Piano Music

Recording 75 continues the weekly rhythm — another full piano session captured on the Yamaha DC7XE3. Each session is a chance to refine both the playing and the production, and the small weekly improvements should be audible over time. Thanks for listening.

Recording 74 continues the weekly rhythm — another full piano session captured on the Yamaha DC7XE3. Each session is a chance to refine both the playing and the production, and the small weekly improvements should be audible over time. Thanks for listening.

Recording 73 continues the weekly rhythm — another full piano session captured on the Yamaha DC7XE3. Each session is a chance to refine both the playing and the production, and the small weekly improvements should be audible over time. Thanks for listening.

Recording 72 continues the weekly rhythm — another full piano session captured on the Yamaha DC7XE3. Each session is a chance to refine both the playing and the production, and the small weekly improvements should be audible over time. Thanks for listening.

It has been over 10 years since the last recording posted here. A lot has changed, including a brand new piano — the Yamaha DC7XE3. This is one of the first recordings captured on it, and I think you will hear the difference immediately. The depth, warmth, and dynamic range of this instrument is remarkable. I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed playing.

I believe it is the best sounding piano audio I’ve ever captured. Please forgive me for taking so long – almost 2 years to post new music.

The last podcast to be recorded on my Yamaha DC3M4. It goes away tomorrow, and though it’s only been 4 years, I feel as though I have a tremendous amount of history with that wonderful piano. I actually had to pick and choose from about 2 hours worth of recordings since I’m not sure if the old format will be supported on the new piano. I’m truly excited about the capabilities and the sound of the new Yamaha DC7XE3Pro, but it’s also sad to see my old piano leave the studio. I’m sure it will end up in good hands!

Yet another all-original podcast. I did use some pretty familiar chord progressions, but I also tried out some new styles.

You may not hear any familiar melodies as this podcast is mostly original. I’ve adopted a fairly new process to recording the podcast. It has been working out okay so far. It also gives me an opportunity to select the best recordings out of many, and there was a really bad 15 minutes of recording I was happy not to have included in this podcast. You may notice that it may have a slightly different sound than previous podcasts. I’m still perfecting the audio recording and mixing aspect of the podcast even after almost 5 years.

I think this might end up being my favorite podcast to date.

I think this is probably the first podcast ever to be original-free, although, it does contain some originality. Those who like consistently quite and peaceful podcasts may not enjoy this one as much since I get a bit loud in some parts. It may be a few months before the next podcast is posted, but I’ll try to make it softer. I’m blown away at the number of downloads that happen on a daily basis.

What a crazy couple of weeks it has been! I won’t bore you with all the details, but the end result is I finally have a new podcast. You’d think after 3 years of doing this I’d have it down but I don’t. This podcast required a massive amount of editing, but I think it turned out okay. I did find some ways to improve the audio over the previous podcasts. The only issue is there’s too big of a dynamic range so had to go a little overboard on the compression and limiting.

I finished mixing the Soundwave album last week so I’m back at it – thanks for your patience. This podcast, I only used “Hosannah” for a brief period. The rest is original – some from previous podcasts and some that’s fresh and new. An interesting stat about this podcast is it’s the first to be exactly 30 minutes long! I admit, I stretched the end out a little, but it was already pretty close. I added a bit more gain both at the pre amp and in software using a little more compression and gain on the limiter to try to even out the level a bit. There is quite a bit more dynamics in this podcast compared to the previous two or three. This time, I wanted to keep the dynamics as original as possible, especially during the soft parts, and I didn’t change the level on some of the louder midi notes like I have in the past. I think it turned out better this way.

In a way, a lot of this podcast sounds repetitive to me compared to previous podcasts. It’s becoming a little challenging to keep things unique considering there is already over 30 hours of podcasts.

Still searching for the best mic placement and mix, but I think its getting there. Most all the tunes are repeat or new originals. You may recognize one or two of them. Peace.

This podcast does have familiar melodies from others, but I believe it has some uniqueness. One melody from the chorus of “Pour My Love on You” was used at the end. An estimate of 129 billion people have lived throughout the history of the world. Only 5 billion have experienced the freedom we enjoy, and 3 billion are alive today. How rare freedom is.

This podcast, I used the songs, “Came to My Rescue” and “I Will Exalt”. Since I actually recorded this podcast over a month ago, I had to refer to planning center for the song names.

It’s finally finished! The songs used are mostly original. I did play a familiar melody at the tail end. Most of it is a little more fast-paced than the norm.

Be sure to check it out if you haven’t heard it yet. A couple originals are included as well. One was from a previous podcast. I’m still on a quest for the perfect piano mix. Mic placement and EQ has been changing every podcast. I really need to swap out my NT1000 with something else. It isn’t very balanced across the frequency spectrum. Maybe I’ll be able to afford the mic I’d like to replace it with in a couple months.

I used only one song this podcast. It’s by Robbie Seay, and it’s called “Crazy Love”. The rest is original. This podcast is actually a second take since the first didn’t record properly. I always thought recording to MIDI would eliminate having to re-record podcasts, but not true. I did learn that the Disklavier does not like any kind of MIDI signal coming into it when recording so hopefully this will be the last time this happens. Draw near to Him and He WILL draw near to you.

The rest is original. I used a different acoustic piano sample for editing the MIDI this week, and it actually disguised a lot of the small timing issues which is good and bad. The good is it took me half the time to edit (~4 hours instead of ~8). The bad is I notice them when playing back on the DC3, but I’m pretty sure most people won’t notice. For those who do, you’ll have the CD to look forward to. My plan is to make it as perfect as possible. Stay tuned!

The rest is somewhat original. A familiar melody came to mind towards the end, but I couldn’t pinpoint where it came from. Feel free to leave a comment if you recognize it.

I also played “Amazing Love” and “You are My King”. The rest is original. Even though I didn’t spend as much time fixing timing issues as the last podcast, I did spend most of the weekend editing.

I used new mics and new mic placements for this podcast, and have to say, this may be the best podcast yet in my opinion. Everything but the beginning of the last song is original.

It seems like ages ago that the last podcast was posted even though it’s only been 4 weeks. The piano was recently tuned and is sounding wonderful. I’ve had this podcast ready for a while now. There were some issues with the sustain pedal after we got the technical problems resolved so I had to fine-tune the sustain MIDI data in a number of locations, which may be noticeable in some places.

Merry Christmas! Well, this is the place to come when you’re burnt out on all the Christmas music being played everywhere. I had planned on adding a Christmas song or two, but that didn’t work out. Everything this week is original. I may have hit a few familiar melodies once or twice throughout. Monthly download counts continue to grow with over 16,000 this past November.

There were a couple that weren’t Christmas songs, but they weren’t really appropriate. Well, maybe one was. Anyway, I have a big surprise for those who listen so stay tuned. I’ll be blogging about it next week sometime. Hopefully there will be some noticeable improvements in the podcasts from here out.

A podcast subscriber suggested recording without the usual increase in dynamics so I gave it a shot. My wife has actually suggested this as well a while back. I hope you enjoy it. It wasn’t really planned. I hope you have a wonderful Thanks Giving!

I apologize for being a little late for this podcast, but had the mic / audio interface problem again, and I didn’t discover it till it was too late so no second-take this time. I tried to compensate by automating the pan, but it’s still not like I’d like it. Because of this, it took quite a bit more time editing. This issue also caused me to use a bit more compression than I’d normally use. Hope it’s not too much of a distraction. I’m may just use my keyboard next podcast if I can’t figure out why this is happening. I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

Once again, there ended up being a lot of timing issues in this podcast. Can’t wait to get the Disklavier. That will make timing much less of an issue. This podcast is actually a second take. My first take got botched for some strange reason. The left channel kept fading in and out. I tried to use automation to correct it, but it was so random it was easier to just record again. It could be the pre-amps in the audio interface, or an issue with phantom power. Hopefully it’s isolated to inputs 7 and 8. I moved the mics to 3 and 4, played a sine wave for about 10 minutes, and there was no variation in amplitude. The Motu 896HD is almost 7 years old so I guess it may be time to look into upgrading.

Happy 10-10-10! Did you know that in some areas, the number of people getting married today is 10 times the norm! I happen to be at one of those weddings today. My best bud since the 7th grade is getting married! It was really hard to leave my wonderful wife with our 4-day-old son, Jacob, and our 2-year-old Sanban, but thankfully my mom is there to help out while I’m gone. At any rate, this podcast, I used the following songs: “Revelation Song”, “The Motions”, and “All I Need Is You”. Since my time was limited with the new baby and all, I wasn’t able to do any flex-time editing, but hopefully my lack of timing won’t be too distracting.

There are quite a few familiar melodies from previous podcasts in this one. The only song I sort of used was “Your Love is Amazing”. I didn’t spend as much time editing this week since I kind of ran out of time. Yoko and I just hit our eleventh anniversary, which is really exciting. We went out to eat at our favorite restaurant and sort of took it easy this weekend.

I didn’t get to spend as much time as I would have liked editing this podcast, but I think it still turned out okay. I’ll be out all day on Sunday for a Soundwave gig in Waco so I had to get everything done on Saturday. The rest is original – some melodies may even sound a little familiar from previous podcasts.

This podcast, I used “Beautiful The Blood” and “You’ll Come”. The rest of it is original. I tried some different editing and mixing tools so it may sound a little different than previous podcasts. I hope this isn’t distracting.

The following songs were used in this podcast – “Tear Down The Walls”, “Your Name High”, and the Soundwave original that we just recorded in the studio, “Confidence”. There are some original melodies as well. I feel like this podcast turned out really well. I hope you enjoy it. The new template helped this time – no issues with the balance thankfully.

There may be a few melodies in this podcast that you might recognize. I started with a fresh Logic Pro template this week since there seemed to be some automation or something in the last podcast that was affecting the balance between left and right. Thankfully, the new template fixed this.

There are some pieces of some new Soundwave songs that’ll be on the next album we’re working on currently. The rest is original – there might be a familiar melody or two.

The following songs were used in this podcast: “Your Grace Is Enough”, “Marvelous Light”, “Sing, Sing, Sing”, and “This is the Air I Breathe”. Throughout recording, the mic placement changed slightly so there are some noticeable variances in the tone. The next podcast will have a more consistent tone throughout since I believe I’ve found the “sweet spot”.

Felt a little rusty recording this one after 6 months off. It’s great to be back at it.

I Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. We certainly did hanging out with the family. I just realized that we didn’t take any pictures. We really need to designate someone to do that next time we get together because there are so many memories to be captured. This is the last podcast of 2009, and it is all original. I hope you enjoy it.

This podcast, I used a completely different setup to record. I’ll blog more about it later. I used a number of familiar tunes. There are some sounds in the background that got picked up by my new setup in the beginning, but they shouldn’t be too distracting.

I decided to change the naming from “week” to “podcast” since these will no longer be weekly. However, I will attempt to record one every other week. This podcast was actually recorded last Monday, but I wasn’t able to finish editing and mastering till this evening. The only recognizable song used is “Revelation Song” which I think I’ve done a few times. I also had issues with the R-09HR so I’m about to move to a traditional recording platform, which I will blog about sometime this week. This podcast is probably not as inspiring as previous podcasts partly due to the sound issues. Just know that the best is yet to come.

This was supposed to be posted yesterday, but it has been a very busy weekend. I thought that after the exam, I’d have a lot more time to do stuff, but that certainly is not the case. I played a number of familiar melodies, but they’re all kind of mixed together so I won’t try to mention them all. It sure is great to be back to living life! Have a great week!

This week was kind of a half-way point between when I started really studying for the CCIE and the dredded date of October 2nd so I took a break. Since mid-May, I’ve put in right at 300 hours of study, and I’ve made a great deal of progress. It may not be the 40 hours a week I was shooting for, but it’s the quality of study that has helped. It’s been so long, I’m starting to feel a little rusty. Gloves will be off after the exam. Jeremy has already booked some Soundwave gigs right after so I’m looking forward to getting back to my normal life. 2 more months to go!

During this podcast, I used the songs: “Hosanna”, “Mighty to Save”, and a new song called “Forever”. It’s a great song and it’s not the one yall might be familiar with – it just happens to have the same title.

This one is a little longer than usual. I just didn’t feel like stopping. I used a number of familiar melodys and chord progressions in this week’s podcast. I hope you enjoy it.

The bi-weekly podcast is here. I missed the “record” button again. I ended up playing for over an hour today so that I’d have something to post. The first 30 minutes may have been a little better than the later 30 due to a little bit of frustration after realizing the first 30 minutes didn’t get recorded, but hopefully it doesn’t show in the podcast. I used “Mighty to Save” and “Lead me to the Cross”, with some original stuff. I’ve been meaning to blog about all the home improvement that’s been happening here at the Johns residence, but haven’t had the chance. I should get to it either tomorrow or Monday.

I’ve gotta make this quick – Don is out there working hard without me and has been for the past couple of hours while I finish up this week’s podcast. I used a few songs from Sunday morning service – “You Said”, and “There will be a day”. I also used a Soundwave song since we had practice on Friday. Live free!

We had a new guitar player who rocked the house! Good times.. Hope you enjoy the podcast!

Original piano recording session featuring live improvisation.