I started recording this cover of the Mike + The Mechanics song from their "Beggar on a Beach of Gold" album about this time 3 years ago.  I finally got back to finalizing the mix, so here it is.   I always liked the sparse production on the verses and the contrasting great big wall of sound bridge on the original.  My version is a mix of electric guitar, drums, and various keyboard sounds with lots of effects, and several layers of my vocals, and of course the finger snap.

Someone Always Hates Someone - Cover by Matt Thomas

This is an instrumental cover I produced of my favorite Christmas Song which was originally recorded by Charley Pride.  

Happy Christmas to all!

Christmas In My Hometown - Cover Instrumental

My tribute to a classic!  Kraftwerk's Computer World was one of my "go to" albums during the 80's.  I spent many hours writing code on my TRS-80 as a teenager while listening to the original vinyl version. 

Now, 35 years after its original release, I found myself with the urge to feed my own interpretation into the soundbox, trying hard to keep it true to the original English language version (in most places).  

I haven't gotten my hands on a Stylophone (yet!) so the sounds are all made from digital synths that I tweaked the best I could to simulate the analog.  

I started with a 4-bar drum machine loop, and played everything into Logic on my Axiom keyboard layer by layer.  Then edited like mad and mixed it.    

This is best experienced with headphones, so grab a pair if you have 'em, and enjoy!  

And remember, It's more fun to compute!

Pocket Calculator - Kraftwerk Cover

Last Christmas I produced an instrumental version of this tune, and since then,   my daughter (Libby T) has encouraged me to sing, even though my voice is not really suited for such matters.   I'm much more comfortable dabbling with keyboards, guitars, drums, and DAWs.   This year, I finally took the plunge and put together a new version of Charley Pride's classic, singing the vocals myself.   I've always preferred this song with vocals vs. an instrumental, because the lyrics are a large part of what gives this song it's character.   

Merry Christmas!

Christmas In My Hometown - 2016

Here's a short instrumental rock jam I wrote with my daughter Libby T.

Zoelei

Here is my version of Pink Floyd's "One Slip".  There are several other covers of this song around, a few having their own style and arrangement and others either skipping the original album intro or sampling parts of it.  I decided to stay true to the original album arrangement, keeping the intro.  I created everything from scratch, adding my own twists and turns here and there.  Enjoy!

One Slip

Par Avion (Mike + The Mechanics Cover) by Matt Thomas

Another one of my favorite winter songs is the orchestral "Sleigh Ride", as performed by the Boston Pops (and just about every other band and orchestra on the planet).   

I don't read music, so I put this together by ear, as I do all of my projects, using only stock Logic Pro X instruments for everything but the horse at the end.  It was a fun exercise in analytical listening--I didn't get all of the notes and harmonies quite on point, but I hope I came close enough.    

Of course, there's the horse at the end.  Every version I've heard has used a trumpet for this, but I always thought it didn't really sound like a horse at all.  I came up with something that sounds more "horsish" to me.  Albeit an old tired one, perhaps.  There was a trumpet involved, along with some significant post processing with plugins.

Merry Christmas and Happy Winter!

Sleigh Ride

I covered Sting's "I Hung My Head" using Logic Pro native instruments.  Played most everything on my keyboard, some of the drums I played on the Alesis kit.  The rest I programmed note by note into Logic Pro.  I did everything by ear, so it's not 100% accurate, but I tried to get as close as I could to Sting's original 1996 recording.  My voice range ends an octave lower than this song requires, so some falsetto was the best I could do for some parts.  

Anyway, it was a fun project-- I hope it brings some enjoyment to you folks.

Thanks for listening!

matt_thomas_wi

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