Posts in Category: Sound/music

Extracting the Root

I forgot to post earlier about the latest piece I added to the Sound page:

Extracting the Root

It was a collaboration between myself and Mike Mogan in the late 80’s. I am not sure of the year. It actually made it onto a cassette release of a compilation of Fresno indie music. I’m not sure what kind of music to call it, but it was influenced by early, so-called world music, Peter Gabriel, and ECM jazz stuff. I can’t remember what the title is a reference to. It was actually quite a challenge to record as it was done on a Tascam “Portastudio 244” 4-track cassette recorder. There were quite a few parts and stereo imaging of things, so there was a lot of careful bouncing tracks down. It is hard to believe we managed to do it with somewhat decent mix levels and minimal tape noise.

Mike played rhythm guitar, the cool double-tracked guitar solo, and synthesizer. I played rhythm guitar (the part with the dubious timing), acoustic 12-string guitar, and did the drum machine programming. It was my first drum machine, the E-mu Drumulator. This thing came with a stock set of sounds that was a basic drum kit. Eventually, you could add, I should say change, sounds by swapping out the computer chips onto which he sounds were recorded. Here I have the ethnic percussion chip set going. It sounds a bit dry and forward in this mix. I think we actually recorded a sync track for the drumulator on the tape and printed the stereo percussion part straight to the mixdown.

Introducing Sound

I have finally introduced Sound to SightWordSound. It’s extremely rudimentary, but it’s a start. So, if you go to the Sound page, you can click on bulleted links there to hear mp3 streams of some of my stuff.

In my typical fashion, my prowess for commercialism and self-promotion has lead me to begin by uploading whacked out experimental sound pieces that will probably drive most people away. But fear not. If anyone comes back for more, I’ll eventually get some old song stuff up here, too. I have hours of tapes going back to some of the earliest garage and experimental days. It will be a treat to be able to share with people, particularly you far-flung players on these recordings, where ever you now live.