Isaac Rowntree – Me and Julio (Direct Link)

Isaac Rowntree – Serenity (Direct Link)

Cause I was Broke – Direct Link

Ignore the obvious mistakes, it’s late in the evening and I need to work tomorrow m’kay!?

More and more I can hear how my electric guitar is just so trashy compared to my acoustic. But not much I can do until I get a better pickup for my acoustic…

I decided that I’d try doing a bit of an ‘easier’ approach and put up some recordings of music by Jim Snidero released in his Jazz Conception book. This track is the very first one in the book and while very simple took me a surprisingly long time to get running. I think the more I do of this the better/faster I’ll get at the whole recording process so that when I do actually sit down to record something original I’ve got the process down pat.

Anyway, here’s Groove Blues, instrumentation/arrangement by myself, etude by Jim Snidero.

Trombone: Wah wah mute (Jo-ral)
Guitar: Acoustic recorded via mic
Drums: Ableton Live Impulse kit. Can I just say I really *hate* how tinny any software drum kit sounds?

In related news I’ve been getting singing lessons (finally!) and next time I do some vocals there should hopefully be a marked improvement!

In that time I have put a lot of practice into the  guitar, learned a lot about blues from the greats (such as Albert Collins, Robert Cray, Johnny Copeland, Albert King), worked really really hard on my musicality and composition, and have managed to equip myself with the amazing Line 6 Pod X3 Live.

If it wasn’t for the X3 I’d still be stuck wondering if I’ll ever be able to afford an electric guitar amp, a bass guitar amp, a PA box, and a CAB line-up! You can hear it on this track in all its glory. The only major problem with the X3 is its lack of support for Ubuntu Linux otherwise I’d be using it as my sound card everywhere! Where is it Line 6?

The inspiration for this piece came from playing (you guessed it) Left 4 Dead, a co-op zombie survival game. I thought it would be quite fun to try and capture some of the anguish that a lone protagonist would feel as a result of being caught up in such a dreadful situation. And, I thought that the blues was uniquely suited to giving this song the proper feel also.

I learned slap bass just for this song, and managed to record the final tracks today despite a congested head and consistent coughing fits! Maybe a head cold is all you need to try and get a convincing blues sound

So without further ado I give you Zombie Hunter, the culmination of a month’s hard work. Click on the sidebar player or listen to it here!

Awesomeness in a Bucket

It is also the debut of my new guitar – it makes a fantastic sound

What You Wish For

Of course there are the usual problems (my guitar playing is not fantastic yet), and it feels like it could go longer, but it’s 10 PM and I need to start work tomorrow… It’s for this reason I didn’t include my trombone but eh, them’s the breaks.

Kickin’ Back

Everything was produced in FL Studio. I recently kitted out my office/studio with a new Shure SM58 mic and stand so it has really helped with the quality of voice and trombone recording! My Edirol UA-4FX USB soundcard is also excellent as it gives me all the inputs I need – this is the first time I’ve really done anything more than play back music with it!

This song is the first full-length track I have composed (though I have done some mini jam tracks which were quite frankly very bad a few years ago).

Derek de Sousa of Guitar Player Studios has offered to cover the bass part for this song so there may be an additional version up here soon. Enjoy!