My Recordings

I've had a lot of fun over the last year or so creating my first CD. It's a lot of work: writing original songs, creating instrumentations, recording and mixing ... not to mention the work on packaging, and other details (makes me tired just writing this!). I've had lots of help from my friends on this, especially Kara who was very free with his advise on how to (and not to) mix. Have a listen and buy it at Cedars CD.

I'm going to have to move to Cuba if I keep recording these Latin/Cuban love songs! For this lovely number I recorded the sax (and a bit of Organ for the introduction) here at Mellowood using my Zoom H4. The background (MIDI) tracks were created with MMA. They were then rendered to wav files: some by recording off my Casio WK-3000; others using Timidity++.

The cool part comes in the mixing! My buddy Oren Fisher at YourBestSound lavished loads of love and attention to my recording. And the results are well worth listening to.

This first link is for the OGG encoded file. If you have ogg on your computer I recommend you use this link. Fuller and more clear. If you can't hear anything or the computer will not open the OGG file, scroll down a bit and grab the MP3.

Silencio - ogg (Rafael Hernandez)

And, here's the MP3 (which should work on even old XP systems):

Silencio (MP3 recording)

Just got a new toy ... a Zoom H4 Digital Recorder. So, I had to make a few test recordings and put one up here for you to listen to. This is a little bossanova composition I wrote. Played it with a MMA accompaniment (of course). The recording was made by putting the H4 in front of my PA speakers in my practise studio. I was facing away from the H4 with my tenor sax. Recorded in 256K MP3, transfered to Audacity for some cleanup, and then exported to 128K MP3.

Spirals (Bob van der Poel)

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A very sweet Cuban/Latin number that speaks about unexpected love. Of course, no vocals here, just sax.

Como Fue (Ernesto Duarte)

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I'll be trying out this unit in the field next month when I record a little gig I have. Stay tuned

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still tuned? Here's some cuts from a gig I did in December/2008 for a ballroom dance group. The accoustics in the hall were quite awful! Again, just my sax, miced with an Audio-Technica clip-on, and canned accomp generated with MMA playing though my Casio Wk-3000 and a PA. Note: no post-processing ... this is straight off the H4 (okay, I tweaked the volume).

This is a foxtrot version of "Winter Wonderland"

Winter Wonderland (Dick Smith & Felix Bernard)

A nice litte rhumba

Green Eyes (Aquellos Ojos Verdes) (Menendez)

A Cha Cha Cha

Sway (Ruiz)

And a beautiful, sentimental ballad

Love Is Here To Stay (Gershwin)

These are some "studio" recordings I've done here in my home studio (well, really my computer room). Acoustically, the room is really too bright, but when that is all you have ...

All the background tracks were generated with MMA, played on a Casio Wk-3000 and recorded onto a Fostex MR-8. The saxophone was recorded with a Behringer C-1 microphone, though a mixer into the MR-8. Mixing was done on a Linux box running Audacity. I've done very little "fixing" of the tracks ... just a bit of volume adjustment.

Love to hear comments, etc.

How Insensitive (Antonio Carlos Jobim)

My buddy Kara decided that he could use his considerable talents and much better hardware to remix my work. This second cut uses the same master tracks. It sounds much cleaner and more listenable. Let us both know what you think.

How Insensitive (OGG compressed file, remixed by Kara)

A little cha cha cha

Rico Vacilon (Rosendo Ruiz)

These 5 tracks are some live recordings of a gig I did in Sept/2006 at the Creston Art Club Show. I was there for "saxy effects" and there is a fair bit of background chatter. The recording were made on a IRiver HP-120 Mini-Recorder and a Sony MS-907 stereo microphone. All the background instrumentation was played via MIDI files on a Casio WK-3000 keyboard. The MIDIs were all created with MMA (available at www.mellowood.ca/mma).

These are low bit-rate MP3s and should download pretty quickly. And even more sorry about the background chatter :)

A Day In The Life of a Fool (Luiz Bonfa)

Like Dreamers Do (Lennon/McCarthey)

Old Man River (Jerome Kern)

Brazil (samba) (Barroso/Russel)

Over The Rainbow (Harburg/Arlen)

Some (well, just one for now) videos you might enjoy. I recorded the lovely song “We Kiss in a Shadow” from The King and I on my Akai EWI.

If you've missed my efforts at The International Music Camp available at My IMC here are some shortcuts. Yes, these are all done with the Zoom H4.

Feed The Birds (Sherman/Sherman, 2011)

Sleepy Cats (Bob van der Poel, 2010)

On Wings (Bob van der Poel, 2009)