Thanks, many thanks everybody, you all are very kind!

Trying to answer to all of you:

- to Pat Marr:

here are the details of BIAB settings for this song: it's quite difficult that I use a style "as it is", since i prefer to try mixing different instruments styles until I'm satisfied with the whole thing. So, in this song (apart from the guitar, that I play) the bass is 1386 Bass Jazz Acoustic ballad SW085; the piano is a SuperMidi Track for 2056 Piano RhythmCeltic Air ev085; and for the Cello I've used 1856 Cello Background PopCountry Ev 85; PlugIns: Izotope Alloy patches for Bass and Cello; EzMix for Piano. I use to mix everything with Adobe Audition, and for "spicing up" the final mix I use Izotope Ozone 5.

Credits for the melody line, lyrics and vocals go to James Higgins, I've just composed the backing track, then, as usual, he adds the voice. Since I'm Italian, there's of course no possibility at all for me to compose such beautiful lyrics in a different language. James lives in Scotland, and we met on the internet some years ago on the great music web site SongCrafters: James and me have never met, but we enjoy playing "together" this strange way.

- to all of you who appreciated the lyrics, the voice and particularly the final verse:

please clap your hands to James. He deserves it!

- to Noel96:

thanks for you kind words about "Hard Times"! On my Soundcloud for several of the songs I've used BIAB, but I've never posted anything here, since I understand that posting covers here is not allowed. On Hard Times, for the solo instruments I've used a Godin Freeway SA Midi guitar to obtain the sounds of uillean pipes and whistles (VST instruments)

- to DannyC and ROG:

thanks, but both me and James are absolutely not professional musicians. I'm an 58 yo family doctor, he works in the Health Service in Scotland.

Again, thanks everybody, and please excuse my English...

Alfredo

http://soundcloud.com/alfredo-de-pietra