The Linear Canvas

My niece, Heather Cox, came to my house once when I lived in Ada, Ohio in the 1990’s. She stayed long enough to record a few tapes of me playing guitar and her singing. I took those tapes and recorded some other instruments and voices with the songs we recorded. I mixed it all up and distributed it all on cassettes. So Hi-Tech…

I have been working on all of my analog tapes and converting them to digital and remixing them. I had always thought  our version of the Indigo Girls song Jonas and Ezekiel was done pretty well. The other day I decided to update the recording. I cut and pasted some of the song to other places and made it seem like there was more of this song than I had recorded. It certainly sounds bigger.

Jonas and Ezekiel

[audio:http://www.linearcanvas.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Jonas and Ezekial 20101219_1944m256.mp3]

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The analog tracks were originally recorded on a Yamaha MT-100 II 4 track cassette recorder using high speed (3.75 IPS) and dbx noise reduction.

I played electric guitar on a Fender Stratocaster. The acoustic Guitar was a Takamine. The bass was a Rickenbacker 4001. The drums and cymbals, plus some analog editing, are from the original recording using my Boss Dr. Rhythm drum machine sounds and a Yamaha MIDI drum pad.

This song was written by Amy Ray. Heather sang lead and background vocals and I sang background and played all of the instruments. I processed it with Cakewalk Sonar 8.5 Producer and Sony Sound Forge 9.

I wrote this song about getting older and the realty of death. My wife Jill says it’s a sad song.  It is probably a little morbid, but not in a gruesome way. I think it is about facing that reality and being there for those that experience life and death.

“Gotta Go”

[audio:http://www.linearcanvas.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Gotta Go 101212_1032m256.mp3]

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The analog tracks were originally recorded on a Yamaha MT-100 II 4 track cassette recorder using high speed (3.75 IPS) and dbx noise reduction . I recently transferred the recordings to my Fostex VF-16 digital multi-track. I used an Iomega Jaz drive to transition them to computer format. I used Cakewalk Sonar v8.5 Producer and Sony Sound Forge to mix, edit, and master the recording.

The drum tracks that I recorded were actually pretty well done I thought. But the drum sounds were a bit dated. I had performed the drum part originally on a Yamaha MIDI drum pad using my Boss Dr. Rhythm drum machine. I used Cakewalk Sonar’s Audio-Snap to identify the drum transients and used the “copy to MIDI” feature to recreate the drum in Session Drummer 3.  I did some automatic and manual editing to tighten up the new drum track.

I played electric guitar on a Fender Stratocaster . The bass was a Rickenbacker 4001.  I added two extra vocal tracks. I am singing along with myself  from twenty years ago. It’s almost like meeting my younger self in a time machine.

I wrote this song on November 22, 1993. The thirtieth anniversary of the murder of President John F. Kennedy and the coup d’état that resulted in a dozen more years of corporatist war profiteering in southeast Asia.

I seemed angry that day.

“JFK 11/22/63 (Civil War)”

[audio:http://www.linearcanvas.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/JFK_11_22_1963_Civil War 20101205_2319m256.mp3]

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No doubt there were many people and organizations that had a motive to murder President Kennedy. But I believe that the Corporatist and Congressional  Military Industrial Complex, and the C.I.A. assisted by elements of organized crime (Is that statement redundant?), had the greatest need to eliminate their biggest obstacle in the path to war profiteering in Vietnam and gambling profits in Cuba. Like 9/11, it would take several suspicious security lapses to allow this to occur.

The Civil War that rages between the classes and in American politics, is the genesis of all that is wrong in  America right now. It is truly the battle between the have and have nots. It is  not a culture war that is commonly defined as religion, homosexuality, or abortion by the propagandist corporate media. (Fox News, mainly) It is a true class war pitting the affluent against the middle class and the poor.

With the assistance of the corporate media, the rich have shifted this war so that their opponents make war on each other.

No “Preventive War” will ever defeat a tactic like terrorism. The only cure for terror attacks by small groups is “Preventive Democracy”. Empowering the middle class and the poor in foreign nations will defeat the conditions that breed terrorism. All of the remaining terror attacks could be eliminated by arresting several hundred Saudi Arabian citizens and government officials. Probably a few in the U.S . as well.

In 1961,  then Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was also Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War Two, gave President Kennedy and the world this advice.

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the (congressional) military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

Had President Kennedy heeded those warnings, he may have lived a bit longer.

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The analog tracks were originally recorded on a Yamaha MT-100 II 4 track cassette recorder in late 1993 using high speed (3.75 IPS) and dbx noise reduction . I recently transferred the recordings to my Fostex VF-16 digital multi-track. I used an Iomega Jaz drive to transition them to computer format. I used Cakewalk Sonar v8.5 Producer and Sony Sound Forge to mix, edit, and master the recording.

I surprised myself on how quickly this came together. I hadn’t done any music recording work in about a month. I was afraid I’d forgotten how. I loaded and synchronized these older tracks very quickly. I started on Saturday night and was done programming the drums by late Sunday.

The drum tracks that I recorded in 1993 were pretty lame. I used Session Drummer 3 and programmed the drums using MIDI patches and some manual editing. I only had issue with the bass part and did some auto-sync and some manual editing to tighten it up to the new drum track.

I played electric guitar on a Fender Stratocaster and probably an Ibanez Les Paul. The bass was a Rickenbacker 4001.  The keyboard part was played on a Casio CZ-101 FM synthesizer.