Music from a guitar junkie.
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Length: 03:34, Size: 8.14 MB
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This year’s Christmas Medley came together relatively quickly. It’s a mix of “I Saw Three Ships” and “Frosty The Snowman” in a somewhat punk-inspired rendition. Hope you enjoy! Happy Holidays!
My kids helped me put together the video by selecting the royalty-free clips and camera transitions.
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Length: 05:47, Size: 13.2 MB
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It’s a few weeks late due to work and family travel, but I’m proud to finally release my 2022 xmas medley. This year it’s a medley of Band-Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” and “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”. I had a great time recording it this year and there were quite a few tricky bits to nail when tracking.
Since I knew the medley would be late this year I also released a little preview on Facebook before xmas that you can listen to or download below. It features my 4-year-old Kieran on vocals and myself on acoustic guitar. If you listen until the very end of the full medley there’s another version of this where I and my 8-year-old Kai join Kieran and we all do a reprise of this as the outro. Enjoy!
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Length: 00:27, Size: 1.04 MB
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Length: 04:18, Size: 9.85 MB
2021 is almost behind us and it was yet another crazy year. We’re still in a worldwide pandemic, but at least now we have vaccines. Nevertheless I recorded my yearly xmas medley again this year. It’s a medley of “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” and “Angels We Have Heard on High”.
Both my boys, Kai (7) and Kieran (3), are featured prominently in the intro to this year’s medley.
My setup hasn’t really changed much from 2020 other than making some tweaks to my e-drum kit, in particular the eDRUMin modules I use to translate trigger signals to MIDI notes. All guitar tracks were recorded on my Musicman Majesty 7-string this year.
Hope you enjoy and happy holidays!
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Length: 05:53, Size: 13.4 MB
It’s 2020 and this is the 20th xmas medley I recorded. What a crazy year 2020 has been. Hope this little medley provides a tiny bit of joy in trying times. Clocking in at just under 6 minutes this is also the longest medley I’ve ever recorded. My two boys, Kai (6 years old) and Kieran (2 years old), also have a little chat with their comments about their papa’s medley at the end if you stick around long enough 😛
This year’s medley features “O Little Town of Bethlehem” followed by “We Three Kings”. In honor of tapping master Eddie Van Halen’s passing just a few weeks ago, the ‘widdly widdly’ guitar solo in “We Three Kings” has 8 bars of tapping-only frenzy at around the 4:51 mark in the song. I only occasionally use tapping, and rarely ever for a longer section of a solo like this. So this is dedicated to Eddie’s impact on electric rock guitar, both on the gear and the way we play today.
Also new this year is my extended e-drum kit. I added two toms, upgraded the snare from 10″ to 12″, upgraded the base drum to a proper mesh-head pad, got a nice Roland VH-10 hi-hat, and added several cymbals. I also swapped out the brains of the operation, the drum trigger module, for the Audiofront eDRUMin10 (see https://www.audiofront.net/eDRUMin.php), which is quite excellent and has an easy-to-use but very powerful control software that allows for configuring the trigger response extremely well.
It was a lot of fun coming up with and recording the drum parts this year. Here’s a picture of the new setup:
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Length: 04:19, Size: 9.87 MB
Because we’re on our way to visit family in Austria for several weeks tomorrow this year’s xmas medley is out a bit early. It starts out with a somewhat jazzy version of “The Christmas Song” (aka “Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire”) and ends with my hefty version of “Rocking Around The Christmas Tree”.
This year all guitars were recorded with my recently purchased headless 7-string Kiesel LM7X (see pic below) that I got from a San Diego county-local custom guitar shop. It’s equipped with a really great Hipshot trem that stays in tune even when you really abuse it.
I recorded all tracks (drums, bass, guitars, and some piano and synths) in about seven evenings after my kids went to bed. Such is the life of a parent 😛
Also of note is that I started making these xmas medleys 20 years ago (in 1999). I skipped a couple of years in the beginning so there’s only a total of 19 medleys available. Still a nice milestone. Looking forward to medley number 20 next year 🙂
Enjoy and happy holidays!
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Length: 03:49, Size: 8.75 MB
The newest addition to our family, 5-month old Kieran, starts out this year’s xmas medley before it kicks into “The Holly and The Ivy”. After a good minute and a half the pace picks up and the medley ends with my rendition of Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmas Time”.
As always I recorded everything in this medley myself at home, starting with the drums to lay down a foundation, which took about a day. Then I recorded all the rhythm guitar tracks one evening, the bass tracks the next evening, and finally the solo guitars in two evenings maybe a week later. I spent about two evenings mixing and mastering and it was done! Pretty quick this year.
Happy holidays!
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Length: 04:06, Size: 9.39 MB
This year’s Christmas medley arrives right on time a day before Christmas Eve. It’s a medley of “Do You Want to Build a Snowman” and “O Holy Night” with a little bit of “Carol of the Bells” thrown in a couple times. My 3-year-old son is also prominently featured on vocals this year 🙂
Unlike other years, where it takes me several weeks to complete, the medley this year came together very quickly. I had the arrangement in the head before I even fired up a sequencer or laid down the first guitar or drum tracks. I didn’t start arranging and recording the first few tracks until December 10, but it all came together really nicely.
Please enjoy! Happy holidays!
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Length: 04:08, Size: 9.46 MB
Only a day late I’ve completed this year’s Christmas medley. It’s hard to find enough time to record when there’s a toddler in the house always wanting “to play choo choos” 🙂
This year the medley starts out with the Charlie Brown classic “Christmas Time Is Here” and then takes off with a rock version of Wham’s “Last Christmas”. I recorded the “Last Christmas” solo guitars on Christmas day itself, which coincidentally was the day George Michael died. So this kind of turned into a tribute to him.
Hope you enjoy!
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Length: 03:18, Size: 7.56 MB
A bit delayed this year (it’s hard to find enough time to record with a toddler running around the house :P), but it’s finally here. Please enjoy my yearly Christmas medley!
This time around I’ve mashed up “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” and “Let It Snow” in a progressive metal extravaganza. Somewhat deviating from my usual medley style, this year already starts out pretty heavy and somber instead of the much quieter and softer beginnings of previous years.
Anyway, download it and listen to it. I hope you like it!
For the nerds, this year’s medley was recorded exclusively with my brand new Strandberg Boden OS 8, an 8-string guitar, my old Ibanez ATK-305 bass, and using my Roland TD-9 electronic drum kit. Software-wise, the DAW used was Cubase 8.5 Pro with a good sprinkle of various plugins. The guitars all either go through Peavey Revalver or Overloud TH-2 as amp plugin. The drum sounds are from Toontrack’s excellent Superior Drummer plugin.
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Length: 04:37, Size: 10.5 MB
Another year, another Christmas Medley 🙂 This year it’s a medley of “Away in a Manger” and “Deck The Halls” (mostly influenced by Debby Ryan’s excellent version).
The newest addition to our family, Kai Sebastian Ecker, also had a role in this medley. He’s the one doing the intro announcement 😛
Hope you enjoy it!
