A Door In The Clouds

Fuzz Bass sound created with the Bass Amp Rack in Cubase 8 Pro.  Thunderbird Pro bass direct in to the board.

Thunderbird Pro Bass Fuzz II

Sound test of the Dillion P90 SG plugged direct into the board, through several internal Amp models inside Cubase 8 Pro.  Some very rough and random playing here, just to give an idea of the guitars tone quality with it's stock pickups.

Dillion TV Yellow SG Direct Thru Cubase Internal Amps

Here's another sound test of the Dillion SG with stock P90 pickups, played direct through the board into Cubase 8 Pro's excellent Fender Blackface amp model.  Nothing planned, just some dreamy, very random playing.

Dillion SG Direct Thru Cubase Fender BlackFace Amp Model

MIDI Guitar Piano Technique

JV1080 Piano Pad MIDI Guitar.mp3

A song written and recorded in the late 80's as a collaboration with my friend Joseph Harris.  Recorded in his home studio on a Fostex 8 track Reel to reel.

Vocals and lyrics by myself, Joe produced and played most of the instrumentation.  I added a few parts from the great old Ensoniq Mirage Sampler Keyboard.

This song is available as a single on CD Baby from the album "Thru The Doorway".

An Unguarded Moment

First test of a vintage Roland RS09 Organ/String Synthesizer.
Recorded straight out of my studio speakers, with no additional FX to my cell phone.  Came from Japan in perfect, like new condition.  I think this is my favorite synth of all time.  You can probably hear why.

The picture captures the settings I started out with.  They don't make them like this anymore.

Roland RS09 First Test

Music for a late summer sunset.  As much as I like playing guitar and songwriting, I also equally love just getting lost in creating atmospheric textures with synthesizers.  In this case, it’s one of my favorite old software synth vst’s: Native Instruments Pro 53.

They don’t make this one any more, but I still use it all the time.  It just sounds warm and analog, like the real hardware.  It’s old, so it barely takes any power from a modern cpu.

What you are hearing here is a single instance of a sound I recently dialed in.  Just played in real time, with no other FX than the delay built into the synth.  Drift away into Purple Twilight…..

Purple Twilight

Drifting away across the beach at midnight, under the stars.  Three instances of the Pro53 software synthesizer through a virtual Roland Space Echo.

The waves are coming out of the black cpu box under my desk.......

3 Prophet Loop

First try of this Eastwood Side Jack DLX 12 String electric guitar.  Just random strumming to get a feel for it's sound.

Recorded direct through the mixing board into Cubase with a Fairchild Compressor and stereo EchoPlex plugin.

Eastwood SideJack DLX 12 String Guitar

The Enchanted Drum

Snowed in on this March Wisconsin night.  Here's something I did to pass the time, all in one take.  The three "acoustic guitars" are my Warmoth Stratocaster with a GK3 pickup going into a Roland VG-88 guitar modeling system.  Added some ambiance in Cubase Pro, along with an Irish drum, Windchimes, Sleighbells...and wind......

Hope you enjoy.

Sketch For Three Acoustic Guitars On A Snowy Night

Roland Boutique VP-03 Vocoder/Choir/String Machine first test.

Roland VP-03 Vocoder Choir Strings First Test

First ad libbed tests after getting this wonderful pedal.  Just plugged it in and started playing and singing the first things that came to mind.  For the first example it was plugged into a Vox Pathfinder 10 Guitar amp and recorded with a cell phone in front of it, the rest were done with the VE-8 directly into Cubase.  The only overdubs were done live in real time using the looper built into the pedal.

Boss VE - 8 First Tests

What does the Roland/Boss GP-10 COSM Guitar Processor sound like?

Well, it sounds like this.  Here's almost 15 minutes of random guitar noodling with my first set of self made preset sounds.

The GP-10 can make your guitar instantly transpose into any tuning, and other guitar, or ACOUSTIC guitar, through a great collection of amps and pedals.

None of what you are hearing here is coming from my Warmoth Stratocastors pickups.  It's all being modeled with a specially attached Roland Hexaphonic pickup: the GK-2a.

These patches are my first try at recreating almost 20 years of custom patches from my recently fried and dead Roland VG-88.  (good thing I kept notes).  Some of the internal structures are slightly different.  The main drawback is that I don't think you can combine a Compression Pedal with Distortion or Fuzz with the newer Boss GP-10 (ugh!) which is bad, because that was a favorite recipe with my old sounds.

Still - all of the COSM models and new additional FX are a giant step up over the older VG-88.  Notably, the Amplifier  models are much much warmer, more dynamic to touch and are overall more Organic sounding now - especially the Acoustic Guitar models. You could easily use any of these with an electric solid body guitar, to replace an real miced up acoustic guitar live or in a recording session now.  Good stuff!

Boss GP - 10 First Test

Mix test.  All Instruments and vocals performed by Kevin W. Sturges. 
Performance copyright AudioTraxProductions 2012
Writer: Kent Parco

It's Over Now

Performance copyright: AudioTraxProductions
Fall music for Piano and CS80 synthesizer.  All instruments played with MIDI guitar using GraphTech Hexpander piezo on a Yamaha classical guitar into a Roland GI-10 converter.

Picture courtesy of my friend Thom Petersen's grandaughter :)

AmbioGen by Kevin W. Sturges

Yamaha Classical guitar with self installed Graph Tech Ghost MIDI Hexpander.  Unquantized tracking example with Roland GI-10 pitch to MIDI guitar converter.  Classical guitar output panned hard left and triggered electric piano hard right so you can hear how accurate the system captures your playing.

MIDI Guitar Example 1

My first test with my new guitar synthesizer.  A cinematic style attempt.  The guitar was used to sequence all the sounds with my Roland JV1080 synth module.  The Tamboura sample played at the end was done in Kontakt.

CopyWrite:  AudiotraxProductions 2013

Author: Kevin W. Sturges

Guitar Synth Movie Score Test

Wasn't sure if I wanted to post this. Here's one from way back in the 80s when I was in Joy's Purpose.  It was a demo tape that we recorded in Joe Harris' basement eight track studio.

I cleaned up the copy I had of it, but unfortunately my voice was buried way too low in the mix. I don't have access to a Fostex reel to reel, so I decided to re-record a new vocal on top of it.  Boy was that a weird feeling, sitting in the studio and re-tracking a vocal I did about 25 years ago!  I was surprised that my voice still sounds about the same. 

Even though this is kind of rough, I like this song and wish we could've been together longer to see where it developed. I'm doing the singing, playing the keyboards and some brief lead guitar parts.

Copywrite:  AudioTrax Productions, 2013 

Outside the Church

This isn't a song, it was just a quick jam to test a mix sound that I'm going after.

Trying to record "direct in the box" and not have everything sound so sterile like it was recorded in a computer.  I was going for that 1970s Marc Bolan/TRex sound with the thuddy very compressed drums. Think I've got a formula going now.

Was trying to make this sound like a live jam in an open room recorded to analog tape 1970's style. Lot's of plugin processing. It's just one Les Paul guitar (from the 70's), a ThunderBird bass, and drum pads triggering Superior Drummer Custom & Vintage.

Copywrite: 2013 AudioTrax Productions

70's Style Tape Input Test Mix

Sequenced Music.  Music for a snowy Wisconsin day...

Music Copy Write Audiotrax Productions 2013

4th Station

Something with my vocals.  This is a very rough first demo of an original song idea.  

All the instruments in here are my Warmoth/Fender Stratocastor guitar going into a Roland VG-88.  The VG does a pretty useable job with its acoustic instrument COSM models, so you can write quickly and get ideas down without having to go through the hassle of switching guitars and re-micing everything.

May not be used without permission.  Copywrite: AudioTrax Productions 2013

YourSong (Demo Remix 136 bpm)

Sunday Night, June 2020, drift away in my studio after a walk.......

ParaMountain

GR30 to Roland JV1080 tracking test. Sequenced in Cubase.  Drums are Superior Drummer.  GK-2A pickup used.

Roland GR30 Test  (Jet Lag w Quiet Life Drums)

Fretless Bass patch in GR30, with Superior Drummer drums played with Korg PadKontrol. Trying to get close to the sound of "Quiet Life" by the band Japan.  No quantizing or cleanup in Cubase.  Direct audio out from GR30.  GK-2A pickup used.

Roland GR30 Tracking Test 3 (Quiet Life Bass and Drums)

All sounds from within SampleTank except for the synth brass part.  Cheated and played it from a keyboard using Native Instruments Pro53.  GK-2A pickup used.  Sequenced in Cubase.

Roland GR30 Tracking Test 5 (SampleTank VBand Test w Pro53)

Again, sorry for the corny playing.  It was just a quick test to see if the MIDI guitar tracking was clean enough to be used to trigger acoustic and electric guitars in SampleTank.  Warmoth Stratocaster with GK-2A pickup used.

Roland GR30 Tracking Test 7 (SampleTank Country)

Here's some examples of playing my GraphTech Ghost equipped solid body acoustic guitar into my Roland VG-88.

The VG uses COSM virtual modeling (no MIDI) on the incoming signal from the guitar, and transforms it into virtually any kind of guitar sound you wish to build.  Requires a special "Hex" pickup that reads each string separately.  

You "build" a new 3-D virtual model of a guitar in the interface.  Nylon String,12 Strings, Acoustics, electric's of any kind, open tunings, a synth, basses, famous amplifiers and tons of classic Roland effects all instantly available at the touch of a foot switch.  What's not to love?  Plus, it's built like a steel stealth tank.

So, here's some totally random examples of me playing into some custom acoustic guitar patches I wrote in the VG over the years.  I always thought the acoustic models sounded a bit sterile played from the Roland pick up on my Strat.  When I plugged in my GraphTech piezzo equipped acoustic - I couldn't believe the difference.  The acoustic properties of the guitar transfers through to the models and make them come alive.  New life!  

Imagine how useful this is either live or in the studio.  These actually give my real acoustic guitars miked up in the studio a run for the money.  I can't tell these aren't "real" can you??

GraphTech Ghost Pickup to Roland VG-88 Acoustic Test

REDISCOVERING OLDER GEAR #2

Going through some old cassettes tapes, I found this.  It was just a scratch demo with three tracks I did back in the 80s. I love the way the sounds all mix together with this old gear!  It was my old Alesis HR-16 drum machine, and two Tom Scholz Rockman processors (have both the guitar and bass models - still like new in my studio).  The drum sounds were a kit I programmed in the HR16 that I used on a bunch of commercials back then.

Can't believe how punchy all this sounds!  It was recorded to my Tascam 244 cassette PortaStudio, and mixed down to my Sony cassette Pro Walkman.  No fancy effects or compressors.  There was no way to really edit things.

With all the new modern gear I've gone through, it was so surprising to hear what I was able to do with such minimal analog equipment.  I intend to start using this stuff again.  I dug out the old drum machine from the basement after hearing this, and sampled it into Cubase Groove Machine in my computer studio.  It sounds exactly the same!  After all these years I was surprised that little drum machine still had my kit in memory.  Again, it was just a rough demo for a song idea - and it's giving me some new ideas again. :)

Kevin Sturges

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