Here's a link to a Youtube Video featuring our original Christmas Song "The Candle"

The Candle - Marg and Andrew Lloyd

Most of the arrangement was created using Biab Tracks, which I feature on all 3 of our CD's. Couldn't do it without them.

Merry Christmas to all. Marg and Andrew Lloyd

Marg and Andrew Lloyd - A Homestead Wintery Night

Marg and Andrew...

A very nice Christmas song!

Beautiful vocal!

floyd

Beautiful Song. Lyrics and Vocal were excellent.

Beautiful song Marg and Andrew.
And Merry Christmas to you.

Rob and Anne-Marie

Very nicely done!! I never get tired of Xmas songs. Beautifully sung and I like the sparse arrangement. I would bring the strings up a touch. Great job!! Take care. Greg

Pretty vocal and arrangement.

J&B

Beautiful song and arrangement. Very nice vocals.

Charlie

Hi Marg and Andrew,

very beautiful Christmas song and great vocals.
Merry Christmas.

Guenter

Marg and Andrew this is a very beautiful Christmas song. Everything about this one is perfect!

Have a Merry Christmas.

Thanks everyone.

All our best wishes to you all.

Marg and Andrew

Wow! That is absolutely gorgeous!

First of all, as an original composition, it sparkles like a diamond on black velour... VERY nice melody and lyrics, with equally nice instrumentation. You say that most of it was BIAB? To my ears it sounded like acoustic instruments being played in real time to a lovely chord progression... GREAT job arranging the band.. it was a good match for the mood of the song. The accompaniment is very tasteful and minimal.

And what silky vocals! They float like clouds across a December sky! ... One question that often comes up here is "how much reverb is enough? or too much?" I thought the reverb was perfect for the song and for your wife's beautiful voice

I loved everything about this song! Great job!

Thanks for posting! (I hope you have a merry Christmas)

hi marg and Andrew plus +10 thanks for sharing merry Christmas eric

Hi everyone,

I just want to say thanks everyone for the wondeful comments, I am indeed very fortunate to have a wife with a beautiful voice.

I wrote the song one night on piano and guitar, while Marg was out rehearsing with a Christmas choir.

The chords have that wonderful descending bassline similar to Pachelbel's Canon, or A Whiter Shade of Pale. I love those kind of chord progressions.

I used a simple midi waltz style in Biab, SLOW34EV.STY.

Which suited the song very well.

I transferred the tracks to Reaper next. Added some more tracks from Biab.

Recorded Marg's Vocal, and a lead part on my Octave Mandolin.

I had it close to being finished, but there was very little of me in the mix, so I recorded myself playing Fingerpicked guitar.

At that time I had 17 tracks altogether to work with.

Most of them I eliminated as being unneeded, if they didn't add anything useful to the texture or rhythm I removed them.

I kept, Vocal, Guitar, Bass, and Octave Mandolin, and 2 tracks of strings.

Everything but the bass went through a reverb buss using Epicverb, a nice preset - L Warm Scoring Stage

Guitar, Mandolin and Vocals were lightly compressed, de-essed vocals, and a bit of EQ to brighten a few things up.

I think I used Coyote Forte for the string patches.

I wish I could write more songs like this.

Pat you are right in that the final mix uses very little Biab, but it was there all along, and sometimes I use it for all the tracks in our songs.

I'll post another one of our Christmas songs for a comparison.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Marg and Andrew Lloyd - itunes link