Just so you know: The original works on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons License.
If you'd like to hear more music made with Ardour and other Linux audio software check out Hans Fugal's excellent LAM site. Podcast and M3U feeds are available, and the musical variety is well worth the trip. You should also check the posts on the Made With Ardour forum on the Ardour site.
22 June 2012
It is what it is.
22 June 2012
Seriously, I don't know where this stuff comes from. I think I was trying to be Mose Allison.
28 November 2011
An original blues performed by Fat Daddy, with Terry McClanahan on guitar, Rusty Campbell on drums, and myself on bass and vocal. The performance was recorded in April 2011 at Coffee Amici in Findlay OH. Alas, the audio glitches were present in the original recordings, sorry about that.
30 December 2010
Here in Ohio USA we have an interesting law that requires a convicted drunk driver to put specially-colored license plates on his or her vehicle (assuming s/he's still allowed to drive, of course). Law enforcement officers can easily spot such plates, and of course everyone else gets to cast humiliation on the idiot who decided to drink and drive. The following song is dedicated to my foolish neighbor who managed to fall afoul of the authorities, winning himself some brightly colored tags for his truck. Hilarity ensues.
30 August 2010
I'm tubed. You can now check out my videos on newnairobi1, my own YouTube channel. It's currently hosting my AVSynthesis videos and some clips from student shows, but who knows what'll show up there.
And just so you don't go away empty-headed :
22 July 2010
It's Video Dave at Studio DV ! Yes, like most of the rest of the world I'm now on-board the video train. These links point to some recent offerings :
Watch this space for more to come. Joy! Rapture! Yawn.
16 October 2009
Four songs recorded at the Coffee Amici in downtown Findlay OH USA on 26 September 2009. The band includes Terry McClanahan on guitar, Rusty Campbell on drums, and myself on bass and vocals.
8 August 2009
More "music" made with Csound. This piece is from an audio/video work in progress, I decided to add it for its demonstration of Csound's waveguide processor. Three sound sources make up the basic material, and each source is treated by its own waveguide. Like most of my recent Csound compositions this piece is composed with the help of Jean-Pierre Lemoine's AVSynthesis.
12 July 2009
The old and the older. Carousel Ride is an original that dates from the early 1990s. I Don't Worry About A Thing is a great song by Mose Allison, recorded recently here at Studio Dave as a demo for an article I'm writing about using Ubuntu Jaunty as a desktop audio recording system.
7 June 2009
Something like a blues this time. Definitely a minor-key lamentation.
3 March 2009
Two musical offerings for the New Year. First up, blatant sociopolitical commentary from Gypsy Dave, dedicated to Ron Paul, Peter Schiff, Clyde Prestowitz, and William Shirer, heroes all. Hard to say whether they'd like this song.
15 November 2008
Jean-Pierre Lemoine's AVSynthesis has become my favorite means of composing with Csound. I've spent much time with it this year, and I intend to continue exploring this fantastic program. Most of my work with AVSynthesis combines video and sound, but the following pieces seemed good enough to post as standalone compositions.
4 April 2008
For the past few years I've been dealing with various tough issues facing some members of my family, including the illness and loss of faculties so typically associated with growing old. My father has advanced Parkinson's disease, my stepsister recently passed away from the effects of Huntington's disease, and other older friends and family members are showing signs of memory loss and other impairment. I'm closing in on 60 years of my own life, and watching how people deal with the the ravages of illness and old age has been a hard cautionary tale.
The following song is dedicated to my father Robert L. Phillips, my stepsister Sue Pape (requiescat in pace), and to anyone who suffers or lives with the sufferings brought on by terminal disease and the harsh effects of aging. It's certainly not my usual sort of song, but as Mississippi Fred McDowell put it, "When the law says to move, you got to move". I got moved.
3 April 2008
I decided to expand this page to include some of my more-or-less recent work with other Linux audio applications. To begin, here's a basket-load of various works, including original instrumental compositions (mostly written in 2006-2007), old blues, classical transcriptions, et cetera.
2 April 2008
Thanks to the generosity of Matt Probst, my Internet service provider, I now have ample space for more pieces. So, after a hiatus of more than two years I've uploaded some recent and not-so-recent material. I hope you enjoy it.
First up, a version of Can't Nobody Hide From God, a Southern gospel song originally recorded by the legendary Blind Willie Johnson. I've taken the song into a slightly different space, treating it to a vocal quartet arrangement. All parts were performed by myself, with no pitch-shifting or autotuning. Play it loud for best effect.
Next, another original blues, my first recording to use drum loops (from Beta Monkey). All other parts are performed by the flesh & blood Dave.
This set includes four pieces recorded in a live session. The first piece is an improv jam featuring the Studio Dave All Stars (David Lloyd on bass, Phil Davis on drums, and myself on guitar ). The next three songs feature Corin leading the band through Norah Jones's Don't Know Why, Annie Ross's tongue-torturing vocal version of Wardell Gray's great Twisted, and Peggy Lee's famous Fever. I think she does a pretty credible job with the material, not bad at all for a 17 year-old high-school senior living in Findlay OH.
9 December 2005
I've remixed and remastered a number of the songs on this site, thanks to the awesome JAMin mastering software from Steve Harris & Co. I've also deleted two tracks to make room for a couple of new ones. Sorry about that, but I'm already pushing my provider's available bandwidth. If anyone misses the older tracks, let me know and I'll see about putting them on-line again. So, on to the new stuff...
Here's another original song, nothing special, just an old tune from the days of my youthful indiscretions. The performance is new, and once again that's me playing and singing all parts. This song is supposed to be a bit Robert Cray-ish but that's probably just how I like to think of it.
9 December 2005
Here's another one of Mom's favorites, Tomorrow Night, a ballad originally recorded by the great blues singer/guitarist Lonnie Johnson that topped the rhythm and blues charts for seven weeks in 1948. Curiously, Lonnie recorded two very different versions of this song, once in an acoustic setting with just Lonnie and his guitar, and again with backing singers and a full orchestral setting. I like both versions, but my recording owes more to the earlier acoustic rendition.
15 November 2005
At long last, some new material! This song is just a knock-off blues, but I had a ball recording it. All parts are played by yours truly on real instruments, with the exception of the drum track (still MIDI drums, sorry).
7 December 2004
My mother wants recordings of some of her favorites from my performance sets, so here's one of 'em, John The Revelator. I first heard this piece sung by the great Son House when I was 13, it was like listening to music from another planet. It's become a popular piece, recorded by the likes of Taj Mahal, John Mellencamp, and Beck, but I still prefer Son's version.
Very straightforward recording direct to Ardour, one channel only. I slapped the TAP Fractal Doubler on the vocal track and Freeverb3 on the Master, that's it. And I repaired a particularly nasty mistake by using Ardour's outstanding region edit capabilities, but I'm not going to tell you where that happens.
Later that same day...
I didn't care much for the effects processing, so I changed it. I thought everything was too heavily applied, I backed off all settings for each effect, and I like the results better now.
6 December 2004
I really am working on some new stuff, but I keep getting sidetracked. Ron Parker's setting of Ezra Pound's Sestina prompted me to dig this piece out of storage and brush it up in Ardour. The original was a mono track, so like the organ pieces above I simply copied the original into two tracks and applied some effects. For this one I used Tom Szilagyi's TAP Autopanner very lightly on one channel and his TAP Fractal Doubler on the other. The effects are not very strongly present, but they definitely made a difference that I liked.
The poem is The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter, it's from Ezra Pound's Cathay. The original is very beautiful, but I must warn the listener that I employed the composer's prerogative and have cut some names and a few lines from the poem to accomodate the setting. I hope you like it, it's quite unlike Ron's setting, but perhaps you'll find it enjoyable anyway.
The background sound was created with Csound, and I've completely forgotten how I processed my voice. I can't even recall what program I used for it. Man, this getting older is a bitch...
By the way, you can read some excellent commentary on this poem at On "The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter". That site also includes a page of Other Translations of "A River Merchant's Wife", very interesting to compare with EP's work.
26 November 2004
Steve D's Blues In C #2 prompted me to revive a set of pieces I wrote for an imaginary organist playing a nice organ voice on my Yamaha TX802. The prelude is a simple contrapuntal 12-bar blues, with intro and outro vamps, and with a fair amount of obvious chord extension and substitution. It's a tonal counterpoint exercise, and it's supposed to be a chirpy, bubbly, happy 12-bar blues. Go figure. The fugue was also much fun to write, I exploited a batch of common contrapuntal techniques and paid no attention to real-life playability.
Pump up the volume !
Again, a simple 2-track recording in Ardour. The tracks were identical: I had recorded these pieces to disc already, so I simply ripped them from the CD and used Snd to recreate a mono WAV from the stereo original. My use of Ardour was purposely restricted to applying Tim Goetze's Versatile Plate Reverb (that's what Tim calls it) to one track, rebalancing the tracks, and lowering the master output to avoid some clipping. I like this sound better than the original recording.
November 2004
Maria Elena was a hit record by the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra in 1941, but the version I heard in 1963 was recorded by the guitar duet Los Indios Tabajaras. The performance recorded here is just an homage to Los Indios, it was fun to learn, and it also happens to be one of Mom's favorite songs.
Simple two tracks in Ardour, with Gverb, TAP EQ, and SC4 LADSPA plugins. Rhythm guitar recorded first, with Ardour click track. Melody guitar part was saved in some bad spots by Ardour's region definition and editing tools. The intro phrase didn't sync well with the first beat of the chords, so I set a range, made a region out of it, and nudged the region to the sweet spot. Ardour enabled a second save at mid-song where something went wrong with my fingers. I defined the affected range as a region and exported it as a WAV file. I repaired it in the Snd soundfile editor, removed the bad region, and inserted the repair at exactly the deletion point. Most helpful tools: mouse-cursor position + [e/p] (moves edit or playback cursor to mouse-cursor position) and mouse-cursor position + s (defines region division at mouse-cursor position).
November 2004
I wrote an article for the Linux Journal about using Ardour to create multitrack recordings of some original pieces and other music. So here's my first song recorded with Ardour, and I hope y'all like it.
Written and performed by DLP.
Seven tracks in Ardour, four MIDI-to-WAV conversions (via TiMidity) imported for basic guitar/keyboard, bass, and drums, three live tracks for rhythm guitar, vocal, and harmonica. Btw, I'll probably add another vocal and some more harmonica, and I promise to do something about the drums... someday...
LADSPA plugins included TAP EQ on the MIDI guitar track, plate reverb and mono amplifier on the vocal, plate reverb on the harmonica, and the SC4 compressor on the master.
Technical Jive
All the OGG files here are made with q=7 and range in size from 3 to 12 MB. If your media player programmers won't support the OGG format, shame on them. All MP3s here are produced with a bitrate of 192 kbps.
I have a simple desktop audio production studio (known as Studio Dave) based around an M-Audio Delta 66 digital audio I/O card, an AudioBuddy preamp, and a Yamaha DMP11 8-channel mixer. My microphones are low-cost dynamic mics, a Shure SM58 and a Yamaha MZ106s. The guitars used on these recordings include two beat-up electro-acoustics (an Alvarez and an Ibanez), a crappy Ibanez bass, and an excellent Fender Jazz bass (courtesy my friend Terry Mercer).
The pieces from 2005 and earlier were recorded on a computer with an 800 MHz AMD Duron CPU. My current system includes two AMD64-based machines, one running the superb 64 Studio in native 64-bit mode, the other running the great JAD 32-bit system.
Software used includes Ardour, the JOST system, LinuxSampler, the ecasound hard-disk recorder, QSynth (with generic General MIDI soundfonts), and the JACK-Rack host for LADSPA plugins.
Original Songs :
Original Instrumental Music :
Some Music Made With Csound :
Cover Songs :
I received a letter early this morning
How do you reckon it read ?
It said hurry back home because the woman you love
Is shacking up with her best friend
Well I don't believe everything I read
So I called her on the telephone
I heard a voice say "Her number's no longer in service,
Leave the little girl alone !"
Now I'm one less complication
Now I'm nothing left to lose
I'll ride the downbound train to the heartbreak station
And get on board the blues
Everybody figures I got a problem
They even think that it's got a name
Well I gotta tell ya I'm glad to hear about it
Cause I don't want to take the blame
Now I'm about to sever every connection
Ain't even gonna answer the door
Hang a sign in my window saying "Call back later,
I just can't take any more !"
I need one less complication
I need nothing left to lose
I need the downbound train to the heartbreak station
To get on board the blues
I'll take the downbound train to the heartbeak station
And get on board the blues
Get on board the blues
Get on board with the blues
I'm Mister Popularity
Everybody wants to be me
In the movies, on TV
I'm your prime-time personality
I got a smile like gleaming ivory
I wear contact-colored eyes
In my physical dimensions
I'm perfect for a man my size
(Perfect for!) Mister Popularity
The sociable celebrity
Easy-going as can be
Easier than 1-2-3
I got a million friends on my facepage
I got fans all around the globe
I am thoroughly connected
To everybody between the poles
(They're connected to!) Mister Popularity
A paragon of propriety
Beloved by all on land and sea
Everywhere they all want me
I'm always in the news, man
Living large and fat
Like a drummer in a blues band
Now tell me how you gonna top that ?
(You can't top!) Mister Popularity
He's the sexy singularity
Got networked capabilities
He's the shiznitz, he's the bees knees
Then I see myself on the billboard
And I wonder who is that man
Cause with my virtual personae
I never know who I am
Hey I'm Mister Popularity !
Your hot pop personality
In the movies, on TV
Everybody wants to be me
Mister Popularity,
Everybody wants to be me
Now we are the band called Fat Daddy and we are so happy to be here
But before we get started let's get one thing perfectly clear:
This ain't no Johnny-come-lately white-boy Stevie Ray clone,
The band called Fat Daddy be blues to the bone !
So let's get this party started and lift your seats from your chairs
Fat Daddy's in the house, we are so happy to be here.
My baby calls me Fat Daddy, she says I'm too big for my britches
She calls me Fat Daddy, because I'm too big for my britches
Yes, I am her full-size lovin' man, five-feet seven inches
I'm a long time comin, I'll be a long time gone
I take a long time comin, I'm gonna be a long time gone
When I leave here in the morning, gonna be a lot of pretty girls singin Fat Daddy's song
Fat Daddy, Fat Daddy, how do you get so large
Fat Daddy, Fat Daddy, tell me how do you get so large
My mama loves her lovin super-size, she just puts Fat Daddy in charge
I got orange license plates on my car
Ran into something coming home from the bar
Orange license plates on my car
I can still drive, just not very far
The whole damn neighborhood knows what they are
Those orange license plates on my car
I wish I'd never seen a bottle of gin
Can't wait to see another bottle again
I wish I'd never seen a line of cocaine
But that's how I met my sweet Rosaline
I wish I hadn't touched that last glass of beer
Cause I'd be somewhere else now, anywhere but here
Where it's no license plates and no car
I'm spending the next ninety days behind bars
With no license plates and no car
Sweet Rosaline ain't so sweet no more
She says she's got no time to wait for a tard
Who's got orange license plates on his car
I got orange license plates on my car
Orange license plates on my car
I got orange license plates on my car
Orange license plates on my car
I got no woman, no job, I had to hock my guitar
To pay for orange license plates on my car
Okay, so much for the poor unfortunate Floyd. The next song was inspired by none other Rusty Campbell, my good friend and fellow musician, who also happens to play drums in my band. Strange to say, this song has become a crowd-pleaser and is one of our most-requested tunes. Of course it isn't really about Rusty (a.k.a. El Viejo). The poor fellow was just minding his own business, then he gets hit with this assessment. Songwriting can be so cruel.
Let me tell you 'bout a man I know
He ain't dead, baby, he's just slow
'Round midnight when the lights down low
He make the whiskey-headed women shake their jelly roll
He's the drummer in a blues band
The drummer in a blues band
He don't really work, but he gets his perks,
He gets paid for jerkin' off
Some people think they got it made
Flyin' high on rum and cocaine
Collectin' royalties and getting' laid
And all the while just dreamin that they could be
The drummer in a blues band...
He drives a V8-cylinder POS [*]
Gets a mile to the gallon and he couldn't care less
He don't worry and he ain't stressed
He says it don't get better when he's doin' his best
You might think I don't like this guy
But I consider him a friend of mine
He ain't dead, baby, he's just high
He starts to move about quittin' time
He's the drummer in my blues band...
* For those who don't know the lingo: POS == pezza di merde.
P65-060810 A meditative piece made with AVSynthesis.
P90-060710 An experimental audio/video from AVSynthesis.
Paige & Dave at Coffee Amici Paige Trafton sings KT Tunstall's Black Horse And A Cherry Tree while Dave strums along.
Starshow4 A project using AVSynthesis, PhotoFilmStrip, and Kdenlive.
Well I don't know your name but you sure look good to me
No I don't know your name but you sure look good to me
And I wonder would you show me just how good could you be
You been dancin' all night, you party and you carry on
You been dancin' all night, partyin' and carryin' on
I got my eyes on you baby, look like you like to have your fun
Rock on, pretty baby, the dance hall closes at three
Rock on, pretty baby, the hall don't close until three
And when it's time for leavin' I hope you come and go with me
I got fine wine, chronic by the tree,
I got an 80-inch screen, I got HDTV
I'm all kinds of fun, baby, hey I'm your living dream
Because on top of all that, hallelujah I'm a love machine
Now it's last call and it's time to go,
You've been driving me crazy, I can't take it any more
Let's head back to my crib, we can socialize til dawn
Let's spend the night together and carry this good time on
Let's rock, pretty baby, rock the night away
Let's roll, pretty baby, roll our blues away
Let's carry these good times on til the break of day
Last but not least, an a capella piece recorded at the gig. Not for the squeamish and/or religiously impacted.
Four in the morning, my telephone started ringin
I fell out of bed, I heard somebody sayin
Something I don't wanna hear
About my woman and my best friend
Now I'm tryin to keep my cool here
While the walls keep closin in
Rain been fallin night and day for a week now
I'm sittin here drinkin, sinking deeper and deeper
Into the pit of my despair
Drownin in the sea of my misery
Can't find consolation in the whiskey
And the blues got no mercy on me
All my thoughts and memories
Churnin in my soul
All the bullshit I believed
And I still can't let go
Now I'm starin at my image
In a picture on the wall
I recognize that face
But I don't know myself at all
I used to think about leavin, pack my bag, hit the road
But how can I be leavin when I got nowhere left to go
I'm tired and I'm lonesome
Yeh, ain't I a pitiful sight to see
Feel like I'm dyin with the blues
But the blues got no pity on me
I feel like I'm dyin with the blues
But the blues take no pity on me
What you gonna do when the money's no good
When you can't buy bread and you can't buy shoes
Tell me, what you gonna do when the money's no good
And a dollar bill ain't worth a dime
Tell me how you'll pay off the creditors you owe
When they won't take cash and you ain't got gold
Tell me how you'll pay all the creditors you owe
When a dollar bill ain't worth a dime
What you gonna do...
Where you gonna work when the jobs have all gone
And you're still in debt, you'll take what you can get
But there won't be work 'cause the jobs are all gone
And a dollar bill ain't worth a dime
What you gonna do...
I guess you'll have to live under government control
But you'll smile at me and and claim that we're still free
Well you know it ain't so under federal control
And your dollar bill still ain't worth a dime
What you gonna do...
Maybe you believe that it can't happen here
But it can, my friend, just keep borrowing and spending
Money you ain't got and it will happen here
And your dollar bill won't be worth a dime
What you gonna do when your money's no good
When you can't buy bread and you can't buy shoes
Tell me, what you gonna do when your money's no good
And a dollar bill ain't worth a dime
Ten dollars ain't worth a dime
When a hundred dollars won't be worth a dime
Next, a song inspired by The Road, a novel by Cormac McCarthy. Read it and weep.
In the Spring of 23
I turned 25
I didn't think we'd find
Enough food to survive
Another long hard winter
In this cold hard land
My brother died that summer
Sister died that Fall
Left me here with no-one
And less than nothing at all
It takes a long hard time
To make a cold hard man
They didn't see it coming
Didn't try to prepare
But you can't see what's coming
When it's something in the air
Or maybe something in the water
And then we all fall down
I'm headed for the southland, gonna try to make it to the sea
I don't know why I'm going, there's no future anywhere for me
I don't need my reason and I don't need my soul
All I need is on the road
All I need is the road
I never see the sun shine
Only clouded skies of grey
And the rain here cleanses nothing
And washes nothing away
All our sin remains visible
Until the dark falls down
In the Spring of 23
I turned 25
So few of us made it
Through that winter alive
There you go, a real spoonful of cheer to start the year off right. At least for the sake of my songwriting let's hope my outlook improves.
Two Minute Mayhem was written for an article about the Discovery softsynth. The music is fluff, I know, but I had fun making it. For best flavor, serve loud.
Tell me again how I got here
Tell me again how long do I have to stay
It seems I can't remember how to remember
And I lose a little more of me each day
I have this feeling like I ought to know you
You look familiar, say, what's your name ?
Can you stay a while ? I hope you don't have to go soon
I feel like everyone I ever knew has gone away
And sometimes in the evening when I sit outside
I hear strangers' voices whisper in the dark
I see strange constellations forming in the stars
Then I fall asleep and I dream that I'm all right,
Got everything I need and I'm feelin' fine
There's always someone who loves me by my side
Tell me I tried to be a good friend
Because I think it matters even though I can't be sure
I hope I always did the best I could then
Because there ain't no taking back what's done before
I can't say what day or month it is now
And I don't really care, it doesn't matter anymore
I can't say much anyway, I'm forgettin' how
And I don't want to be here but I really don't want to go
And sometimes in the evening ...
Tell me how long have you been here
My mind wanders some, I don't recollect so well
I'm getting' tired, turn the lights down when you go
And I'll try to fear no evil, but who can tell ?
Because sometimes in the evening...
Written and performed by DLP.
I remember the first time I saw your face
Yes I remember the first time I ever saw your face
I recall it all, temperature, time, and place
I like the way you walk, I like your figure and your style
I like the way you walk, I like your figure and I like your style
I haven't seen such a lovely sight for such a long long while
I believe I'll love you 'til the day I die
Yes, I believe I'll love you 'til the day I die
I'll never leave you, never say goodbye
Written and performed by DLP.
Once I loved a woman, thought I had it made,
Testified to the whole world, never fade away,
But it's over, past and done
Yes, it's over, she changed her mind and went movin' on
I found out the hard way that love is truly blind,
Break your heart like a plaything, lie to you all the while
Then it's over...
You can try too hard or not hard enough
But that won't matter at all when she gets you down to the harder stuff
Take my advice, think it over, every word is true,
Think twice, don't go there, it can happen to you,
And it's over...
Written and performed by DLP.
Well I've got a good woman, one who will stand right by my side
Yes, I've got a good woman, one who will stand right by my side
She knows how to keep me, how to keep me satisfied
Every time she walks, she shakes like a willow tree
Every time my baby walks, she shakes just like a willow tree
And every time she smiles, shines like the sunlight on the sea
That woman's got a mojo and an all-seeing eye
Make a little baby laugh and make a grown man cry
But I know that she loves me, I'll tell you the reason why
She knows how to keep me, how to keep me satisfied
She's got a cool disposition, she can give and she can take
She's got a cool disposition, she can give just as good as she can take
But buddy boy better watch your step, she can bend but she don't break
Now my mama's got something, she's trying to keep it hid
But papa's got something to find that something with
'Cause I know my baby loves me, deep down inside
She loves to keep me, she loves to keep me satisfied
Written and performed by DLP.
Now I got a woman 'bout five feet tall
Makes me sleep in the kitchen, make me eat in the hall
Got a bad attitude and a mean right hand
I think she's thinkin' 'bout thinkin 'bout another man
Well she makes me wanna holler and shout
But I might as well dance and sing
Cause it's like talkin' 'bout the weather
Never seems to change a thing
Well I work like a dog all the live-long day
Pump a whole lotta pain just to take a little pay
You go downtown early and you stay out late
Come home when you want, you got nothin' to say
Well you make me wanna...
Go on, big mama, bring the barrelhouse down
You a tailor-made mama, ain't no hand-me-down
Got a new way of walkin' make a blind man see
Got a new way of talkin' like you don't need me
Well it make me wanna...