Progressive Rock Artist seeks Audience
Last weekend I did what I promised myself I wouldn’t do, and went back and tweaked a previously “finished” song:
The clavinet in Playing with the Big Boys now shares time with a Rhodes electric piano.
Both instruments are provided by the superb PianoTeq Play v.3 VST.
Satin finish, flamenco-style classical guitar. Sounds great, records well, very happy with this one. One day, if I get really excited about playing flamenco, I may find I need something higher quality, but for now, this satisfies.
Time for an update. Since finishing up Solo Flight, I’ve turned my attention to the next track, “Strange But True”. There’s not a lot I wanted to change in this piece. As per my usual habit, it’s already been re-recorded a couple of times, but in accordance with my master plan, I wanted to replace the electric guitar with the Gibson L6-S, and go over the acoustic guitar tracks to see if there were any glitches I wanted to clean up. Oh, and also I wanted to replace the sampled Doumbek with a “live” recorded track, and the drum loops with XLN Addictive drums, again played “live” on my SPD-20, with sticks.
So, actually quite a lot of work needed doing.
Whilst re-recording the nylon acoustic guitar tracks, I noticed an unexpected problem. Since I’ve started using Dad’s Zoom H2 for recording the Ovation steel, I’ve realized that I am not happy with the sound of the Godin. I can no longer get a recorded sound that I’m happy with, either from a microphone or from the piezo pickups, or in any combination. I guess my tastes have changed.
Well that brings me to the next post. A new addition to the arsenal comes to the rescue!
After the album was released, I moved my notes about each song into a dedicated page which you may find here:
Fruit of the Steel Tree : Solo Flight
Alternatively, follow the album link in the main menu above on this page.
In a fit of energy I re-arranged the layout of the studio slightly. Keyboard against the wall; desk facing the window. The custom-designed-and-built studio furniture unit is unchanged positionally except for sliding a foot to the right.
Reflections from the window are reduced. Mission accomplished. On the other hand, when I’m working at home in day-job-mode I now have my back to the door which is not great. On the gripping hand, I can look out the window as I daydream work.
My Dad passed away 2 months ago, from cancer.
I know Dad was proud of the musical activity of all his children, although as far as I know not much of my personal creativity appealed to him. However I do know that every CD of our music that I burned and gave him was in his CD rack.
There are many treasured memories to choose from, but one in particular might be appropriate for this forum: Many years ago, I was living at home, and I raided Dad’s toolbox for a pair of wire cutters to trim the ends off the new strings on my guitar. Of course, the hard strings notched the gentle wire cutters, and of course, Dad noticed.
Instead of getting angry, he went out to the garage and came back with a newish looking pair of Knipex wire cutters, handed them to me and said, “This is the right tool for the job”.
I’ve used this pair to trim my guitar strings ever since. (no sign of notching, yet.)
In September I travelled to see Dad when he was in hospital. I played him an unfinished version of a track i was working on, which did not have a title, and I think he appreciated it. It’s hard to tell with Dad sometimes.
Inevitably, this piece is now associated with Dad and therefore it now has a title, “A Sample Of One“, which I will not explain here. This month I completed the track, recording the acoustic guitar using one of Dad’s Zoom H2 units.
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