Exotic Electronic Dance produced in my Kurzweil K2500S, and my most successful track from the days of MP3.com.  

They paid a few hundred bucks a month for a few thousand plays.  No wonder they're not around anymore!  :-P

Vocals courtesy of Spectrasonics' Heart Of Asia and Kurzweil's Take 6  CD ROMs.

Way Out West

One of a pair of twins, and another all-Kurzweilian production.  Vocal samples courtesy of Take 6.  Enjoy, mon!

Reggae D'Andy

Reggae D'Ann

There will always be a special place in my heart for this piece.  Based on the first few notes I hit after learning my bro-in-law had OD'd.  

My mighty Kurzweil K2500S was set to a harmonic delay effect which created the melody motif around which this track is based.

As with the other Kurzweil tracks here, it was produced "in house" in the keyboard with the resulting stereo WAV of the sequence "mastered" through the Kurz' multi-band compressor/EQ.

2dB:In Memory Of Dave Boertje

A rather strange track, with a rather strange lineage.  The 2 intertwining sequence lines were originally recorded on my Kurzweil K2500S, using entirely different sounds.  This track is using the now-orphaned Nexsyn softsynth, taking advantage of its stereo modulation capabilities.  All stereo motion is done within the synthesizer... no panning!  Add in some "Gabrielized" Drum Core through a bit of Fab Filter Volcano and viola!

FuzzyWas

Another track with an interesting lineage... started out as a demo for Roland's MSQ-700, the world's first MIDI sequencer.  This version was produced entirely within my Kurzweil K2500S.  The melody/lead lines were played on a breath-controlled Yamaha VL1 that was sampled into the Kurzweil's internal sequencer.  I resampled the Kurz stereo out and then processed that sample through the multi-band compressor EQ in the Kurzweil's KDFX digital processor to arrive at this finished version.

Oddly Enough

From my days as a student and teaching assistant at Golden West College in Huntington Beach.  This was a performance by a combo from the Jazz Ensemble Skills class, recorded in the school's recording studio in conjunction with the Recording Arts program.  I'm using a Roland JD-800 for the organ part and a Roland D-50 for the lead synth.  

This group received an honorable mention at the UCal Berkeley Jazz Festival, under the mentorship of Gerry Schroeder, whose composition, "Miles' Trials" we presented along with this one.

Guitar - Matt Waldrum: https://mattwaldrum.com
Bass - Steve Araujo: now of The Bass Hang on Facebook
Drums - Will Marrufo: original drummer for Ozomatli
Alto Sax - Shawn Waggoner

Tenor sax on this track courtesy of the one and only Tom Kubis!

Some Skunk Funk by The Brecker Brothers

From my SoCal days, this band was an original music project with friends with whom I also played in a wedding band. All Roland gear: JD-800 and D-50 synths plus S-770 sampler. Recorded at Golden West College as part of the Recording Arts program.  Singer and bassist can be found in SparkleJetsUK among other outlets.  Check 'em out!

Too Much To Worry About by Social Fiction

Demo track for the now-orphaned KeyToSound Nexsyn software synthesizer.  To the best of my knowledge, the first synth to offer a true stereo signal path throughout the voice architecture.  

All stereo motion is created by modulating stereo filters, with no panning moves at the audio mixing level.  Headphones are optimal... the more you are in the sweet spot the better. 

Crank it up and enjoy!

SinewousDemo

Another demo track for the Nexsyn software synthesizer, the first to feature a filter with a stereo cutoff that could be modulated.  All the stereo movement in the piece comes from using slow global LFOs on the stereo filter.  No audio panning...

The drum/percussion track was done with DrumCore.  Everything else is multiple VST instances of Nexsyn running in Cubase on a MacBook Pro.

DirectCurrentDemo

Yet another Nexsyn demo track.  Not as dramatic in the stereo movement, but the bass winds up being more effective that way.  

FiveTwoLife

A Prince-inspired track used to demo the now-orphaned Nexsyn soft synth from back in 2007.  The synth solo is a one-taker, and slightly glitchy.  I recorded it just to check the levels of the different Nexsyn instances being used in preparation for showing the product at the Musik Messe in Frankfurt, Germany.

HRH Demo

My interpretation of "Power Reprise" by Giraffe, in tribute to the late and greatest Kevin Gilbert, my single favorite musician to grace this plane of existence.  

I'm quite proud that this tribute track was accepted by his website at one time: www.kevingilbert.com  I was in some very good company, including being right next to a tribute track by Andrew Gold!

This track was produced entirely within my trusty Kurzweil K2500S, with a healthy dose of the Laser Delay algorithm in their KDFX digital processor.  The lead guitar sound is a breath-controlled Yamaha VL1 that was sampled into the Kurzweil's sequencer using their RAM Tracks technique.

POWR129A

My tribute to Eric Johnson, my favorite guitarist for almost 50 years now.  

And my live demonstration piece from back in the day for the Kurzweil KDFX digital effects upgrade for their K2500 series of synthesizers/samplers. 

The KDFX buss architecture allowed me to simulate Eric's unique multi-amp/multi-effects chain approach.  

The initial "clean" section had been written for quite some time, based on the "Guitar Jazz Band" program in the Kurz factory bank for their Contemporary expansion board.  Once I had amp simulations and multiple delays to work with in KDFX, the rest of the piece kinda wrote itself.

My left hand is playing bass using the John Pattitucci Yamaha 6-string instrument from the Bass Legends CD-ROM.  There's a synth bass layered with it for the sustained notes.

Additional layers are doing the ride and closed hi-hat cymbals, along with touch sensitive drums and  a crash cymbal set to track the keyboard.  Kurz offers a more musical drum map than the General MIDI format, with kicks and snares separated by octaves, so the entire bass/drum part  fell naturally under my fingers.

Guitar stuff is played with my right hand, with panel switches, footswitches, sliders and ribbons being used to turn things on and off and adjust things and bend notes so that everything works in real-time.  

The "feedback" was achieved by having an extra layer of my lead guitar sound triggered at only the highest key velocities.  

The "chokes" were done by bringing in a duplicate zone of the lead guitar sound with the pitch bent flat via aftertouch.  

EJ's signature "koto" effect was achieved by changing multiple bands of EQ on my clean guitar sound with a single slider and using the K2500's large ribbon to manipulate the pitch.

This is a LIVE recording.  This version was take number 30-something as it is one tricky wicket to play!  It's not perfect, but as close as I could get to what I wanted without doing even more takes.

The only thing that is not played live is a sample loop of the intro part that is triggered via footswitch in the middle and at the end of the piece.  

I recorded my performance by having the Kurzweil K2500S sample its own outputs.  

I then re-sampled the resulting stereo sample through the multi-band EQ/compressor in KDFX for a quasi-mastered WAV file that I output for distribution.

Voltz aka Lee Sebel

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