Sunday 26 January 2014
For a while I published "Song Story Sunday"  where I took a song and made a collage of it, going through the various stages of development. Today I'm reviving  this feature for a song called "One of A Kind". This song was co-written with Tommy Morrison. Just under a week ago I heard this song played as we all bid our final farewell to Tommy. The version we used for that occasion was by Elkie Brooks because Tommy was justly proud that his song had been recorded by a major artist. Naked song alert !!  – the collage starts with my rough "dooh be doo be dooh" rendition. All I had was the title. I gave this to Tommy to develop a lyric and next there is a version sung by Tommy when he'd done the lyrics. This is not a simple pop song lyric – "I've spent a lifetime, or so it seems, moving in circles, dealing in dreams", pure Morrison Magic. Next there is a version sung by Phil Caffrey that I used to pitch for covers. This version can be heard on the recently released "Sleepless Nights" album by Caffrey, Morrsion, Thompson. Then we hear the version by Elkie Brooks released on her "Pearls iii" CD and also as a single in various parts of Europe. Finally, there is an updated version I started to work on about a year ago. Maybe I need to finish this? https://soundcloud.com/stevie_t-1/one-of-a-kind-collage

Steve T
Tuesday 14 January 2014
1024-cubase7With version 7, in my view, Cubase has finally got it right and I'm referring largely to the mixer. I could never really get to grips with the mixer in all previous versions. It was baffling and the window just floated all over. Now the mixer is much more solid visually and is a full window that you can dock in your second monitor. Lots of other stuff that's equivalent to real world mixers but I've not fully gotten into that yet. This has been the reason I've preferred ... well "Reason" (Propellerheads) - I really do like music software to look and behave like the real world devices they emulating.

Steve T