Category: Alan

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Last fall I met up with Michael Willis, developer of the Dragonfly Reverb plugins, to record a song he wrote. Michael had already programmed half of the song in midi tracks and recorded the clarinet intro, so I added the guitar and bass parts. A few weeks later we met again and finished these tracks to the end of the song, including the clarinet solo. (more…)

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Here is our family Christmas recording for 2019:

“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” is an old European carol. The text first appears in historical records in about 1700 but is thought to be older, and the tune dates back to the 15th century. It is haunting and beautiful, full of pathos and tension, the kind of song that needs to be sung in an old cathedral. We didn’t have a cathedral handy, so we had to make do with Dragonfly Reverb instead.

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In 2006-2007 I recorded a song called “Standing on High” using n-Track Studio v.2.3 on Windows 98. (More info about the song here.) Here is my 2007 mixdown:

Now in 2019 I am getting close to finally completing the album this track was intended for. Some years ago I switched my entire audio workflow over to a Linux environment and upgraded my hardware setup, and I have been really pleased with the audio quality of my current tools. (For the record: Linux Mint 19.1, Ardour 5.1, 2nd generation Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, various LV2 plugins.) Since then I have improved my skills at mixing and mastering, so I decided to revisit “Standing on High” to see if I could improve its sound. (more…)