Adventures in Recording

flying to meet the sunrise - cd

a new adventure as a solo artist

In the past I have belonged to bands who went into the studio, made demos, then broke up. I decided I was too old to mess about with that sort of thing anymore, so I would record my own songs. My hope was someone somewhere might listen, like, cover and pay me songwriter royalties. Then I discovered not only did I enjoy orchestrating and recording my own stuff, but rather unexpectedly other people enjoyed listening to it. I was selling MP3s - I was a DIY recording artist - an Indie musician. Great fun!

Here are some links to my music and how it was recorded!

Flying to meet the sunrise

How to mix vocals successfully

How to mix vocals effectively

When I first started recording my songs, I was just a little technophobic and for a little while I enjoyed the benefit of an excellent engineer to mix my tracks for me. I would export files to CD and he would mix them for me and sprinkle a little fairy-dust. Then due to a series of mischances, my health problems, his involvement with re-releasing his band's LP and his computer crashing I suddenly found I was on my own. I had to learn fast how to mix vocals and I am not too proud of my first attempts, but I learned by doing. This page is to help others on the DIY recording and mixing route.

St Francis Prayer

St Francis Prayer - some thoughts on St Francis

This is the story behind the song, told after a request from a friend. It explains how the song came to be written and has a lot of other St Francis stuff besides!

white in the moon

Active Musician

melodyne - pop producers' big secret

Melodyne, Autotune and how they are best used.

Autotune and Melodyne are pop's open secret. It is rare even for live performances to be natural where the big stars are concerned. Whether or not this is a good thing is beyond the scope of this page. After years of being a "purist" I used Melodyne in my song White In The Moon simply because it is written in tenor range and my tuning suffered a little from the low range. This page explains how Melodyne and Autotune compare and how they are best used.

the story of jingle maria

How was Jingle Maria written?

The story behind the song! Jingle Maria is a fun Latin song for Christmas, but the message of Jingle Maria is serious enough. There is a true meaning of Christmas to be found in the joy of innocent children at the story of the Holy family....

jingle maria

celtic music - a lifelong passion

Celtic Influences in the music I write

Celtic Dream is based on a beautiful traditional Irish air that I have always loved, they are entirely my words though. Here I have done what the Bards of old would do and told a story to a well known tune. I hope I have made it my own in this version which I am told is reminiscent of Enya.

Apricot and Amberleigh Emusibles