stefkeB

When my father-in-law was planning his retirement from the University where he was working, he asked us to play at his celebration.

I was to play the guitar, Marnix (the other son-in-law) also played guitar, my father played the piccolo and (originally) nephew Jan was to play the violin, but due to work obligations he was replaced by Hilde, who was a friend of the family.

After some thinking, we decided on three songs.

Two irish traditionals: "Napoleon crossing the Alps" going directly into "The Pullet". Again, from our final rehearsal.

Our version of Concerning Hobbits, by Howard Shore, from the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. This is a recording from our rehearsal.

Originally from Willem Vermandere, from the "Omzwervingen" album.

When playing with the new Ableton 8, I tried to boost the sound of a previous recording of "lasuur". Now it includes an EQ setting for Acoustic guitar, a multi-band compression and a limiter to boost the level closer to the maximum.

Some dynamics got lost, but overall it sounds much fuller and louder. This might be suitable for MP3s, which are often listened to with headphones and background noise.

A recording during an improvisation, together with Jan. I was recording my new Marshall for the first time and it took a while to get the best connection. I think I found a better connection afterwards: the amp has an emulated Cabinet (4x12") output, which I can connect using an XLR cable and a plug to a Jack-connection into my audio interface.

The lyrics were already written and during a break at noon I recorded them. I used my Sure SM58 (for which I have reasonable hints that it's a fake).

After about 15 (maybe 20?) years, I finally bought a new guitar amplifier. I was looking at a Fender Hot Rod Reverb and a Marshall JVM 215C. Both are combo amplifiers (amplifier and cabinet combined) but have a different goal:

Well, every music blog seems to talk about it...

http://www.ableton.com/cantwaitfor8

Live8 is announced and has a nice set of features. Read all the details on the Ableton Website and on numerous blogs, but for me it is huge:

• MAX/MSP/JITTER will be integrated as a (non-free) add-on later this year
• Akai has a dedicated controller for LIVE
• Live8 has several nice improvements, including a vocoder, cross-fading in arrangements, a looper and some updated plugins.

If it's free, it might be worth it...

http://www.wavesgtr.com/html/product_gtr_solo.html

GTR solo is yours to keep (at least for one year). So make sure you "freeze" your tracks in December. It is a set of virtual Amplifiers, Cabinets and Stomp boxes for guitar, but don't forget that this might also create a more edgy synth or base sound.

Just read the following article for the (not so hopefull) view on what works and what doesn't in the audio-systems within Linux...

http://glyph.twistedmatrix.com/2009/01/dark-art-of-sound-on-linux.html

FWIW, the Mac OSX Audio system seems to be working really well and is easy to configure (e.g. MIDI routings, Audio routings etc...). Take notice and understand why OSX (and XP) are still the most popular choices for musicians on computers.