Guitar music

I've uploaded some guitar improvisations to
<http://x31eq.com/music/>. The first one I recorded last year,
and I thought I may as well put it up now I've got more web space. In
fact, listening back to it I found it was better than I thought.

The other one I recorded this weekend. I noticed I hadn't let anything
escape for a while, and didn't want any of you to think I'd given up on
the sound-producing part of music. It might be okay with strict editing,
but I'm not inclined to do that, so it's all or nothing. Anybody who
wants proof of continuing musical activity can listen to it as penance.

Whatever you think about the music, I might be interested in comments
about the effects programming. It's all algorithmically constructed from
first principles. As I don't have hands-on experience of conventional,
high quality equipment I don't know what I might be missing.

Graham

Graham,

{you wrote...}
>I've uploaded some guitar improvisations to

I don't know exactly which examples you were most interested in, but I snagged "Noisy". True to it's name!

Glad that you shared your 'sound-producing' side, even if you're not ready to produce your first CD. I really hope one of the things that can happen around here is that people will share music, even if they aren't a full-time composer or performer. Hell, if I had to apologize about my mathematical skills I'd be in deep doo-doo.

You got a really crunchy distortion on the guitar, but that wasn't an outboard effect? It was post-processing? In any event, it would do any metal-head proud. As long as you've asked for commentary, the one thing I've noticed in most all of your examples is for the rhythm to be a bit 'loose'. Of course, my wife (cellist) gets these kind of 'comments' all the time, me being a percussionist obsessed with good time, but a metronome (or better yet, a drum machine) could focus those ruminations into a danceable hit.

Or something.

Anyway, thanks for posting that stuff - I hope you keep nurturing this side of your self as well...

Cheers,
Jon

In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20020123084948.02498870@...>
Jonathan M. Szanto wrote:

> I don't know exactly which examples you were most interested in, but I
> snagged "Noisy". True to it's name!

I think that's the better one. But I don't want to get stereotyped, so I
put up a quieter one as well.

> Glad that you shared your 'sound-producing' side, even if you're not
> ready to produce your first CD. I really hope one of the things that
> can happen around here is that people will share music, even if they
> aren't a full-time composer or performer. Hell, if I had to apologize
> about my mathematical skills I'd be in deep doo-doo.

I would ask you round to listen as I play, and you could even play drums
for me. But of course the only way for you to hear what I'm doing is for
me to record and upload something like this. The guitar's only a
sideline, so I don't need to be precious about what people get to hear.

> You got a really crunchy distortion on the guitar, but that wasn't an
> outboard effect? It was post-processing? In any event, it would do any
> metal-head proud. As long as you've asked for commentary, the one thing
> I've noticed in most all of your examples is for the rhythm to be a bit
> 'loose'. Of course, my wife (cellist) gets these kind of 'comments' all
> the time, me being a percussionist obsessed with good time, but a
> metronome (or better yet, a drum machine) could focus those ruminations
> into a danceable hit.

The effects are all done real-time in Kyma. There are a couple of tricks
beyond straight clipping, but I don't use response curves of tube
amplifiers or anything like that. It means I can tweak the sound, and
also get it crisper than a real guitar amp would be.

The MIDI pieces are mostly recorded into the sequencer. Sometimes I
record a pattern over and over and loop the best one. If it's a full
melody, I record it in and adjust anything that sounds wrong. I'm
generally trying to avoid the quantised sound I'd get by drawing
everything in, or the work it'd take to draw everything in the way I want
it.

With the guitar, there's no way of editing out the mistakes, and there are
a few of them in both examples, particularly the mellow one. That can be
too pedestrian rhythms as well as too wayward ones, and misfingerings. As
there isn't any backing, the looseness isn't really something I think
about.

> Or something.

Indeed, for dance music it is good to have at least one instrument holding
a precise rhythm.

> Anyway, thanks for posting that stuff - I hope you keep nurturing this
> side of your self as well...

I can record something every now and then if you like. I'm also working
on thought-out compositions. I should be better at them, but they take a
lot longer to finish.

Graham