Man, life. Life is something a little crazy once you throw in the towel and actually adult. Finding time for a hobby is so damn hard. Almost work within of itself, haha. Anyways, I found the motivation to sit down and make a song like I used to. Check it out! Also, I have been making music for 10 years as of a few months ago and I think that's such an amazing milestone. Stay awesome, Newgrounds. Click the art to listen!

Each day (with some slacking of course) I uploaded another song from my recently finished album "Why?" to Newgrounds. I'd love to hear some criticism, because I'm just sure of it someone out there has a differently tuned ear far from my own, haha. Check it out! They can be identified in my audio section by the icon which matches:

I miss the good old days. Remember when flash was popping? When everyone was obsessed with playing flash games online and usually specifically on Newgrounds. Which brings me to my next point.

Remember the good old days of Newgrounds? Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I just don't see how active the site actually still is generally because I don't use it the way I used to. Now, and for the past few years, I've been uploading a song here and there. Trying to upload everything that I upload to SoundCloud or Youtube. The motivation just isn't there anymore.

Years ago, when I uploaded a song to Newgrounds, I always knew I'd get a review. Sometimes a constructive review, sometimes not. That was perfectly fine. A review was a review to me. Now, I seem to get anywhere between 500 to 1000 "listens" to a song. Yet, that can't be correct. Of those views, I may only get one or two people that actually rate my songs. Of those rates, I have not gotten an actual review in probably TWO years.

I'm not complaining. I just see times changing. I feel like a small artist in a giant pond. Where before, that still held true, but at least people made me feel like I was making music for a purpose. Now I feel like I'm just doing it for myself. That's fine too, but I can't really improve if no one tells me what sounds good or not.

Recently, I finished my second album. On Newgrounds, I have contributed over 150 songs. Making an album was a HUGE deal to me. Took a lot of time and effort. I easily uploaded every song all at once onto SoundCloud, but I lacked motivation to do so on Newgrounds. Just because I see this site dying. Slowly, but surely. 

Again, maybe I'm wrong. This whole thing is not a complaint. I just really really miss the days where I was so excited to show off my new work for the people of Newgrounds to tell me how I did. It still is the only place where anyone ever seemed to care about my work. I barely get listens on SoundCloud. I barely get views on Youtube. I barely commit to even making music anymore. That was a huge part of my life. Maybe I'm just growing up and moving on.

Where has my life gone in the past two months? I'll tell you where. Right into this playlist here. I've dedicated a lot of time into mainly searching for and listening to Dubstep songs and then adding my top 50 favorites to a playlist. This started out as just something I was doing for myself and a friend, but then I decided to upload it to Youtube and share it with everyone.

I plan on making more of these, hopefully with more genres eventually. As you could probably guess, this is the early 2014 edition, eventually there will be a mid 2014 edition and an end 2014 edition.

Right now I am still actually looking for songs to put into the next edition. If anyone knows of any good Dubstep songs or artists, please let me know in any way. It could even be your work. In that case, I will view your song and review it or let you know through messages that I will be using it.

Basically the title of this post has a double meaning. One being what has been going on recently in my world of production. And the other being a possible change of my alias, Carl565. Both have been keeping me from being productive... but however, that does not mean that I am "dead".

I really don't know how many people will see this, or how many people actually care enough to read this, but I just wanted to make it apparent that I definitely have been inactive in my work. This has been true to an extent for the past year, but it has really toggled to the worst up to recent. To see my latest project "Corridors" roll out was luck. I am going to be completely honest and just state right away that I really havent touched FL Studio since I released that, and really have zero projects that I have worked on since then.

There are a couple reasons that I feel that are holding me back from making music. I've come to a realization that I am just sick of staring at the same interface of FL Studio for hours at a time. Perhaps I'm sick of making music completely... I really don't know that for a fact, but I can say that my love for music holds.

The other reason that I feel like I know I haven't really been making music is the fact that I know that other producers make music straight from their imagination... I do not do that... Simply knowing that producers know what to add next to their song and what notes to add makes me a bit jealous. Ever since I started making music about 5 and a half years ago, I have always created from sheer randomness of a melody that I figured sounded good and backing synths/instruments that I figured complemented the melody. The only thing that I can truly say I know for a fact that I think of before adding is the drums. To know that I was gifted with holding a beat in my mind, but not a musical sense is really beyond me...

Anyways, onto the next subject.

As recent as about half a year ago, on websites other than Newgrounds I have started to go by my actual name, Clay Schubert, rather than my alias, Carl565. This is mostly because I feel it's more professional and well, when people ask me how I came up with Carl565, I feel the story is really childish and there really isn't any meaning to it. For the sake of people having controversy, I'll go ahead and tell the story of how my alias became Carl565.

Back when I was around 5 years old, I was obsessed with Legos. So much in fact that I believe that it's possibly the reason for me having OCD because I literally kept them under the frame of my bed because they made me safe at night, haha, but that's a different story. So, I ended up wanting to sign up for an account on Lego.com. In doing this, I thought that you had to use your name for a username and I didn't feel safe doing that. Instead I used my middle name, Carl. Of course, it came back as being "in use" and gave a few small alterations as recommendations. You probably guessed it, but carl565 was one of those.

I've always used carl565 with a lowercase "C" up until a year or two ago, and then switched to a uppercase "C". How it took me so long to figure out how to use the shift key is beyond me... haha, just kidding. I really don't know why I never thought of using an uppercase "C", maybe it just didn't appeal to me.

With all of this in mind, I really would like to go by an alias instead of my actual name. It would need to be something cool and professional. Maybe the use of both letters and numbers or figures to spell out something. I've always found the name Deadmau5 originally and liked it. If someone could give me some ideas, that'd be pretty cool.

If someone actually reads all the way to the end here, I just want to state again that I am in no way dead. I will continue to use FL Studio and make music... but perhaps I'm just going to take a small break. Also, you deserve a medal for making it this far, haha. Thanks too... I appreciate it.

I first started exploring Newgrounds at the age of 6. Seeing that audio portal always made me want to start making music. I always thought to myself "other people do it, why can't I?". Around that same time, my dad bought Sonic Foundry Acid and I would always toy around with that. From what I remember, Acid had lots of limitations and only had a few presets and you couldn't do much with them. I stopped using Acid after a couple of years (that sounds really bad, haha. Just keep in mind, I mean the program, not the drug). In 2007 I became a member of Newgrounds and was trying to find new ways of making music so I could start uploading to Newgrounds. Finally in 2008, when I was 11 years old, I found out about FL Studio. Right away I was hooked and was pumping out, what I thought back then, amazing songs. June 13th, 2008 marks my first audio submission to Newgrounds. If you have time, check it out and see how much I've improved, haha. Anyways, 5 years later I have decided to celebrate this day by creating a song that shows what I've learned up to today (Summer Rain). I can promise you that there are many more submissions coming.

Here's to the past 5 years:
My first song ever

Here's to 5 more:
The song I created for this anniversary

On a side note, you want to know a major coincidence? I also get off GDL today, haha. How those two things work out like that is awesome. All I have to do is look at my drivers license and I'll know the date of my first submission... although that seems to be going a little bit too far, haha.

Well... not quite, but in 3 days it will be. I uploaded my first song on June 13th of 2008. To think that it has been almost 5 years is just mind blowing. My appreciation for music and what it does for me has not died down at all, although I do take a lot more time to finish a song than before, but that's only for quality purposes. I think back in 2008 I used to release 2 maybe 3 songs a week and today I'm lucky if I get 1 song out in a month's time. However, because of this upcoming anniversary, I started a song from scratch and have been working hard on it. Summer is here and that extra time will definitely benefit the finishing of this song by the 13th. Keep on the lookout for the song, I can promise it will be up Thursday.

Taking a break. Accidentally spent too much time on FL pumping out projects that now I am just sick of staring at my computer screen. It has already been a month since my last project and I have no idea how long it will be before I start using FL again. Soon, hopefully. Whatever, this gives me a chance to rack up more ideas for good songs.

a classmate from my school had recently overdosed on heroine. Where people get these kind of drugs is beyond me, but it is surely an eye opener for many people. After hearing about this event, I had gotten scared about my brother, who does the same sorts of drugs. I made two songs out of complete scare. Please do not be stereotypical and think that I do the same thing. I am the complete opposite, and this event moves me even further away from drugs.

Vanquishing Bleakness: Here
Enduring Happiness: Here

Also, for a quick side note, I have decided to make an album out of my most recent songs. I'd say the album is half way complete and will be named Lost Introspection with the song Lost Introspection as the cover song. Many different genres will be put into the album.

Yep that's right, I started making dubstep. That's the power of Native Instruments Massive.

Lost Introspection: here
Empty Spaces: here