Instrumental w Oud, Dobro, Les Paul, Rickenbacker Lap Slide & more…
Belly Dancer – Episode 2 of the Forays into the Esoteric Podcast from Mike de Velta.
Featuring lap slide, 53 les paul gold top, fernandes stratocaster, oud, sitar, dobro, bass and drums played Dean Wuksta. When I composed this I tried to think of all the tones that excited me in my travels to India and North Africa. This tune is a hybrid if you like, a western interpretation.
This Great Love
An original soft spiritual to console the soul. Played on a steel bodied dobro with slide.
Episode 2 – Belly Dancer
Forays into the Esoteric
Episode 2
Featuring lap slide, electric guitar, oud, sitar and drums played Dean Wuksta. When I composed this I tried to think of all the tones that excited me in my travels to India and North Africa. This tune is a hybrid if you like, a western interpretation.
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Quindanning Hotel
Quindanning Hotel
Awesome Thursday night at the Quindanning Hotel on 15th Jan 2009, the weather was warm and the mood was right. A few chilled ales, punters relaxing in the beer garden to a bush sunset, a perfect canvas to lay down some sweet acoustic action. Also playing that night was the young band Bonjah who’s grooves really hit the sweet spot and I got to say I really enjoyed them.
Glenn Mossop on Vocals with a distinctive, inviting and charismatic style , the echo and crack of timbales from percussionist James Majernik, the deep sub bass tones of bass player David Morgan and the clean tones of a reggefied stratocaster hitting those punctuations right on time by Regan Lethbridge.
Now remember this is a Thursday night but in Quindanning that’s a different story. Talking to Rowan the manager it seems Thursday nights is the go for these parts of the woods and not to be underestimated, I swear the party was going to the wee hours of the morning and with very little let up in site.
As I awoke (if I slept at all) I could hear a fellow in another room adamantly saying to his mate, “Hey man, wake up, you got to go to work, wake up man, you got to go to work!”.
I think that about sums it up 
Yeh, there were a few headaches that morning but I reckon what the hell, this is the Quindanning, one of the best gigs in the country and definitely one of my favorites.
Pro tools 8 First Impressions
How I love Pro tools 8, let me count the ways. Well the boys at Digidesign have certainly put in the hours to create something most streamlined and beautiful. You know how pro tools 7.4 had that hard and sterile looking GUI? Well Pro tools 8 is very easy on the eye, it looks slick. But looks aren’t everything but it doesn’t take long to realize this is one mean peace of music creation software.
After only a couple of weeks I can only tell you what strikes me first, after all writing a comprehensive review on Pro tool 8 would have me at this keyboard to the wee hours of the morning, it really is that extensive.
Ok, what I like.
Notation.
Midi to score feature is going to be great for passing on my compositions for horn and string arrangements, I can’t write notes and humming it to a would be session musician just doesn’t cut it. Love it!
Um..Mini Grand, sounds great to my ears, maybe not to a concert pianist but within a pop style mix, purfect!
Pro tools 8 with the Mini Grand
The DB-33 organ, growls like the real thing, I’ve heard NI’s B4 and there is a difference in tone but I’m not particularly concerned whether an organ sounds exactly like a real Hammond, I just want a good sounding organ and this one sounds lovely.
Pro tools 8 with the DB-33
Automation is much smoother, you know how in previous versions nailing your automation with a mouse was real tricky.
Smoother automation edits
The new AIR plugin in list is extensive.
New Frequency Shifter plugin
• Effects Plug-ins:
• Chorus
• Decimator
• Distortion
• Dynamic Delay
• Enhancer
• Ensemble
• Filter-Gate-Sequencer
• Flanger
• Frequency Shifter
• FuzzWah
• KillEQ
• MultiChorus
• MultiTap Delay
• Nonlinear Reverb
• Phaser
• Reverb
• Spring Reverb
• StereoWidth
• Talkbox
• Vintage Filter
Now that’s a sweet list ain’t it? I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of what these can do for my creativity but I’m real happy about having all these new options, Previously trying to find these effects from third party developers was time consuming and expensive.
Ok, check out the above graphic, this is real nice, see how you can highlight GRID mode and SHUFFLE mode at the same time, a new feature in Pro tools 8. This is really helpful, one less move when pushing around those regions. Also the Universe is great new feature. Just above bars and beats you can see a series of blue lines which overview the layout of my tracks without having to waste time zooming out. Clicking around this box will navigate me to that particular area in a flash.
As I said, there are so many features but is it really worth that expensive upgrade?
Well I think it’s a bit pricey but then again consider replacing just what I’ve listed here with third party products and you’d be up for thousands.
In a nutshell Pro tools 8 is empowering and it’s more of a one stop shop than ever.
Improved midi performance, state of the art design, a super plugin database, awesome virtual instruments. yep sold me.
A definite thumbs up!
BTW Upgrading from 7.4 to PT8 was a breeze, I thought I would at least lose a few of plugins with incompatibility issues but surprisingly they have all survived.
If I find more interesting stuff I’ll post it here soon.
Happy playing,
Mike de Velta
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About
Typically associated with the Blues and Roots movement and acoustic in nature Mike De Velta's intoxicating compositions and performances are constantly on the move. A rich showcase of modern folk,blues and a hint of the eastern expressed through the shimmering and delightful tones of lap slide, ukulele and acoustic guitars.
