit. The good news is that since I last checked the list of SkillsFuture approved courses (back when the only music-related course was a DJ course), they have updated the list to include tons of online courses using Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) – Ableton, Logic Pro, Garageband, Cubase, Reason, etc. As of right now, they also offer offline courses in Lasalle, NAFA, and SIM, just to name a few. So you can basically claim for all of these courses using your SkillsFuture credits.

For myself, I’m currently using a trial version of Steinberg Cubase 8, which came with my audio interface. I really like Cubase and I find it easy to use, so I’m going to upgrade that to Cubase Elements 8. Luckily for me, there’s an approved course that teaches the fundamentals of Cubase 6.

Screengrab from SkillsFuture website.

But wait… it’s Cubase 6? But I’m using Cubase 8! And the interfaces are kind of different thanks to their upgrades. So how?!?! (As we say in Singlish)

Luckily (again!), the vendor that’s administering this course (Loop.sg) was kind enough to give me a special offer.

Exclusively for me AND readers of my blog (that’s you!), they are offering the Cubase 8 course for FREE with purchase of the Cubase 6 course (which is claimable under SkillsFuture Credit). That means we can have the updated course, Cubase 8, even though only Cubase 6 is offered on SkillsFuture! Are you as excited as I am??

In order to redeem this special offer, you just have to sign up for an account, and then follow these terms and conditions:

1) User purchases the Cubase 6 course from Loop.sg
2) User completes the Cubase 6 course, receiving their Loop.sg Certificate of Completion
3) User will email info@loop.sg with a notification of completion for the course (do mention you heard of this offer through my blog, and show your certificate as well!)
4) Loop.sg will automatically upgrade their current course to Cubase 8 upon confirmation in their system

Here are some points you may also wish to take note of:

1) All courses are online based training; all you need is your LOOP.sg account to get started.
2) No particular qualifications needed, just go right ahead!
3) Set your own schedule! Learn at your own time and pace from the comfort of home
4) You get a certificate of completion from us when you’re done!
5) 12 months of unlimited access to your course – lots of time to learn & hone your skills

You can also check out their FAQs for more information.

Here’s what the Cubase 8 course looks like once you’ve gotten it!

That’s it! Be sure to create an account (unless you have one already), and follow the terms above in order to get your free Cubase 8 lesson! After which, you can go ahead and claim for your Cubase 6 course under SkillsFuture Credit.

Happy making music! And do feel free to share your tracks with me too – I’d love to hear them!

2016 In Review: Taking the leap and going solo

January 7, 2017 by Sasha M

Personal Growth

2016, artist, journey, Little Red Dots, music, production, recording, review, SASS, solo, video, videography, vocals, YouTube

It’s only been a week into 2017 so far, there’s still time to do a review of 2016! Mostly, it was about my journey to becoming a solo artist.

2016 was a lot better than 2015 for me. Musically, my 2016 has been full of adventures. It was definitely the start of new beginnings, with my vocal group SASS going on hiatus in Feb after two eventful years (on Valentine’s Day, also known as our anniversary hehe). Though we are no longer working on original songs together, we still sometimes perform together for shows. It’s always great to perform with these girls, and I really can’t get enough of our vocal harmonies!

SASS at one of our performances last year.

I also got together with another talented vocalist/producer and two extremely skilled beatboxers, and we formed a group called Little Red Dots. The awesome thing about making music with them was that firstly they were all guys and this was a new thing for me to figure out how to sing in a group where all the other vocals and parts were male (a big jump from SASS as an all-female trio). And best of all, we were going after a very urban, beats-oriented underground sound. Our first cover was a drum and bass remix of a pop song, which basically sat perfectly within my musical tastes:

Well, Little Red Dots didn’t go on hiatus, but everyone is so busy with such conflicting schedules that we may as well be! Nevertheless we did some great gigs:

LRD performing at a National Day event.

LRD performing at the Manhunt finals show – Caleb was a Manhunt winner!

Above all, 2016 was the year when I finally had to face up to the fact that I needed to become a solo artist to pursue my music as fully as I am able.

This may not seem like a big deal for some, but it was a very big deal for me. I have basically been working in groups all these years (I used to be in several a cappella groups and bands like my university band The LaundroMATs), and I’m very much a group-oriented person. So to become a solo artist was really, a pretty terrifying idea. Though I’m used to being in the spotlight as a vocalist, I’m also used to being credited in my group, because it’s always a group effort that’s needed to pull off a show. How was I going to shoulder the entire responsibility of a performance by myself?

After thinking a lot about it, I realized what was the one thing really holding me back: my insecurities. I didn’t have confidence in my own abilities. And I also realized, most importantly, that if I didn’t have confidence in my own abilities, it didn’t matter how talented or not I was, I was going to go nowhere.

So I took a leap of confidence, and started my YouTube channel (more on that in another post). And it was great, because now I’d finally started, I began to know exactly what I needed to be able to do in order to make good videos, and create quality content as a solo artist.

That’s how 2016 became the year of training and equipment acquisition. I saved some money to buy a decent recording microphone, and learnt the basics of vocal recording. I recorded my vocals to backing tracks created by other people, and made videos to post on YouTube. And at the end of the year, frustrated with my limitations in making my own videos to a decent standard, I bought myself a good camera so I could really tackle this video making issue.

This year, it seems, is looking to also be a year of training and self-improvement. I’m still just at the very beginning of a music career, and I hope to be able to take some steps forward in that this year, particularly as a songwriter. I still love to perform so I will be focusing my YouTube channel on improving my own performance, as well as technical skills (vocal and video production). And there are a couple other online courses I’m looking at taking as well.

And that’s my direction for 2017. Hoping all goes well!