It's a typical situation, you've heard it all before... obsessive compulsive musician moves to California, enjoys life, works with the big names, output slows to a crawl...  But no!  I refuse to allow this to be true!    I actually have several near-completion things that I am trying to get done by the end of the year.  Key word: trying.   

Download Virtual CD Track Ten: What They Still Didn't Know 

The track I said was nearly done in my last post is still not done...  But some of it is part of this track!  "What They Still Didn't Know" is actually a random collection of parts of several ideas that I've been working on.  Basically, none of these bits could survive on their own, so I slapped them together here.   There isn't a whole lot of what you'd call structure!   The foundation of the track came from fiddling around with various VST synths that I have gathered over the years.   If you don't know what I'm talking about, these are software synthesizers that emulate the old analog synths with the knobs all over them.  All of them were the freeware type that you can find on the Internet or in one of those computer music magazines that comes with a CD-ROM.  I love knob twiddling to get new sounds.  The sound of the main "riff" came from one of those synth sound run through guitar distortion.   The clav sound is something called "Ticky Clav" that I downloaded. Not quite Stevie Wonder, but fun.  

The drums were recorded using three mikes, as before, with a little slapback echo on the kick drum.  There are a few percussion and ambient loops mixed in that were recorded while practicing (improvising) guitar/drums with my looper pedal.  Basically, if I play something I like, I can choose to save it.   Many of these saved loops are using up valuable disk space, so I decided to mine some of them for whatever they're worth.   The loop at the very end is an obvious one of these.  You can hear my trusty cookie tin in that loop, too.  There are also a couple of loops that I didn't play at all, namely the ones that sound like tablas, and a couple of electronic drum loops.  Those are downloaded samples whose origin is no longer known to me!  The vocals are Christina's voice, doubled with her voice an octave up.  She sang these bits with no idea what they'd be used for.

Anyway, it's all a bit of spring cleaning in December, but I hope you enjoy what it turned out to be!