MY MUSICAL JOURNEY…

…started when I picked up my first ukulele, followed by guitar at about age 8. As my love of guitar increased by age 13 I found a guitar teacher who introduced me to some scales and lead playing, and finally taught me chord theory, which basically gave me the tools to progress further. I would then spend hours listening to songs and using my ear and chord knowledge to work out note by note what was going on and trying to understand the harmonic relationships involved.

A couple of high school rock bands and playing in my school orchestra gave me some stage experience and by the time I hit my early twenties I grew an appreciation of jazz and jazz rock, listening to guitar greats like Larry Carlton, Robben Ford and Earl Klugh. I started making backing cassette tapes on a small Fostex four-track, using a drum machine and recording live bass and keyboards, and played instrumental guitar on top, managing to get a few live local background music gigs around the city. For a while I teamed up with a keyboard playing female jazz singer to start my first duo.

After playing with a couple of pub bands, by the end of my twenties (1989) I decided to put together a full-time duo with a great female vocalist I had worked with before and continued making cassette based backing tracks. Eventually I bought my first sequencer/sound module with which I started producing more tracks in a MIDI format saved to 2DD floppy disks. As we were both singing and I was playing guitar live, with most tracks I omitted the main guitar and so it still felt that we were a live act and not just a karaoke machine. After 18 years of 2-4 gigs a week, a repertoire of over 500 sequenced songs, and about six female vocalists later, I eventually burnt myself out and shelved the performing for a while.

Around this time I found my Roland MV-30 sequencers were starting to fall apart and replacement parts were no longer available so I started saving all my backing tracks to CDs as stereo wav. files. In hindsight saving them as MIDI files would have been a better option but I was running out of time as the screens on the machines were dying, and I had to save the last twenty or so tracks blindly without seeing the screen!

So the last three years or so I have starting producing more tracks to make available, after teaching myself Logic Pro for sequencing etc. With the tools available in Logic I try to add a live feel to most tracks, with usually a few extra drum and bass fills and always listen to a live recording of the original band to see what extra ideas they throw in live.

EDITING…So most tracks available from this site have been sequenced from the Roland MV-30 and can’t be edited regarding key signature etc, but my more recent tracks produced in Logic X I am able to edit if required and customize to your needs.

Anyway I hope you enjoy something of my work I have created over many years of sequencing, and will continue to add new tracks to this site as I love layering and creating music, knowing that you will be using them live to enhance your performances, or maybe just ‘doodling’ and ‘hairbrush singing’ in the privacy of your bedroom.

CUSTOM TRACKS…And I am always happy to create any custom tracks you may have in mind, just message me to discuss…