Floex Blog

Ceny Apollo

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 06:52:00 -0500

Floex byl nominován na ceny české hudební kritiky Apollo spolu s Bonusem, Dikolsnem, Davidem Kollerem, Midi Lidma, Prince Of Tennis a Tata Bojs.

Pro tuto příležitost sem vytvořil krátké video, které má být něco jako můj portrét (za spolupráci děkuju Michalovi Urešovi).

Cenu získal Bonus, blahopřeji .o)

Jak zní Floex naživo?

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 07:04:24 -0500

Díky Janovi (Sonority) a Pierovi Urbanovi za nahrávku obrazu a zvuku!

How do we sound live?

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 07:03:35 -0500

Thanks to Jan (Sonority) and Pier Urban for the image and sound recording.

Nová deska "Zorya"

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 17:45:00 -0500

Ani nevíte jak dlouho sem si přál, aby druhá Floexí deska spatřila světlo světa. Sem rád, že se s vámi můžu konečně podělit o hudbu, do které sem nastřádal své zkušenosti a prožitky posledních deseti let.

Jméno desky je inspirováno slovanskou bohyní “Zoryou Polunochnayou”, což by se ze staroslověnštiny asi dalo přeložit jako “Půlnoční Zora”. Je třetí, noční podobou trojjediné bohyně Zory a symbolizuje odvrácenou, tu nevyřčenou stranu naší existence. Mám pocit, že má nová deska má také takovou noční atmosféru, má ducha měsíčního svitu - hledá vzdálenější, jakoby skryté ale o to hlubší emoce. Za bariérou chladných beatů a nánosů technologického prachu se skrývá velká duše, snad jí tam také najdete.

Na desce se objeví několik zajímavých hostů. Např. italské duo Musetta (spolu sme udělali na desku jednu písničku), James Rone - zajímavý zpěvák z dalekého Minneapolis, skvělej chlapík a virtuózní hráč na violončelo Tomáš Jamník, Oskar Török hraje na trumpetu v první singlu “Casanova”, na desce se objeví i Petr Tichý a v náznaku Ridina Ahmedová s kterýma sem též spolupracoval na Pocustonu.

Důležitým bodem v procesu vzniku desky byla spolupráce s kamarádem Matoušem Godíkem (Zka4t), v jeho studiu probíhal finální mix a mastering. Byla to pro mě neuvěřitelná škola a hlavně deska se dík tomu dostala ve svém vyznění o značný kus dál.

Rád bych ještě zmínil aspoň jedno jméno a tím je Veronika Vlková, která namalovala na Zoryu skvělý obrázky. Některé fragmenty se budou objevovat již na singlech. Obrázky si budete moci užít zejména ve vinylové edici (vyjde o měsíc později v listopadu na Minority records), výběr bude přiložen jako volné listy v čtvercovém formátu desky.

Stáhněte si zdarma singl Casanova zde

Celá deska k mání pak v mém obchůdku (MP3/FLAC) a na Minority Records (CD/LP).

New Floex album “Zorya” out 26th September 11

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 07:04:00 -0400

I’m really happy to announce that finally new Floex album is out! I have been wishing to finalize this album for so long and it is great feeling that I can finally share the music with you.

Name of the album is inspired by the slavic goddess “Zorya Polunochnaya”. It is the third (night) metamorphosis of the goddess Zorya, symbolizing “second side of our existence”, more unknown, unspoken and generally hardly reachable things. In comparison to my previous works I believe the new album has also kind of moonlight mood, it is playing with more unspoken matter, exploring more abstract fields, digging deeper emotions. There is big soul hidden under the coldness of beast and noisy layers of the electronic dust, I hope you will find it there.

There are several interesting cooperations on the album like with the italian duo Musetta, with young cello virtuoso and really nice guy Tomáš Jamník or with Petr Tichý, doublebas player who also appeared on the first album Pocustone.

Incredible things happened in the Matouš Godík’s Zka4t studio who cared for the final mix and the mastering. I believe it was worth of our small fights and never ending discussion about the sound (pre)conceptions.

I have to mention at least one more name and that is Veronika Vlková, she made great artwork for the album, I hope you will be able to enjoy it especially in the vinyl edition.

Album is released by Minority Records in cooperation with Amanita Design.

Download single Casanova including special bonus track for free here.

Whole album availabe in my store (MP3/FLAC) or from Minority Records (CD/LP).

Mach. OST in "Computer Music" Mag!

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 18:03:00 -0400

Náslechy z připravované desky

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 18:26:00 -0400

Tady si můžete poslechnout pár ukázek z přípravované desky Floex. Video bylo původně vytvořeno pro pražskou Pecha Kucha Night, kde se prezentují jednotlivé projekty ve formátu 20x20 sekund. Deska by měla vyjít na jaře 2011. Každý den strávený ve studiu je teď velkým dobrodružstvím. O tom, že je deska venku se můžete dozvědět velice jednoduše, stačí se zaregistrovat do mého mailing listu tady.

New floex album - preview

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 18:21:00 -0400

It is still such a long way to go… nevertheless i have decided to upload this video which was originally made for the Prague Pecha Kucha Night where the work is presented in the format in 20x20sec shorts. It is preview of my new album which I am working on now. Hopefully to be released somwehere in spring 2011! Everyday spent in the studio is now big adventure… You can subscribe to my mailing list to be informed when the album is finally out here.

Machinarium / Nejlepší Soundtrack roku podle "PC Gameru"

Thu, 06 May 2010 15:37:00 -0400

“In a game where no one speaks a word, the music has to do a lot of talking. And Machinarium’s soundtrack, composed by Tomas Dvorak, is one of the most eloquent we’ve ever heard. By turns spooky, dissonant, melancholy, sweet and evocative, it slithers into your imagination and adds unexpected depth to the game’s gorgeous imagery.”

To se můžete dočíst ve světově nejčtenějším časopisu o hrách Americkém PC Gameru, který zvolil Machinarium OST jako nejlepší soundtrack roku 2009!

Celé číslo ke shlédnutí naleznete zde.

Groovemine recenze + podcast

Thu, 06 May 2010 04:12:00 -0400

Americký hudební server Groovemine se zaměřením na světovou nezávyslou scénu před časem napsal pochvalnou recenzi na Machinarium OST. Soundtrack se jim zalíbil natolik, že dostal plný počet hvězdiček a kromě toho ještě o mé hudbě vytvořili svůj vůbec první podcast.

Přečíst recenzi i poslechnout podcast můžete zde:

http://www.groovemine.com/rantsraves_review_tomasdvorak_machinarium

http://groovemine.com/audiofile_tomasfloexdvorak

Groovemine likes me :D

Wed, 05 May 2010 17:02:00 -0400

US based website dedicated to independent music made great review on Machinarium OST and recently even podcast! Check it out here:

http://www.groovemine.com/rantsraves_review_tomasdvorak_machinarium

http://groovemine.com/audiofile_tomasfloexdvorak

Nový rozhovor {Gamesmusic}

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 06:11:00 -0500

Docela nový rozhovor na Gamesmusic, zejména o mé soundtrackové produkci.

Interview {Gamemusic}

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 06:01:00 -0500

Check out the latest interview at Gamesmusic, mainly concerning my soundtrack production.

Machinarium Rozhovor (Machinarium Interview)

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:50:00 -0500

This is chosen answered questions for the Russian magazine from the interview I made about week ago regarding Machinarium Soundtrack. Sorry for all grammatical mistakes, my English is far from being perfect!

When and why did you decide to write music? Maybe you can remember some of your childhood moments related to music in any way?

Well I think I was little bit crazy about music from my childhood actually.
We had some old tape player and i could spend hours just by listening music and dancing around with table tennis rocket pretending it is guitar! We have been doing “concerts” with my brother like this but he got bored pritty soon. I didn’t .-)

Later I wanted to learn some instruments and because I had some allergy my parents thought it could be good idea to choose some breath instrument. I wanted to learn saxophone but because i couldn’t remember the instruments well I mistake it with clarinet so I started to learn clarinet which is my very important instrument until now. It maybe made my music less jazzy and more soundtrack like…

I would like to also mentioned Hans Zimmer. His soundtrack for the Thin Red Line really opened my eyes in the field of the music for the motion picture. I am getting back to this particular CD periodically.

Well, it’s foolish question of course, but… We are sure that you had full creative freedom for the soundtrack but what ideas and thoughts did you receive from Jakub Dvorsky on pre-production stage? How much his vision of soundtrack matched with your final result? Were there situations when you had to remake the tracks because Jakub asked you?

I was looking for the right “face” of the music especially in the beginning. There were some trials and errors. Mainly because I wanted something more musical. Something what would really people like not only in the context of the game but also simply as tunes.

Soundtrack music of course has to be more abstract to give space for the image and also to not to be annoying if it is repeating more times… so it was about trying to find balance between abstract and more melodic music…

With Jakub we agreed that the sound should be based on some more rusty and kind of dirtier aesthetic. Like synths which are obviously there for its connection to robot world, they are not very polished but often some old vintage and noisy. I have even landed some old synths from my friends like Roland SH01, or legendary Korg MS10. Jakub was giving always good ideas and reflection which was really important especially in the primal part of the soundtrack development. As far as I remember he was very much into radio noises for example .-D The first songs for the soundtrack were the hardest ones of course, because they were kind of defining the whole sound… some times it maybe not just easy to find the right atmosphere what fits for the scene. I remember I had big fight with the second level which may look somehow super-easy and I created more like 5 different songs before I found the right one…

Jakub refused only the one level and it was the one before the “game place”. I wanted to use the song called “Gameboy Tune” but he found it too different, happy, dancy.

Tell us about composition process of yours? How do you write music when beginning from scratch?

That’s really not easy question to answer shortly. But generally speaking I think important aspect of it is imagination. To be able to deeply imagine what you want to do and how it should look like, how it should feel.The thing I am speaking about here is not connected with the concrete tune , it is more about how the music should look and feel. It is something what I am trying to have even before I touch any instrument or start with the notation. It is good way to start for me, because then I know where I am trying to go. Otherwise music itself, It is kind of strange flow, maybe unknown language with different qualities what has something to do with emotions and energy in you. From my experience once you are trying to catch it with some racional intensions things go wrong.

What hard ‘n soft do you use? What instruments can you handle? Did you search for a new VST or live instruments while developing the musical style for Machinarium?

Now I am on Apple Logic. My music is also often about experiments with sound so another important software I would mention is Max/Msp. It is object oriented language where you can write your own sound algorythms beside many other things. I learned it while I was studying at the Prague Academy Of Visual Arts . I used it for my interative installations and performances but later I just found out I am even able to write my own audio patches there. I wrote a few pluggo plugins which actually used in most of my songs, despite fighting with some bugs due to my very low programmer qualities. Anyway I am quite unhappy that Cycling74 decided to gave up the development of Pluggo…

Otherwise there is several important acoustical instruments in my studio. Piano, clarinet, kalimba, metalophones, accordion, melodica etc…

I also have Korg Z1, which is very organic, you can tweak it and find really interesting moments. At the same time it is little bit cheesy so I always look for the ways how to destroy or dirtify the sound…

As for the plugins I really like to keep eye on what is new in the field, I really like for example free plug-ins scene, like Smartelectronix - I think they have been so influential for the whole electronic music. .

After the Machinarium Soundtrack was released people often ask me about the concrete synth and the software I use. But for me it is really not what it is about, mostly it is about combination of the things, like chains of plugins, or out of the computer or out of the DAW experiments which after are reedited and reprocessed in DAW. There can be really simple source like sinusoid, which is by the way my very favourite sound source, and it can go trough some plugin like eg. Frohmage and you get completely new colours.

It was just because at that time we didn’t have any song from Machinarium OST really :D 
What are your favorite compositions from Machinarium?

I really like more these moody, maybe more melancholic ones… Like “Glasshouse With The Butterfly”, “Elevator”, “Castle” or “Clockwise Operetta”.

Do you play videogames? Of course, not only by Amanita Design. Could you please tell us about some games that influenced you most because of interesting music / sound implementation?

I am sorry but I don’t play games very often.
It is mainly because of time and also screens. I even don’t have television for the same reason, because I am often in the studio and after looking into the computer screen whole day I am not that much interested to look into another to have fun. But due to Machinarium game and Jakub I have been recently happy to see some interesting projects, like the ones from Keita Takahashi - Noby Noby Boy. Or art games like Blueberry Garden, trough its author Eric Swedang who we met on the festival in Bradford…. I also like very much PS2 project Little Big Planet for its creative approach to gaming.

With which composers, musicians or performers you’d like to work together?

That’s really interesting question. More I am older for me it is really important the personal level. I had luck that I met some really nice people especially recently. Otherwise I have a few above mentioned heroes and of course it would be super cool to make something with any of them. Or at least have a nice conversation.
Lusine, one of my very favorite musicians, was just playing in Brno few days ago. Unfortunately I had concert on the other side of the Czech rep. and couldn’t see him, it was pretty upsetting. I was hoping to have beer with him :D

What exactly from the music impressed you the most recently?

With music I am quite choosy, but once I found something interesting I can get crazy about it. I have been listening recently a lot to Grizzly Bear actually. I heard the short concert in Pitchofork.tv from the Cemetery Gates and it totally put magic on me. Maybe because of the interaction of the space and music, it has beautiful sound. Trough this I find the way to their studio album.

Arve Henrisken one of my big music heroes was playing in Prague recently. It was concert with Jan Bang. I have to mention this because it was definitely one of the most touching concert experience in my life. He is extraordinary person for me - so original, deep, spiritual music.

Reakce

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:18:00 -0500

Byl sem překvapen množstvím i pozitivitou reakcí na hudbu pro Machinarium. Lidi dokonce píšou až z takových míst jako je Mongolsko, nebo Pakistán…

Nejvíc mě potěšilo pár zajímavých hudebníků s nabídkou spolupráce a to je asi vůbec nejcennější.

Příkládám ještě pár citací z recenzí, ale jinak už s chvastounstvim končim, je mi totiž jasné, že to není dáno ani tak mou hudbou, jako spíš Machináriem samotným!

“A new standard is set for customized gaming music that really helps to enhance the game!” (http://www.gamersdailynews.com/)

“the music and delightful diegetic sounds combining with such cohesion, such tremendous brilliance, that it’s almost overwhelming.” (http://resolution-magazine.co.uk)

“Perfectly complimenting the game is a stunningly beautiful soundtrack. I often found myself sitting idle in an area just listening to the music.” (endsights.com)

“Regular Amanita contributor Tomáš Dvořák once again provides the music, which is wonderful beyond compare. Almost every scene has its own score, each good enough to task switch out of the game and leave running in a loop in the background for hours.” (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com)

“Without dialogue, Amanita could have bombarded us with ridiculously “futuristic” music. Instead, they have managed to create a uniquely audible experience that never feels contrived.” (http://gamerlimit.com)

“Heh, it’s been a while since I’ve wanted to harp on about the artwork in a game, but it doesn’t stop there as the music’s bloody good as well. The audio, provided by Thomas “Floex” Dvorak who’s soundtrack not only compliments the world created by Lachman and Amanita but happens to be right up my street. If I were to cross Thomas Newman (Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty) with Ed Shearmur (K-PAX) you get around the ballpark. Good stuff.” (http://www.ultraninjas.com)

“The music is also some of the best I’ve ever heard in a game. It’s a subtle electronic soundscape that constantly shifts between making the player uneasy and calm.” (http://pc.ign.com)

“Speaking of atmosphere, the music and sound fx are both beautiful and subtle as well. The subtlety of the sound might be easily overlooked by gamers as they peer at the game gap-mouthed and intrigued by its amazing graphics but Machinarium is one of the few games that is made even greater by the sum of its parts and that includes both music and sound. “ (http://www.i-luv-games.com)

“Like with the art and setting, the music for Machinarium is beautiful and well orchestrated for the game. Each tune is matches the setting excellently and never once did I dislike what was playing at the moment. To put it into a single phrase, the music for Machinarium is absolutely perfect for a dystopian robotic society.”

“The music is no exception to the genius.There are a wide variety of songs and even styles of music, which perfectly complements the atmosphere of the machine world of Machinarium. … It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of game music, mostly because music is such a powerful tool in a game’s utility belt. Put bluntly, music can make (or break) a game.”

“it’s “Machinarium’s” elegant, entrancing music, so perfect and so subtle.” (http://www.msnbc.msn.com)

Odkaz na starý blog

Tue, 30 Nov 2004 07:22:00 -0500

Archiv starších záznamů (původně na Blogspotu) lze skouknout zde.