MY MUSIC

This page is dedicated to some of the musical work that I have been doing. Sever years ago I purchased a Roland JV-1010 sound synthesizer. I also bout Cake walk, a program for writing, arranging and producing music in digital format. I began with some sample MIDI files and worked my way up. I have never been really happy with how all of this has turned out. It sounded OK, I guess, but did not seam alive as I would have wanted. In 2003 I got very sick and was in the hospitable for a couple of weeks and stayed home for about three months. The day I left the hospital i went to the Guitar Center and bought a Roland SH-32 analog synthesizer. I began to experiment with sound synthesis and began to realize exactly what it really was that made sounds sound the way that they do. I still never was able to get the JV-1010 to sound the way that I wanted to. I recently got a Yamaha Motif ES Rack and found that it to was lacking in character that I wanted, despite the fact that demonstrations of this unit at the store sounded much, much better.

This was driving me nuts. I was able to take MIDI files of music that I liked and rearrange and re-instrument pieces to sound the way I wanted the sound. However, instruments like saxophones, flutes and trumpets sounded weak and lifeless. I accidentally found something called VEL. VEL is the controller for velocity. Velocity is a factor of how hard and fast a key is struck or an instrument is blown. This made the notes sound more alive. With Chorus and Reverb the notes now sound brighter. In fact in some of the work that I have been doing I am able to now hear breath sounds. I do not know if this is real or imaged. My Motif has distinctive key sounds for at least the saxophones.

Now with a more realistic sound set to work with I began by arranging about seventeen new songs. I have now incorporated vibraphones, marimba and tubular bells into some of my pieces. I just produced my fourth disk and have given it out to a few of the people that I know. I have lost contact with a couple of people like Nichol and Amy D. P. that should also get copies. I have put two of my new favorites on this page for general listing, Tenderly and Beauty and the Beast.  They are a bit large, but are worth the weight. I would really like an opinion as to how well that they sound. Thus far the people that gotten my first copies have not listened to the disk.

As I learn more about compression schemes I will be placing more music on this site. The following is a list of downloadable music that I have arranged and recorded so far. Not I have not MP3 encoded all to this music so be patient. I will place it all here eventually.

Breaking News....

I am now working on my second disk. I have about ten new songs underway. I would like to increase this number a bit for the CD. The first has about 17 and this seams to be about the right number. All songs will be produces using the Roland JV1010 and Cakewalk Sonar. I tend to brighten up the original song a bit. This disk will emphasize the the Vibraphone, Marimba and crystal even more that disk #1.

I have burned a test version for evaluation. I need additional content and the songs that I have still need a bit of work. I need to finish this CD by Halloween. I intend to give copies of both disk to a friend's mom during trick or treat, else next year?

Song creation process.

The way these songs have been made is to begin with a song already in MIDI format. I rearrange the voices and special effects. I then adjust each voice individually. Using Sonar the song can be virtually