Main parts --- nylon and steel string acoustic with some electric guitar overdubs later. A kind of study, with some almost experimental electric guitar ornaments. Recovered the acoustic guitar files, fixed them up, and glued it together! A bit of unevenness in the quality means best on earphones I think.

Step into the Light

This is a newbie, I'm playing my epiphone Dove on this one, but a lot of the guitar parts originally started out on my Yamaha classical. I'm writing a lot of music on the classical at the min, but lyrics generally come when I change to a steel string, mostly the Dove these days. 

take it easy folks, thanks for stopping by!

Lyrics

When I let you stay the night
boy I don't appreciate the morning call
gonna turn your foghorn right down
just so as I don't have to hear it anymore

keep playing your indie pop
like it is 1994
or take a leaf right outta my book
and nail it onto your door

I don't understand why your tiny cloth ears
they don't listen
yeah you'd rather tune in to some
pastiche cheap country honk musician

keep playing your indie pop
like it is 1994
or take a leaf right outa' my book
and nail it onto your door

I don't understand why for me 
your crying eyes do not see
and I can't quite comprehend
why it is that you picked her over me

keep playing your indie pop
like it is 1994
or take a leaf right outa' my book
and nail it onto your door

it's getting harder now
than it ever was before
that little voice inside of your head
is screaming out
and he'll shout 

forevermore
forevermore
forevermore 
forevermore
forevermore........ and maybe some more


thanks for listening, and inspiring, always greatly appreciated. 

recorded at home on my Tascam 8 track.







1994

Piano score: https://bit.ly/ecmusic_solitude

Solitude

The Winner of Thieves

Sweet Hard

Music & Piano: Debra Buesking
Jan Schonander invited me to participate in his Four Seasons for Piano project with "summer" as my assigned season.  Since I am no Vivaldi I reached back to the Tin-Pan Alley "Good Old-Summertime" (1902) for inspiration.  Not really an arrangement per se, but rather a quote.

Summer Interrupted

Vocals by IPG1
https://soundcloud.com/ipg1/the-new-direction-now-100-bpm

Production & Music: Cosmic Keanu

The New Direction - IPG1 & Cosmic Keanu

With Halloween soon upon us and all the creepy fun that it entails, we wanted to do something a little different from the usual ghouls, goblins and ghosts for this year’s fun. Nat had this idea to have a play with the great pop song David Bowie wrote and made famous in 1969. A song that speaks perhaps to drug addiction as much as anything to do with the vast and gloriously scary expanse of outer space, we tried to put our own Daniels & Durgy spin on it. Though generally in line with Bowie’s fantastic composition, we made some subtle changes to introduce a little love interest to the picture...does his wife actually work as one of the Ground Controllers?! Enjoy the journey and Happy Halloween everyone!

Copyright Daniels & Durgy 2022
Gentle Rain Records
Nat Daniels Vocals, acoustic guitar, piano, bass & production 
Craig Durgy Vocals & electric guitar

Deja Views

Space Oddity

Space Oddity (Bowie cover)

℗ © Copyright Ian Stokes. All Rights Reserved
Recorded and mixed using Logic. Mastered in Soundcloud
Guitars played: Taylor 714CE in standard tuning (Capo 3rd Fret)
Photography: Thanks go to Nigel and Libby Hume at Hume Photography.
LYRICS: 
The young man searched the earth and sky 
But somehow searched in vain
Looking for the rainbow’s end
But all he found……. was the rain

And yet within the darkest woods
A camp fire burning bright
A old man sat so gently 
In the glow of the firelight

Are you the one they call the sage 
The one so old and wise
Is it you who sees the way
Though you have no eyes

The man looked up……… and on his face
He wore a gentle smile
You’re welcome here my son, he said
Come rest now for a while

I know not the answers
Here’s no book upon the shelf
Maybe you will find all you seek 
Is there inside yourself  

What words can know the sunlight
Or the breeze upon your skin
What words can know the answers 
Of all that lies within

They sat there in the silence
No need of words to say
The camp fire lit the night
Until the break of day

The young man….. bid farewell 
His searching now was done
He felt the breeze upon his skin
And walked towards the sun

The Sage

I only sing !!
Mahan Mahan all instruments !!

Mahan Mahan And eddyoffline 22

(Free WAV Download available here under '••• More'; and eventually, as part of a future solo album)

Greetings all you fun and funky SC musicians. I don’t typically upload remastered versions of a song as a new track. I usually just replace the old with the new, and change the title to reflect the remaster. But this one is special, for a few reasons (and if you’re not much into personalized mixing details, you may want to skip this liner note).

First (and most importantly)… I thought I’d lost the ability to edit the original tracks for this song. The last time I opened it up in Logic (updating it for the 2018 album remaster), the siren voices were all messed up (automation in Alchemy can have odd results sometimes). I just assumed the original native file was broken forever, because I no longer had access to that version of Logic. I had to do the album remaster from my only existing mix… and it was definitely lacking.

4 years later, I’m so glad I took a chance on reopening the native file when I concluded this ‘Siren’ trilogy. All the sounds/automations were exactly as I had left them. Prior to this attempt, I just assumed the worst, and never tried again. Thankfully, I was wrong. :D

Second… the remaster turned out much better than I hoped; and the differences were so satisfying, I thought it might be fun to have both versions up (for a side by side comparison, for any interested musicians out there. Here's the older version: https://soundcloud.com/grevusanjl/siren-rising).

So why does this one sound so much better than the original version? (And please take all of this with a grain of salt. I’m no pro. But I have discovered what works for me.)

Honestly, a tremendous amount of credit goes to having a much better understanding of Compression. For many folks, Compression is almost a dirty word. Just the title of the plug-in alone confused me at first. Why would I possibly want to compress my sounds, when I liked them as is? 

But it turns out (for me at least) that the different Compression options really shine when chosen specifically, and used minimally. As an example (and I’m not sure if your DAW offers similar options, but), Studio VCA works brilliantly with strings, female vocals and many of my favorite synths. But Studio FET works great on drums. Etc. And while some might cringe at the idea, I absolutely love what Soft Distortion does to most tracks as well. Used in mild amounts, Soft Distortion adds a phenomenal amount of spacial quality to the sound. I don’t use this one all of the time, but I bet I use it at least 75% of the time now (and Compression in general on about 95% of the tracks).  So there you go… I’m definitely a big fan of Compression… when used responsibly. :)

In addition, I’ve also learned a lot about EQing since I first did this song in 2017; so much so, that I was actually baffled by some of my earlier choices. So a large amount of the repair/update time for the 2022 remaster was spent on getting the EQing for each track set up more effectively.

And finally, I had the opportunity to give the full mix a healthy rebuild. After 5 years, you’re undoubtedly going to have a very fresh perspective on a piece. And I realized a lot of the sounds simply weren’t in their optimal positions in the stereo field. I also reconsidered where sounds faded in and out, and how intensely they did so… and I updated all of that as well. 

And there you have it, the story/history behind one of my all time personal favorites. I’m so glad I had an opportunity to revisit this one (while leaving all the original instruments true to form), and I hope you enjoy all the latest sound enhancements as well. I’m excited to hear what you think of my ’Siren Rising (2022 Remaster)’. :D

WTF! The Musical

Siren Rising - 2022 REMASTER

Two song writers, two kindred spirits... that found each other by pure happenstance and great fortune, to collaborate and create music together.
To see our separate artist pages, please click on the following links:
Nat Daniels   https://soundcloud.com/natdaniels
Craig Durgy  https://soundcloud.com/durge