Updated listening list:

Moby: Play
Trojan Records (sampler): 20 Reggae Classics, 1966-74
Jackie Lomax: Is This What You Want?
Fleetwood Mac: Say You Will

I should actually read the Lomax liner notes someday. Sure sounds like Ringo on most of the tracks, plus some trademark Lennon guitar sounds on a few songs. Three or four GREAT songs on this, either marred or made parfect by Lomax's voice, depending on what you think of his unconventional sound. The rest is substandard filler. Duynno if he ever did another album - this one was hot in its day (1970?), but apparently hasn't made the Clear Channel Inc. playlists. Grumble.

Grreat, yet another new posting interface. Can't imagine why they think this is better.

New truck today. WOOHOO! 2003 Chevy S-10 extended cab. Killer price.

Updated listening list:
Harvey Mandel - Cristo Redemptor
BoDeans - Home
Prince - Very Best Of

Also, one of the weird little coolnesses of a musician's life - stumbled across an old off-the-radio tape from 1983. We'd make these to help us figure out what to learn next. Some songs I had COMPLETELY forgotten about by Rick Springfield, Don Henley, the Call, and (I think) 38 Special. Plus some more that I hadn't heard for a really long time from The Cure, INXS, Chris DeBurgh (Don't Pay the Ferryman - great tune), Duran Duran, and the English Beat. Made for a magical trip down memory lane.

I've got some even older Casey Kasem countdown tapes somewhere - I should dig 'em out.

Wow, my listening list is so far outta date...

...I think I'll just start listing 'em here:

Oxford American mag: 2003 Southern Music Sampler
Steely Dan: Everything Must Go
Vanguard Records: 2001 Sampler
Cream: 20th Century Masters
Morphine: Greatest Hits, 1992-95
Jeff Beck Group: Rough 'n' Ready
Radio Deutshe Orchestra: Bach: Brandenburg Concertos 1-3, 6
Clare College Choir: Rutter: Requiem
Return to Forever: Where Have I Known You Before
Uncut Mag: Psychedelic Sampler
Return to Forever: Light as a Feather
Dusty Springfield: The Ultimate Collection

Any Mountain fans out there?

Here's the story behind the dedication for Nantucket Sleighride.

I had no idea. Apparently not the story of the song itself - not much connection to the lyrics...

Well, I HAVE been working in the studio a bit, just not talking about it here...

Voice classes at college this summer have made a real difference in my singing - my recorded voice is still not gonna give a real singer a run for the money, but it's at least less painful to listen to.

So, follow this link:
Beautiful Still
for a song I wrote for Kim last year, and finally recorded a scratch vocal for.

Or follow this link:
NoWhereRadio
for:
1) Baby Baby Girl, a song I wrote for Alyssa,
2) Lift, a rock/gospel setting for Charles Wesley's "Rejoice, the Lord Is King", and
3) a far more polished version of "Beautiful Still", performed by my friend Al Carmichael. I don't think any vocal class will ever get me singing like THAT...

Wow - Blogger weirdness. Strange new interface at the back end. Apparently I'm the victim of an autodetect scheme that says I don't support the right kind of stylesheets, and that it'll eventually be overrideable, but not yet. Sheesh.

So I gotta learn the new interface before I post anything of substance...

Nice dinner with fatsarah last night, who is neither fat, nor particularly princess-like. Especially compared to some other Princess Sarahs I know.

A couple of weeks back, I found out a fellow CCAN listee was in my summer vocal class. And a couple of fellow listees from a private list of classical composers managed to attend our DC concert, linked below.

It's always a thrill to meet people that you sort of know, but have never met. I'll have more chances this summer - NPM convention in Cincinnati in July, Homerec BBS's second annual Jamfest in Connecticut in August.

True in so many ways:

New listening list, that's all.

Oh, and check out my trip report at http://stceciliawashere.blogspot.com/.

For those of you who like that sort of thing, it's the sort of thing you might like. ;)

Report Card

Deja vu all over again...

Music History - A
Chorale - A
Organ - B+

Spring / Summer is gonna be a homegrown theory review with emphasis on ear training (2 credits) and organ (2 credits). Prof promises we'll get to service playing this time. And no more Wachet Auf. YAYYY!!!!!

Yahoo! News - Sony Buys Sonic Foundry Products

Another one bites the dust, UH
Another one bites the dust, hey hey hey yeah

Crap. This can't be good. SF has been hurting for a long time, I knew something was coming. Hadn't thought of Sony, though.

So, of my major music software investments:
Encore: Passport is owned by GVox (and sinking fast?)
Gigasampler: Giga is now owned by Tascam
EVP-73: Logic is now owned by Apple (no PC upgrades coming, I bet)
Cubase and Model-E: Steinberg is now owned by Pinnacle
Acid, Sound Forge, and Vegas: Sonic Foundry is now owned by Sony

IOW, the only music software that I use that is still owned by the people who developed it is:
B-4 and Pro-52: Propellerheads

Are they next?

That's it, except for some loop libraries. The rest is freeware, except for some stuff from PGMusic (PowerTracks Pro, Band-in-a-Box) that I haven't been using.

Missed that one

The (former) band got together Friday night - I couldn't make it, due to the choir concert. It was gonna be a jam, but I called over after the concert, Carl's son said they went out to the bar. Probably a karaoke bar - Fred and Luke used to go a lot. Sorry I missed it, though it woulda taken a LOT of drinks to get me up there, I think...

Another semester gone

Choir concerts tonight and Sunday. Prof loved my term paper on pre-1950 music technology. Think I did okay on the final. Choir's an "A" as long as I show up. Music History's floating along at about an "A-" right now.

That leaves Organ. I completely hosed up "Wachet Auf" at juries. My other piece, Foote's "Pater Noster", went okay. Ah well, public humiliation is an excellent opportunity for personal growth...

I'll be Bach

I've been doing this progressive fast thing for Lent - each week, give up something additional:

Week 1: desserts
Week 2: seconds
Week 3: alcohol (this was AFTER St. Patty's )
Week 4: snacks
Week 5: meat
Week 6: coffee
Week 7: the web

Week 7 is now upon us. I'll be back after Easter...

Potential Band Name of the Day

"Chzill".

Kind of a gangsta lounge vibe...

Check out fatsarah's reaction to last night's weirdness in EL.

Days like this make me glad I can say "my degree's from Wayne State," or "I attend Madonna." Usually, I'd bring up my three years at MSU if asked, and I really think their James Madison College was an excellent program, but MAN! What a bunch of morons!

Still Here

But not much to say. Not doing much studio work now, concentrating on mastering Bach's "Wachet Auf" Schubler Chorale. So far Bach's winning. My height (6'4") seems to be a factor in my difficulties: quoting myself from another forum, I look something like "Ichabod Crane riding a unicycle playing a calliope" when I play this piece. So, in addition to my organ shoes, I'll probably have to start carrying around a pair of 2"x4"s to prop under the organ bench. Of course, then my arms will be too high, meaning I'll probably have carpal tunnel in 6 months.

Suffering for my art, I guess. Paying my dues so I can sing the pipe organ blues...

In other news

I'm now "dedicated member" status over at Home Recording BBS. It means I get to pick my own "avatar", the little icon that appears next to my handle ("dafduc").

I think I'm going with this:

Never Mind
It appears that Fred was the glue holding us together. As soon as he left, Luke stopped showing up. So last week, Carl put an end to it. Maybe we can get together and jam, but the project is dead.

So, if I'm to keep this site going, I'll have to redesign - it can still be about my studio, and my recording projects, but not about the band. There is no band.

Fred Has Left The Building Redux


RIP, man. Sorry we made all those jokes about you. You were really cooler than us. With a way better pianist.

Fred Has Left the Building

We had this deal where Fred was going to cut vocal tracks over our "keeper" (in fact, barely demo quality) instrumental tracks, and we were going to let those be the basis of our final decision. What actually wound up happening was that Fred and Carl talked a couple of days before the scheduled session, and decided to kill it now. Poor Freddie, we hardly knew ye...

No rehearsals for the past couple of weeks - Dan had surgery, then my wife did. This weekend, however, should give us some idea of the immediate future. Stay tuned.

B-a-a-ack: Potential Band Name of the Day

Dr. Luke.

A little background: looks like Fred's on his way out. Not a done deal yet, but he's not happy, and the guys (except maybe me) aren't happy. So we were talking about how do we find a new singer, and realized that as long as we're doing studio stuff, Luke doesn't have to play and sing at the same time. So we have time to find the right fifth person, whether they're a drummer, a singer, or both.

For now, that makes Luke our front man. I'm thinking it may stay that way, too. The nice thing about "Dr. Luke" as a band name is there's an instant Christian callback to Luke the physician, but it's not so aggressively Christian-sounding as to preclude us from doing a secular thing.

The Sincerest Form of Flattery

Over at Dave Barry's Blog, Dave joins in on the "potential band name of the day" fun. I've had a dry spell lately, so it's good to see someone else pick up the ball and run with it.

Even if the name he picked is worse than most of mine.

Fred seemed real moody at last night's rehearsal, the rest of the guys are about to mutiny (if you can call it that - Fred really never set himself out as a leader, but he's the guy who did the legwork) - pitch is a real big issue, preparedness is, too.

It's too bad - **I** liked us when we were clicking, but apparently the pitch issue is enough to throw everyone else off their lunch. Sigh...

We'll try to keep moving forward - we're going to give Fred a shot at the studio versions of these before we give up.

LOTR Fans Outraged at New Character in The Return of the King

Heh heh.

Interesting week:

(1) Upgraded to Acid 4.0 - mixed feelings about it. Same price for an upgrade as for retail new box. I finally went for it (new box) - soft synth support was key, as were the 7 free loop disks it came with. Loop disks are a bit dated, but useable, some soft synths don't work well in Acid - notably Steinberg's Model-E (a virtual mini-moog). But, along with item (2) below, I got enough inspiration from the new features to move 3 songs forward - "Ps. 63", "Beloved", and "Praise the Lord, Sons and Daughters";

(2) Bought some deep discount loop disks, notably a Celtic loop disk from USB Soundscan, but a few more, too. The deal with these old loops though is that they're in audio format, and/or not timed to an even beat - this latter throws Acid for a "loop" (haha) - it can't calculate the tempo. Tempo is usually documented, though, and some editing will fix it. Still, not seamless the way the newer loops are;

(3) Met with Fred Friday night to go over stuff - he hasn't been happy with the band's progress and direction, though he says he likes MY stuff. I talked up the group a bit, went into some of my theories involving interpersonal vector dynamics (if I'm pulling northwest and you're pulling northeast, then the thing we're pulling will move north - something like what we were each pulling for, but just different enough to have a group "flavor" to it). We went over some musical ideas, he seemed okay by the end;

(4) Rehearsed Saturday (rescheduled due to Super Bowl), Dan was out sick, but we went over some stuff anyhow - I was the "bass player". Got a demo of mountain/forest/home (or Time is Time, as originally named - m/f/h is my set of lyrics for it) recorded for Fred, and Fred did Ps. 130 with us for the first time - really nice feel. then we started messing around - found out Luke does a dead-on Joe Cocker impression. So we tried digging up a Beatles song Cocker hadn't already done, tried "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey" first, then "Come Together" - pretty cool. Come Together segues right into "The Letter", too, so we bounced back and forth awhile doing that. Luke says he can't really play and sing at the same time though. Fred and Dan both play a bit of drums, so maybe Luke could go out front for a few? Also talked over "Bipolar" with Carl - Fred liked parts, and didn't like parts - so we're streamlining the song a bit and pulling out the rhythm punches (ripped from the Who's version of "Summertime Blues") and working them into their own piece - see #5. Lotsa beer down the gullet, too;

(5) Worked this week on "Bad Girls Found Out" lyrics - still rough, but coming together. This is based on Carl's lick (but no longer matches the Who riff), and lyrically based on the old Mae West quote: There's no such thing as good girls gone bad, only bad girls found out." Should be fun!

Five Faves of the Day

This is tough, cos I like ALL of them, just about. But here it is:

Five Favorite Music Movies
5. Round Midnight
4. Mr. Holland's Opus
3. Stop Making Sense
2. The Last Waltz
1. This Is Spinal Tap

Five Faves of the Day

I posted about dark happy beat songs before, but the happy happy songs need equal time, I think:

Happy-Beat Happy Songs
5. Suffragette City - Bowie
4. Stand - R.E.M.
3. Back in Love Again - LTD
2. Funky Nassau - Beginning of the End*
1. Walking on Sunshine - Katrina and the Waves

* - Had to look this one up for the artist. Had NO IDEA it was in Blues Brothers 2000 - almost makes me want to watch it, despite what I've heard. I DID know about the French techno cover of it, though. Jury's still out on techno, for me...

Finally got to put my Zero-G Development - Brutal Beats samples to work on Ps. 130 - nice feel to them, though I kept in some of the techno stuff too. Essentially, there will be two drummers on this song. I like the feel.

Sadly, some of the more interesting sonic mayhem on Brutal is not available in all the permutations of a given beat. So the headbangers' ball setting, and the jet-airplane's-about-to-run-you-over setting of the loop group I was using were pretty much unusable - different enough from the stock mix and the overcompressed mix to not mix well with them, and not interesting enough to be used as the only source(s) for the whole tune.

There's also this thing with mistuned cymbals - or maybe they're two different cymbals, but the second only exists in one pattern. I decided to ignore the diff and use both anyway.

Also had some fun with freebie bass patterns - dig deep enough, you'll always find something! In this case, it was two patterns - one of which played D-E-A-B in just the right rhythm. So I split it in half, put the last half first (A-B-D-E, if you're following along), then cut the first note, put it on a separate track, and dropped it a minor 3rd (F#-B-D-E) - sounds like it was made for it. And for the opening part I actually found exactly what I was looking for - bassist playing an mid-A and a high E together.

Guitar loops were fun too - I didn't expect to get this far last night. But the Magix $5 loop disk saves the day again, with its building block style loops. Had to re-EQ the annoyingly trebly Telecaster loop, but the the crunch power rhythm loop was perfect just as it was. Played a bit with the dynamics, and voila - ready for porting to Cubase!

I was so geeked at getting the work done that fast, I went and added a bass guitar part to my "Praise the Lord, Sons and Daughters" piece. It already had a sub-bass part, but I thought it needed a real bass, too. Spend some time with 5-string bass hits (Magix, too? I forget), kinda cool how they came out. Sort of a rubber-band thing, where the sub-bass notes are cut real short, and the higher bass guitar note extends a bit. I was going to cut the bass guitar notes shorter, but I think I like this effect. Hope to listen again tonight or tomorrow to make sure.

Rehearsal was pretty good. Went over some of the same stuff, but added a new (well, 1998, but new to US) one of mine, based on Ps. 130. Luke brought his family by, that was nice.

Rehearsal was okay last week, and we finally got a practice CD out of it. Pretty rough, but some shining moments. Carl played with the endings a little in post-production (it's just a practice thing, so that's a misleading term, I suppose), some cool ideas there. Rehearsal again tomorrow! I'm ready!

Computer Music is just the coolest mag! Best part of it is the CD full of software that comes with it - yoiu can build a whole PC studio with the software.

The mag is not well known in the US - Border's Books imports it and sells it at a pretty hefty markup (not a slam on Border's - I'm sure it's expensive to sell it this way). I bought about 5 issues in a row, then decided to subscribe. Never once regretted it, but now they've stopped their Cubase 5.x tutorials in favor of Cubase SX, which requires an XP upgrade in addition to the Cubase upgrade. And an XP upgrade would cause my version of Encore to stop working, which would require an Encore upgrade...

Five Faves of the Day

Five favorite CDs of 2002

5. Natalia King - Milagro
4. Joshua Redman - Elastic
3. Delbert McClinton - Room to Breathe
2. Angelique Kidjou - Black Ivory Soul
1. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Honorable Mention
Medeski, Martin, and Wood - Uninvisible
Beck - Sea Change
Les McCann - Pump It Up
Shelby Lynne - Love, Shelby
Joshua Redman - Yaya3
Moby - 18

Here's a more or less finished product of Song Eighteen. It's a 7.2mb file, so if you don't have the bandwidth try the lo-fi version instead. It's about 2.4 mb.

We've already established that it's got too much bass and the vocals are too low (thanks to the guys and the occasional gal at the Home Recording BBS). But I'd love it if you'd drop me a note and let me know what you think. Links will go away in a week or two - only so much space at blogspot plus...

Update, eff. 1/31 or so - Hifi link is still there, but points to an improved mix (watch this space for another update - we've retracked the vocal, much more feeling!!!). Lofi link is gone.

Updating my listened-to-list to the right, but nothing much to say here - two canceled band rehearsals in a row.

Finished up my first pass through the studio work on "Song Eighteen". Band is uninvolved in this recording. Singer, my pal Caroline, has great voice, but phrasing was a litle too "square" (am I showing my age or what?). And my background vocs sound lousy. I hope to give Caroline another stab at the song, but overall, I'm pleased with it as it is - just gotta fix my vocs. Sennheiser 421 was brighter than I expected, I may try a 57 instead.

Also installed a second hard drive, an 80gb Western Digital Ultra-ATA 100. Then I moved my audio files and docs. That really hoses up Cubase!!! Learned more about the Audio Pool than I ever wanted to know. Things were worse because my part files all had the same names, they were just kept in different subfolders. Got through it without any permanent damage, though.

My Acid files weren't as fortunate, but the backup versions were retained, so we're okay, I think...