andy474x
Knows the Drill
We lost my grandfather (mom's side) earlier this March (you can read and see more about him below, I'll start with the music, since that's why we gather here). We've known his time was coming for a little while now, and my mom really wanted me to make some music for his funeral ceremony. It felt wrong to prepare something while he was still living, so I only had a little over a week to do it - with 2 young kids, a demanding business, and a very novice skill set, that's not a lot of time! We were fortunate to have many photo memories of all the time he spent with us, so I had plenty of slideshow time to work with, and I was assigned two songs worth. He was an excellent self taught craftsman, and always admired the work of those around him, so it felt good to create something for him.
He was a lover of hymns, and "The Old Rugged Cross" was one of his favorites. Only one guitar in this one, my trusty SE acoustic gifted to me by my wife, and accompanied by loads of instruments from the Spitfire orchestral libraries that @László turned me on to. My fingerstyle playing is very rusty, and I probably should've used flat wounds, so there's definitely some string noise, but it worked. Did I arrange the parts correctly? No, I'm sure I didn't! But it still sounded nice, and quite a few people started humming and singing along during the ceremony, so I guess I did something right.
*Sorry y'all, I don't know how to get this darn embedded player any smaller!
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The next song was my choice, as a reflection of how he lived his life, and a song I've always enjoyed. I didn't have time to do much more than record the parts, put a compressor on the acoustic guitar, some reverb and delay, and run the Logic mastering plugin on it, but I was seriously surprised by how nicely it turned out. The result of having my sources correct from the start, I suppose. SE acoustic, 594 into the HXDA, SE NF3 into the Sweet 16 for the L/R rhythm tracks, and then - something I've not had a good reason to do yet - the Silver Sky into the '66 Super Reverb, cranked, and running into an IR profile I made of the CTS alnico speakers. Playing with position 4 (neck/middle), which is not always an easy tone to make speak clearly for lead guitar, but it blew me away... I guess that amp is a classic for a reason! Certainly the song could've been even better with more tweaking, but it has a rawness to it that I found very beautiful. Silver Sky/SR comes in a little later in the song, but worth the wait.
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Our grandmother passed a few years ago, and we never had favorites, but his passing was the most difficult for all of us - he loved life and made good use of it. Although, his funeral wasn't as hard for us as I feared it might be, reflecting on the many happy memories and impressions of the man he was brought us much comfort. He was adventurous, but also content in a very simple life, loved his family in word and act, and lived his faith well. His calm, steady presence will be greatly missed by all of us.
Grandpa was sure to spend a lot of time with me. I was his first, and for a while only, grandson, so I may have been subject to some mild favoritism! We spent lots of time hiking, kayaking, woodworking, and just plain having fun. I sure will miss him.
I love this picture - you can't see me very well, but I'm in there!
I'm very glad he was able to experience the joy of his great-grandchildren, including my two!
He was a lover of hymns, and "The Old Rugged Cross" was one of his favorites. Only one guitar in this one, my trusty SE acoustic gifted to me by my wife, and accompanied by loads of instruments from the Spitfire orchestral libraries that @László turned me on to. My fingerstyle playing is very rusty, and I probably should've used flat wounds, so there's definitely some string noise, but it worked. Did I arrange the parts correctly? No, I'm sure I didn't! But it still sounded nice, and quite a few people started humming and singing along during the ceremony, so I guess I did something right.
*Sorry y'all, I don't know how to get this darn embedded player any smaller!
" "
The next song was my choice, as a reflection of how he lived his life, and a song I've always enjoyed. I didn't have time to do much more than record the parts, put a compressor on the acoustic guitar, some reverb and delay, and run the Logic mastering plugin on it, but I was seriously surprised by how nicely it turned out. The result of having my sources correct from the start, I suppose. SE acoustic, 594 into the HXDA, SE NF3 into the Sweet 16 for the L/R rhythm tracks, and then - something I've not had a good reason to do yet - the Silver Sky into the '66 Super Reverb, cranked, and running into an IR profile I made of the CTS alnico speakers. Playing with position 4 (neck/middle), which is not always an easy tone to make speak clearly for lead guitar, but it blew me away... I guess that amp is a classic for a reason! Certainly the song could've been even better with more tweaking, but it has a rawness to it that I found very beautiful. Silver Sky/SR comes in a little later in the song, but worth the wait.
" "
Our grandmother passed a few years ago, and we never had favorites, but his passing was the most difficult for all of us - he loved life and made good use of it. Although, his funeral wasn't as hard for us as I feared it might be, reflecting on the many happy memories and impressions of the man he was brought us much comfort. He was adventurous, but also content in a very simple life, loved his family in word and act, and lived his faith well. His calm, steady presence will be greatly missed by all of us.
Grandpa was sure to spend a lot of time with me. I was his first, and for a while only, grandson, so I may have been subject to some mild favoritism! We spent lots of time hiking, kayaking, woodworking, and just plain having fun. I sure will miss him.
I love this picture - you can't see me very well, but I'm in there!
I'm very glad he was able to experience the joy of his great-grandchildren, including my two!
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