OK, since you apparently liked Guantanamera and since nobody payed me (yet) to stop, I have recorded another song: California dreamin'. Actually I was thinking to record this one since I came back from -you guess it- California, but the tropical temperature I found here in Rome made me fall into a kind of creative letargy.
To record this song I took inspiration from the rendition of Wes Montgomery. If you want to know more, you have to listen...
I would like to dedicate this song to another friend I left in California: Tom Griglock (TomTomSF).
By the way, Tom, I hope you are enjoying your new VA7; the style is a country style from my SD1, but the solo sounds are 100% Roland.

http://andrearotolo.tripod.com/dreamer/id1.html

I hope you don't mind some constructive criticism on your music. I listened to "And I Love Her", "Just The Way You Are" and "Girl From Impanema" from your site. I was highly impressed with your use of the sax sound in "Just". However, overall your songs are literally buried in reverb. It's so thick that you are creating sibilance with the reverbed percussion sounds. I would come out of the cave metaphorically and see if you don't get a better sound. Just a thought...

Dreamer,
Well ok, since someone else mentioned it....I had a listen to California Dreamin and Samba Pa Ti.

While I think very well done, I too noticed that you tend to (for my ears)way over do the reverb, which is very easy to do. A little reverb goes a long way.

Another suggestion if I may, if you're going to use the guitar leads, especially on something like Santanas guitar sound....add a bit of modulation and pitch bend here and there for realism and not quite so sterile of a sound. Have a listen to some of the guitars you're trying to emulate and see how they put it slight pauses and off tempos with the licks.

Being a guitar player primarily, I have a hard time with the keyboard guitar sounds anyway and their beleiveability.

I did hear Tom Norton from Korg once though in a demo at a local music store for the Karma and he had the guitar sound down, when he was jammin' with the classical guitar patch. If I closed my eyes, even as a guitar player, I could have been fooled, because I think he had the concept of how a guitar player plays and applied it to the keyboard to get as close as possible.

This is probably true of any instrument that is not native to the keyboard, we have to think and listen to how that instrument is really played.
jam on,
Terry


[This message has been edited by trtjazz (edited 08-12-2002).]

Hi The Pro and Terry,
I never mind constructive criticism and yes, I too have come to the conclusion that I use too much reverb. The first one to point out that was Dirk Baert, who listened to my rendition of "A hard days' night". Girl from Ipanema is a very good example of that mistake I sometimes make and I think that I am going to remove it from my site, together with other "offending" songs.
Thinking of it, I realize that every time I use too much reverb it's with the VA7, while with the SD1 I don't tend to make that mistake (at least I hope).
Frankly, I don't think that California dreamin is affected by too much reverb.
Other times I have used on purpose a special reverb to emulate the feeling of a live recording (like I did in "Europa"). I guess that I heard too many concerts in places originally intendend for sports and not for music.
Terry, I think that I gave the best of myself as a "guitar player" in songs like Toussaint l'Overture, Guajira and maybe even Desafinado (if you like acoustic atmospheres). Anyway, thank you again for your advice; by the way, a trimming to my website was long overdue, since I have used almost all the 100 Mb allotted.
Andrea

Andrea,
I think you're right about California Dreamin' the reverb isn't near as heavy. I've listened to Desifinado but not the other 2, I'll have a listen to the guitars in those too.

As I mentioned earlier, I think it is difficult at best to emulate a guitar on keys. Of course you have to temper my comments with the critical ear of being a guitar player as well. I'm sure a sax or a whatever player would say the same too, about any of us trying to emulate their instrument on keys.

You being a keyboard player would listen to my playing on the keys and say....what's up with that, because you can hear things being a keyboardist that I don't.
jam on,
Terry


[This message has been edited by trtjazz (edited 08-12-2002).]

[This message has been edited by trtjazz (edited 08-12-2002).]