This is a collection of musings on the various ins and outs, thoughts, techniques and travails I encounter as a photographer, composer, writer, artist and computer scientist.
I got paid for the wedding! I immediately trundled off to pick up the Presonus Firebox to finally get back online with MIDI and audio recording capability.
Download the drivers, get it talking to the machine. Install Cubase LE. Run Midi In/Outs to my trusty Roland XP-50 keyboard. Record Midi. Play it back.
Now for audio. I run the main outs into a stereo strip on the Mackie. Run the Alt 3/4 outputs from the Mackie into the Firebox inputs. Configure Cubase to understand all the various audio ins and outs. It's a newer version of Cubase than I used before but all the stuff is where I remember it.
Record audio. Play it back. Hmm... nothing coming back. Hunt and peck around. Nothing. Boot the software mixer, press buttons, try routings. Nothing. Check the strip on the Mackie with the keyboard - it's fine. Hmm.
Read the manual. There's a main output volume control on the front panel of the Firebox. Doh! Turn it up. NOW it's working. Who knew?
Play audio back and dub another track. Play back. Insert dynamics, turn on a compressor. Everything is fine.
I've got more work to do, tho. There is a lot of fine tuning to calibrating Cubase audio and midi, a whack of lightweight plug ins to install that came with the Firebox and just general acclimatization to be done.
I also picked up a Behringer ECM 8000 measurement microphone to be used in conjunction with my Alesis M-EQ 230 equalizer and the TrueRTA spectrum analyzer to get my monitoring flat.
I signed up on the Presonus forums. I'm enjoying how the musical community has plugged in to each other on the net. It wasn't nearly so rich back in the late 90s.
Geek speak, I know - but it was a pretty geeky night. ;-)
Well, first of all, let me get to mortality. My computer died. There was a loud grinding noise and then it wouldn't boot again. It would get to the bios display splash screen, and never get as far as accessing the system drive to boot Vista. I've got most of everything that matters backed up, but it takes weeks to reconfigure a machine, get all the software installed and upgraded and all that. Talk about a sinking, sinking feeling in the pit of my gut.
An hour on the phone to the manufacturer's phone support, and they're stumped. They want to ship me a box that will get here in a few days, have me ship the computer to them - turn around time 8-14 days. Unacceptable. I say as much - the computer is under warranty, for freak's sake. They tell me I can trundle off to the local Best Buy's service dept, and to give them the case number. Off I go and meet Andrew (after standing in line and stuff like that).
Andrew is a wizard. He pulls his chin a bit and says "I've seen this before - I think I just took it apart and got the battery off the motherboard, let the bios reset itself, and it woke up. We try that, and it boots. Try reconnecting the hard drives now... hmmm... doesn't boot. Try each drive in turn. One boots, one doesn't. Here's the best part - it was my mostly empty, secondary drive. Everything on it is backed up already. I can't say as I've ever been so unaffected by a hard disk crash. Whew.
Interface update
So, I heard back from Presonus. Yes, they have no banannas. That is to say - they don't have a 64 bit driver for the FireStudio firewire interface. Sigh. Well, I looked at alternatives, talked to Wendy, did some soul searching on it. Do I really need the major huge rack when I get everything I need out of their Firebox product?
I think I might have been doing a bit of over-specification on that front, especially when I can feed the Firebox from my Mackie mixer still. Moving to the Firebox does free up $550 that I can start spending on virtual instruments. Hmm. OK, Firebox it is (and yes, it does have 64 bit drivers ;-).
First up will be the SC Electric Guitar, which is actually hard to find in online stores. I tracked it down at audioMidi.com. They have this nifty wish list feature, so I plowed mine in. It's a long (and expensive) list. Ow.
Friends and Feedback
I've been getting some good, thoughtful feedback on my Beauty of the Rain duet reworking. In particular, regarding this bit of a verse:
Original:
But when she gave you more to find You let her think she'd lost her mind And that's all on you Feeling helpless if she asked for help Or scared you'd have to change yourself
Adaptation: (Gal / Guy )
But when I gave you more to find You let me think I’d lost my mind And that's all on me Feeling helpless when you asked for help Or scared you'd have to change yourself
Critique:
Definitely liking where you're going with it. My nitpicky critique now is on one line... the "That's all on me" isn't going to sing nearly as nicely as a long vowel - the "all on you" of the original :) What if you gave the first 3 lines to the female character - so the "all on you" hangs as an accusation - leading to the insight of "feeling helpless.. or scared I'd have to change myself"?
I’ve given the matter some thought – first of all, the protracted part of the phrase is actually on “all” not “you.” “Me” IS weaker phonetically, but stronger emotionally (at least to me). What I’m aiming for, the key bit here, is that the guy accepts responsibility but then hedges. He’s trying to be honest but he can’t come the whole way. It’s a “spin” that’s not completely self revealing. The follow up “Or scared you'd have to change yourself” lands the core truth with a frank brutality that strips away the layers of his pretense.
I can see it working either way. Other opinions are welcome, so fire a comment my way!
More Friends
Ashley Armstrong is the daughter of Christine Armstrong, who sang I Give on the currently posted recording. She's using youtube to chronicle her songwriting. I thought it a most interesting idea.
Well, first of all the great news - the final DVD for Jenn's wedding is ready, which means I get paid tomorrow. Here's a shot for your viewing pleasure...
That means I will be trundling off to pick up my longed for Presonus Firestudio Tube audio/midi interface.
Now, a few words on this beastie. It's not just an interface. It's a 16x6 mixer and it's reputed to be zero latency (physically impossible, but I'll take that to mean "imperceptible latency").
It could easily replace my trusty Mackie in the studio setup. I've often wished for a couple of extra output channels on the Mackie. On the other hand, it's handy to have some real physical dials to twiddle, if only to turn the volume down.
The interface also comes with a whack of "light edition software", some of which I know I'll be buying the real deal on. I expect I'll be a week or so blogging on various explorations of bits and pieces before I settle down to do some real stuff.
The other thing I'm going to be eager to do is properly re-EQ this room. Fleet has noise generator / spectral analysis units for rent. I'm hoping I can wheedle a day with one on the house when I buy the interface.
Hmmm... I just did my pre-purchase check list. I've got a sinking feeling I should have done this in the "establish dream phase." The silly thing doesn't have 64 bit drivers. I've fired off an email to their tech support team to see what's up and should hear back in a day or two. A concrete brick in my gut says I might be back to the drawing board. Drat. Triple Drat.
At any rate, I need to get my Countryman wireless mic cable repaired - so I might as well run the mic in when I go to get the interface.
In other news, I've finished draft 1.1 on the adaptation of Dar Williams's Beauty of the Rain as a duet and gotten some initial (positive) feedback. The original is a bit of a solitary lament; re-working it as a duet characterizes it as a dialog. It's a take on the song that highlights a different dimension of tune's theme. I wasn't sure how it would work out but reading it over now, I like it.
Well, I had an interesting day. There was some dotting i's and crossing t's on the code and a lot of processing final large print versions of Wedding photos for Jenn. The shots look good, and I uploaded some to flickr. More to go tomorrow and I should be finished.
Wendy and I had a lovely outing with Lynn Harrison - she's in town for the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals conference. The conversation ranged all over from personality types and songwriting stories to a bit of history and comparing notes on our future projects.
I took her in on CKCU radio yesterday and was impressed with her radio chops. It emerges tonight that she's got a lot of background in radio (and media) so no surprise there.
The other interesting factoid uncovered from the evening is that an old bud, Peter MacDonald, is now executive director of the OCFF. I had got wind he had gone to work for them, but I hadn't realized he was le grande fromage.
I might get some songwriting in before I turn in - I'm feeling all keen, but I'll let you know tomorrow.
Time to hit the books
I've studied music theory, harmony and counterpoint. It's handy but I find it most useful in choral or ensemble arranging.
I recently stumbled across a pair of books that I think are better suited to providing a theoretical structure to the chord + melody songwriter.
Well, I think I'm going to have to replace RealStrat on my wish list with the Prominy SC Electric Guitar. Doing side by side listens of their demos, and checking out the lists of articulations and chord figures, it is just waaaay better.
They also have an LPC guitar - which is the Gibson double coil Les Paul. You can watch the demo vid here.
It's more expensive, but worth it imho. Part of the expense is picking up the amplifier and effects plug in - the top dog being Amplitube 2.
It's fun that so many people have liked the stew and painting analogies as I've related them to song writing. I'm enjoying the device as well, so I'll be analogically retentive.
What's for dinner? This often evokes a tension between the desire for the familiar and the appeal of something new. Bangers and Mash? or Char Grilled Prawns with Lime & Chili?
Now, an interesting observation I'd make about myself. As I've been running play lists and jamming to them to get all the musical muscles and neurons firing again, the tunes I love have pretty stock chord progressions in them. Bangers and Mash.
Other tunes I think are "cool." They appeal to my intellect and my music sense but they often don't grab me the way the simpler stuff does. Char Grilled Prawns.
Now, I'm hardly going to do an album to re-hash the past. There's a lot to be said, however, for dropping the intellectual posing and writing tunes that really grab me.
I think I've decided the right thing to do is balance the menu. Some stuff that's familiar in it's harmonic structure and some stuff that's a bit more adventurous.
I realized I had other things to balance, like the basic themes. It's easy to lapse into too much happy, sadness, love or anger.
(I'm glad I'm past the time of my life when I had to write every friend and relative that got married a forever commitment love song)
Or tempo - frantic vs. laid back.
Or style - narrative versus lyrical.
Methinks I'm going to need to boot up Excel and plan the menu a bit to make sure it's properly balanced. I don't entirely trust my unguided inclinations.
Wendy's Tune
Some minor progress on Wendy's tune. I was working on the intro and didn't like how my IV-V, IV-V progression was working - the mood was wrong. I wanted it to hold together a bit better but I didn't want to change the progression too much.
I tried it by holding a pedal IV bass through the progression. Perfect. It hangs together but catches the lazy mood I had in mind.
I still have to get the verses and bridge finished up and tighten the lyrics but when you song write 20 minutes at a time, you do it in steps.
Busy, busy weekend. I'm finishing up the details on several photo gigs and that has consumed my arty cycles. Final selections on wedding shots are coming in, discs to ship, proofs to post to my Flickr account.
I do have one little songwriting thing to offer, though. I was out on the porch gabbing with Wendy and I shared a little realization I'd had on my production style on my old recordings versus the new stuff I'm planning.
When I'm writing a tune, I'm primarily concerned with three elements - melody, chords and lyrics. It's got to stand firmly on those three legs. Most of my old tunes fulfill that criteria. I can pick up a guitar at a campfire, play them and they work.
My productions of my past works in the studio have a lot in them though. Layers of instruments on layers of instruments. I've been planning a much more open sound for my upcoming works. I realized why, as I've been fiddling around with my old gear.
The old sounds weren't up to snuff. They couldn't stand on their own.
"Oh," Wendy says, "Your carrots were old, so you made stew."
Exactly.
She went on to remind me of my lectures on the dangers of "over-working" a painting. As you work and re-work with paint, the pigments mix and you get increasingly muddy (more and more grey), losing the vibrancy of the colors.
Yep, yep.
It's interesting how the medium affects you. If paints were dull, I'd be less worried about muddying them up. If my sounds are vibrant and yummy, I'm much less likely to muddy the sound.
She continued on to warn me. "I LIKE how full your pieces are. It's good stew. Don't overcompensate on the minimalism."
Woot! I've got a fan base with expectations of my sound. Who knew?
Good Stew Ro thinks this should be the title of my retrospective collection. Brilliant!
Nina Deli is a German singer / songwriter with an exceptionally ethereal quality to her, while retaining some earthiness. Enya with edge. I encountered her on the melodyne demos. Her tune, Flow, was the one used in the demo. Worth a link click and a listen.
I've been doing a lot of reading on songwriting lately. When I embarked on the journey of songwriting as a teenager in 1977, I didn't have google, MSN, blogs or any number of the current ways to connect with fellow poets and songwriters beyond the high school / college writing club. Thanks to Lynn Harrison for her kind response to my email. Yes, Lynn, I'm reading and I eagerly await your next communication.
It's funny how deciding to blog regularly starts to focus your thoughts. You frame your ideas in terms of the evening's narrative. Today I had an overriding insight punch through my psyche. I'm not a Performer/Songwriter. I'm a Songwriter/Composer. I treat a new song far more like a painting or photograph. I do preliminary studies. I lay it down in layers - I THINK in layers. It's all composition (theme), under paint (rhythm) and details/highlights (counterpoint/fills).
I haven't started recording yet, yet I hit the dilemma head on today. Tech like Celemony's Melodyne could extend my vocal range a half octave in either direction effortlessly (and undetectably). If I need a low E, or a high B to make the phrase work, it is now within reach. I could never sing it on stage. Now more than ever I am confronted with a final parting. The writing of material I can produce but not perform.
I tend toward making the song versus the performance great. I paint cadmium pigment and get a color. I photograph pixels and reproduce a soul. I write and produce a mood, not a performance. The song must go on beyond and ahead of me. A painting is a projection of my eye and few expect it to be reproduced "live." I choose this course. Some silly middle ground is a coward's dithering.
In other news, I spent the day listening through "The Beauty of the Rain" by Dar Williams. That tune has so much potential, methinks it might be my first cover. It helps she's an alto, and I'm a baritone. So many ideas. ;-)
Updated Christmas List
I made a run to Steve's to pick brains and figure out pedal trigger inputs into the Alesis Controlpad. Kick drum triggers, it turns out, are usually pads engineered to be hit by a normal kick pedal. Many are reasonably large, but we did find a slimline version. High-hat controllers, it would appear, consist of two inputs - the surface that is struck by the sticks and the pedal that indicates how "open" the high hat is. It seems likely that if I plug a hi-hat pedal into the control pad and map one of the pads onto the hi-hat, I should be in business.
The upshot of the conversation is that I've added to my Christmas gift list the following:
1) Roland KD-7 Kick Drum Trigger. It's low profile, and won't dislodge too many of the piles on the floor in my office.
Today was primarily a code day, but I did manage to squeeze in a few things that I count as high points on the music side of things.
1) I read through Lynn Harrison's blog, Staying in Tune. Wonderfully reflective, clever and insightful. I also trucked over to her site, lynnharrison.ca which has some sample tracks if you'd like to catch studio versions of her work. Here's a video of her singing "Crossing My Mind."
2) I discovered yet another piece of tech that is going to make my life as a composer and arranger a lot more fun. It's the Melodyne plug-in from Celemony. Holy cow. It brings to audio editing what I've been able to do in MIDI for ages. Writing four part vocal arrangements is going to get waaay more fun. Check out their video demos.
3) Last and not least, I penned another poem, Privilege, inspired by a long, late night conversation with my wife, Wendy. She likes it. It's up on the fridge. Yay.
So, more code again tomorrow and more excursions into the adventure I've embarked on.
One opportunity / challenge when you're kitting out in the autumn on a hobby project (programming being my career - art is my passionate sideline) is that you can ask for stuff for Christmas. IF you can find stuff that has a gift sized price tag, that is. That IF is the challenge.
The only likely candidate on my wish list is the Alesis Controlpad. To get a couple more things put on the list, I thought I'd look into the fact that the hi-hat and kick pedal triggers can be added to it. I started looking for compatibility specs on hi-hat and kick triggers. There's nothing mentioned on the Alesis site regarding interoperability. I could hope ANY apparently correct trigger might work but I've been around tech for 25 years and I know such an assumption is a dangerous one.
I start looking around to try to find out how electronic drum triggers work, only to discover that such information is not clearly explained on any page I was able to find in 10 minutes of google research. I just got repeats of the same old info from one online vendor after another.
Sigh. This is one time, I think, where I'm going to be trundling off to Steve's music to gab with the guys in the drum room and pick their brains. I might even carve out an hour to sit down in the store, set it up with some of their pedal triggers and try them.
The rest of the day was coding and testing, coding and testing. I'm almost ready to move onto a new chunk of work though, which will be most welcome.
I got more work done coding on the menu system today, almost finished all the reorganization of various bits into the "new order" of things. Will be nice when it's done - it's much better organized now than it was.
It was a reasonably quiet day, so I made more progress on Wendy's tune. I've worked out the basics of the melody and chords for the Intro, Chorus and about half the verse. I've chosen a chord structure at the level of Wendy's guitar proficiency, so she can play it with me (I think that will happen in private only). She asked about it, so she's obviously happy I'm doing it. Yay.
I like the tune too. I was playing through the bits that I've got roughed in to settle them in place, found some rough edges and took a file to them. I'm counting down the days to when I can get the Personus FireStudio Tube in place and actually record the framework of it.
I'm continuing to get my technique back on the keyboard. I was jamming to Bonnie Raitt and Dire Straits yesterday, just to get more of the bluesy licks back. In the course of it, I encountered the video for Brothers In Arms. This has been a piece that has always had a profound emotional impact on me; this was the first time I've seen the video though.
The song does fill me with a certain fatalistic melancholy mixed with a sense of comradeship. It's probably why I like the tune, as I do enjoy dichotomy.
I'm not really a Hemingway fan, but he does have some good ideas, and that's a particularly memorable quote.
I had started the poem (I also have some half done musical ideas on it) after reading The Hydrogen Economy. The opening chapter discussed the history of civilizations and empires as it related to energy and resource requirements, expansion and collapse.
I was gabbing with Ang on MSN about photography, poetry and music. In the course of the discussion I went over to the Vienna Symphonic Library to check out more of their stuff. You can buy their orchestra starter pack (which I most certainly will do) quite reasonably but the full thing weighs in at 10+ grand.
The starter pack is no slouch. Check out this most impressive rendition of Faure's Pavane.
The upside is you can buy the instruments individually. Their flutes rock (they have two soprano flutes, an alto and a bass) and I've long admired how Joni Mitchell had employed the alto flute on the Court and Spark album, so I was making notes as I was listening.
BUT - It was discovering their soprano choir that blew me away. Check out Miserere.
This one voicing got me thinking about how I might approach my hoped for remake of Lord of the Starfields. I started running ideas in my head and on the piano.
I soon realized I needed to write an entirely new song. A working title is "Holy" or "Sacred" at the moment. The basic idea is that we all touch a sense of the divine, regardless of how we describe it. The use of words belittles it, and engages the intellect. Wordless vocalizations might be the way to go. I think it's why chant (and similar folks like Enya) have such a profound emotional impact. Few get the Latin any more but the meditative tone and very slow open feeling evokes a sense of the spiritual.
Some months ago I had to tear my studio apart to go play a live gig. I didn't set it back up when I got back from the gig. I put all the gear back in position on the shelves but never did the cable reconnects.
Today, I've been slowly tracking which cables are which and remembering how I had the mixer routing set up. I finally figured out most of it. I still haven't patched in the cassette/cd player nor the DAT unit, but those are old bits of gear that I really only need for pulling over legacy recordings from the old days.
Now I can actually play audio on my computer and jam to it with the keyboard. I've started playing through tunes old and new. By gar, listening to your play lists on proper studio monitoring headphones does wonders for the comfort of your ears (full cup enclosure) and the fidelity of the listening experience.
I still need to re-do the equalization of the room, since my new computer monitors will have changed the audio signature of the place. I'll worry about that when I'm installing the Personus Firewire Tube interface in a few weeks.
In other news, Claudia needed a photo re-sized to wall sized. I did the deed since I've got Genuine Fractals for large scale re-sizes. The photo works out to be 250 Meg in size, so I ran it out to her place on CD. I ad an opportunity to be re-acquainted with her daughter and gave her an impromptu singing and guitar lesson. Fun.
I started the day thinking it was a code day but I ended up working on adapting the graphics from our creative marketing designer for Powerpoint. That sounds boring, but I like working on Powerpoint, so it was relaxing.
In the middle of all this, cheques are arriving for my shots of Marriage of Figaro. I trundled off to Abby's to pick up her shots on CD since we are shipping discs of all the shots rather than messing around with individual shot downloads.
I stopped on the way and picked up some Kilkenny. We hung out looking at her shots for her next exhibit (I mucked with the crop on two, and she thought they were better) when a friend of hers came in (the production manager of Opera Lyra, it turns out). I gave them a tour of some of the virtual instruments I'm planning to use on my new album. We hung out drinking beer and telling photography, music, stage and theater war stories. Fun.
(Of course, while I was picking up the beer, I walked over to Steve's Music and checked out some of the new musical toys I had picked out. I'm definitely on the right track in my thinking.)
Having taken a look around yesterday at the various bits of music software / hardware available, I've made my wish list for the upgrade of my stuff. In order of upcoming purchase.
Presonus Firewire Tube Audio Interface My old audio interface board fits in a desktop machine, and never worked so well really - one of the two stereo inputs was attenuated, so I was always panning to get a balanced signal when recording stereo feeds. As well, my old midi interface was separate, and increasingly unreliable. This unit has sixteen audio feeds (as opposed to just stereo, so I can do small ensemble live recordings (I've got the headphone monitoring panel already) to different tracks, and I have enough inputs to manage a complex drum or keyboard mic setup) and it has the MIDI on board. The firewire let's me take it mobile with my laptop, for recording my speaking gigs and/or location recording of performers.
Once I've got the interface gear, I can start recording the outlines of the tunes. I tend to play with a tune in Cubase in the early phases much like a word processor - will throw in a bunch of ideas and start to move them around until I like the basic flow and feel of the whole thing. Once that's done, I re-record everything for production, so it doesn't matter at this point if it sounds a bit campy.
Alesis ControlPad and BFD2 My drums need an upgrade. I've traditionally played the drums by hand using an old Yamaha pad trigger, but I've always wanted more pads and programming than it offers. As well, the velocity sensitivity and acoustic fidelity of BFD2 make it pretty much droolable.
Steinberg Cubase Studio 4 The Presonus comes with Cubase Essentials, but I'll smack against the 48 track limit fast. I can get started there, but the Cubase upgrade will be needed. The outline phase doesn't need many tracks, but once I start doing multiple takes on multiple ideas in the arrangements... ;-)
Music Lab RealStrat I really want to emphasize a more acoustic guitar and stratocaster lead sound in my next round of work, and as I mentioned earlier, I need to prioritize either keyboard chops or guitar chops. My intention is to use the guitar tracks with the piano, bass and drums as the rhythm section of my "group's" sound, so when I'm putting down the backbone of the tunes, I'll need the guitars.
Vir2 Acoustic Legends HD I'll use this instrument for the acoustic guitars. It's incredible, really.
Quantum Leap Goliath and Gypsy This is a basic "across the board" upgrade of my sounds, including a killer Bosendorfer 290 Piano, a great Hammond B3 sound, some great basses and world sounds, orchestra (including the first passable flute I've ever heard) and I'm hoping some good drum kits. The classical guitars and violin in Gypsy are to melt over.
Chris Hein Horns I can rough in the horns with what I have, but these are simply the most outstanding artificial brass I've ever heard - it's entirely targeted at the jazz and pop brass section sound, and completely kicks butt. I'll be tempted to redo the brass arrangements on No Limits with it. It's so sad that the brass comes at the end of the process - I really want to play with this now. ;-)
... ok, I'm back to doing real work now - I'm going to finish the menu system today. I get to do it while listening to the Goliath demo songs though. :D
I've been out of composing and recording for some time, but I'm beginning to prep to release my first full scale album. Now, I do all my recording and mixing on my computer - playing keyboards and guitars using a mix of digital sounds and acoustic recording.
Since my last batch of recording, which was largely done using the sounds from my Roland music workstation, the world of virtual instrumentation has come a long way. That's where music instruments are sampled and modeled as computer software that responds to keyboard playing.
It takes a lot of work to master a given virtual instrument - it doesn't come for free, but does mean I can work away on my own in the wee hours without paying session musicians heaps of overtime, and experiment with ideas
First stop, Guitars Now the sad truth is, my guitar and keyboard chops have taken a turn for the worse out of neglect, and I really only have time to work one up. So I started looking into virtual instrumentation on electric and acoustic guitars. I've never learned to play electric, so my first hope was to find a passable electric... ideally a Stratocaster. Some google searching and review reading turned up MusicLab's RealStrat. Wow.
On the acoustic front, Vir2 offers the Acoustic Legends HD series, which I'm likely to ultimately get as well, but I'm also considering RealGuitar, also from Media Lab.
Next stop - Orchestra Now, you can't replace a great violin player with a bunch of software, but you can sure as heck come close - I'd have never thought it, but once I heard Garritan's Stradivari Violin, well... listen for yourself... For Claire.
...and when the solo violin is used as a concertmaster and mixed with the Garritan Personal Orchestra instrument, you get a reasonable pass at Beethoven's Fifth.
I'll never produce a classical album with this stuff, but for doing "cut above" arrangements behind my middle of the road stuff - I'm all up for that.
I called about the Stradivari Violin, since it couldn't be ordered from their website. It's been discontinued to be re-released in the near-ish future as a chamber ensemble set which will include the violin, but also bring in violoas, cellos and the like.
Another thought on the solo violin (as well as some other great instruments, notably the classical guitar) might be the Quantum Leap Gypsy.
The other instrument I've always thought was completely badly done in keyboards and virtual instrumentation is flute - but check out this demo of the Vienna Symphonic Library's Flute.
The more I cruise the Vienna Symphonic Libraries, the more I'm blown away - but they aren't cheap at all.
... and slide by the Brass Section
Now, brass is actually much more of a mainstay for me - I love a great horn section on a tune - and I've often considered hiring a brass section - but wait... say hello to Chris Hein Horns.
And then there was Goliath
Now, it turns out there are tons and tons of great virtual instruments out there, but for an overall package of great sounds you really can't beat, check out EastWest's Quantum Leap Goliath.
Goliath has has a pretty amazing range of instruments, but the inclusion of the Bösendorfer 290 Concert Grand Piano is jaw dropping. Check out Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.
So, I'm sure I'll track down other cool virtual instruments and the like - and I'm already back to doing the basic songwriting - so we'll see you on here as things develop. :D
Today was a day of music, friendship and optimism. I've managed to start writing a long considered song, and I'm off to a decent start.
I've been feeling the itch to get back to songwriting, and SteveM challenging me to collaborate with him today started me thinking more concretely about it.
A hint that a long promised song was still to be written got me moving on a specific tune. I started by picking a mood. I find I can't begin lyrics or specific music without deciding on the "feeling" of the song. Once I have that, I can express the feeling in words and music. Today song's feeling is a medium slow ballad, affectionate but not gushing. Acoustic primarily - guitar and piano, but with some fill stuff TBD once I get to the arranging of it. Baritone male range (me) with female backup singers.
At the same time I cruised a whole stack of virtual instrument sites. When I stared with virtual instruments about seven years ago, there were only a handful of decent ones. Now there's a plethora of high end virtual instruments. I had thought I was going to have to learn how to play a strat and buy a new acoustic, but not so.
It's a relief - with my limited time, I won't be able to work back my guitar and keyboard chops both (and I played both today, and I've got work to do) Keyboards it is thanks to instruments like Music Lab's RealStrat.
So now I'm saving my pennies to buy a whack of new interface hardware, recording software upgrades and virtual instruments.
It's good to be enthused, and enthused about something with a bit of lasting value. Something that will create joy in others. Of course, I've got photo shoots to book and code to write, so it would appear my schedule is destined to be packed for some time to come.
At any rate, I need to get my 
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