Pipe Dream

Meaning:

An unrealistic hope or fantasy

The following album has been a labour of love and at times felt like a “Pipe Dream”, I started writing the tracks back in 2009, and the songs are mainly inspired by my honeymoon to Thailand 12 years ago. Originally these songs were written for the sax (as a sax player) but I never really recorded the tracks and the ones I did never had a sound that suited the songs. Then in June 2013 I felt that these tracks had laid doormat long enough and should see the light of day. I set about re-recording the ones I had already done, re-writing and re-laying out the songs I hadn’t, recording them with a sound that suited the tracks, for this I chose an instrument I had always liked the sound of and one which gave the right feel to the tracks (the flute).

The album doesn’t feature a single saxophone as a lead instrument which may seem odd (as a sax player) but instead I recorded the album using an electronic wind instrument which is played in the same manner as a sax so I guess loosely this is still a sax album.

All lead instruments were played on a Casio DH-800 digital horn playing an Apple Logic EXS Bansuri Flute patch, the wonderfully expressive Orangetree Samples Passion Flute patch, the Garratian Solo Violin Patch, AMG “Kick [*****] Brass” trumpet patch and other Orangetree Samples virtual instruments (steel string guitar and the rosewood grand piano) and AAS Strum Electric. The album was composed using PG music Band in a Box, recorded and mixed in Apple’s Logic Studio Pro 9 digital audio workstation software, mastered in Apple’s Logic Pro9 and Waveburner mastering software and features PG music realtracks, realdrums and various other software instruments from various vendors.

This is an album about love, hope, peace and tranquillity it borders on many styles, Smooth jazz, soul, rock, pop, ethnic and new age and mixes a lot of ethnic instruments, Sitar, Bansuri, Steel Drums, Bongos and the kalimba. Songs have simple pretty melodies and there is a mixture of up tempo uplifting songs and slow brooding tracks. All songs whilst having a similar theme running through them are individual but work well in harmony with each other. The fusion of styles helps to give that separation between songs but the common instrument set helps to marry them up. It has been a lot of fun to write, record, produce and mix and master this project; I hope it shows what can be achieved with a lot of hard work, some great utilities, technology and a little talent.

Pipe Dreams

From Band in a Box point of view various styles were used, some tracks are melodist for some parts some chord progressions and solos added by Band in a Box. Some songs started as melodist tracks then underwent major changes, all tracks with exception of Dragon Boat Ride have the lead and some solos played in by wind controller, Dragon Boat is completely sequenced.

If anybody wants to know more about how each track was created/styles used etc. please let me know.

I hope you like this album I’m very proud of it and it’s nice to finally turn this “Pipe Dream” in to reality.

Cheers
Adrian