I came across an old recording of me on keyboards with a friend playing guitar back in 1991. It was written and recorded by us in his bedroom apartment on a cassette multitrack and the keyboard/bass/drum sounds are all a Roland MT32 ( talk about lo tech ). Chris Wood ( a close friend from Connecticut ) was a great guitar player and was only 21 at the time. Unfortunately he passed away before he was ever able to fulfil his musical career. This track is a little off the wall but does have a great atmosphere and remarkable guitar playing.
http://www.synthzone.com/songs/Cantus%20Firmus.mp3
It has been converted to the highest quality MP3 so it is a long download.


[This message has been edited by Nigel (edited 09-22-2005).]

It's a really beautiful work! What an absolute amazing guitarist Chris was! Sorry to hear about his passing away. Surely a great lost for our world...

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Greetings from Frankfurt (Germany),
Sheriff ;-)

My goodness- I remember when I heard MT32 the first time. I barely just entered highschool I think. It was a MIDI version of Chick Corea's "Central Park" if I'm not mistaken. I thought that was the most awesome sound module ever!

Greetings Nigel,
INdeed. That is a beautiful track. Saying this both as a composer and a guitarist. Sorry to hear about Chris passing away.

-ED-

I'm so glad you all enjoyed it. Very few people ever got to hear Chris play so it means a lot to me that you recognized his incredible talent and enjoyed his playing. He really put all his heart and soul into his playing and you can feel that when you listen to him. He loved his music and I feel very honored to have had the chance to play and write music with him.

He listened to all music and loved classical, rock and jazz and you can hear the influence of all these styles in this performance.


[This message has been edited by Nigel (edited 09-14-2005).]

Nigel...I too really enjoyed hearing the music of you and Chris...what a remarkable player he was...I bet he would've been a great Flaminco guitarist, I could hear it in his playing style...I don't know to much about keyboards other then Yamaha but I gotta tell you that the song I just heard was great and yes, it is our loss that Chris is no longer with usThanks for sharing
Tony Rome

The MT32 was Roland's first multitimbral module that they brought out in the late 80s. Soundwise it really doesn't compare at all well with modern tone modules. But apart from the memories that this track holds for me it really reminded me that you don't have to have start of the art gear to make good music. That comes from the heart. Sometimes it is easy to forget that and think that you always need the latest and greatest gear to touch people.

Because the MT32 was weak in many areas I just tended to use the patches that it was strong at. The main musical figure throughout the track was played using the MT32's Fantasia patch.

WOW!!!!
Thanx Nigel for sharing that with us. The guitar playing by Chris was beautiful, and that MT32 has got a really deep dark bottom end, very haunting.
Any info on what guitar(s) he was playing?
Thanx again....that's really an amazing piece.

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...shboom

Chris used a classical nylon string acoustic but I don't know anything more about that guitar. The electric sound is a gold top Gibson Les Paul played through a small Marshall practice amp.

The MT32 was a strange hybrid analog/digital synth similar to the Roland D50. That Fantasia patch used both the analog and digital sound sources which may well explain the haunting bottom end. And because it was recorded on tape it would have only warmed up the bottom end even more.

I just realized I read too quickly and only saw the portion about the MT32 I didn't read about your friend's passing.

My apologies.