Gerry Ellenson

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soundclick.com/gerryellenson

gerryellenson.wordpress.com

Hemet, CA USA

Rock • Rock General

December 08, 2003

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I lied.  My "band" started out as a Yamaha SW1000XG sound card, now Cubase4, and I "play" all of the instruments.  The music is all original, sequenced by step entry in Cubase4, and gets its final mix and encoding in Audacity.

Band/artist history

The history of my band would be my own history, I guess. A thousand years or so ago I took piano lessons, voice lessons, drum lessons, guitar lessons, training on the baritone (horn), and various other trainings (even tap dancing). I've had a couple of actual "bands" - "The Shire Folk", which did folk music back in the late 60's and early 70's; and Swine Blu, a blues band which grew out of a computer bulletin board (any former Pig Sty Swine out there?) which existed long before the internet.

Have you performed in front of an audience?

No live play - only MP3s and CDs.

Your musical influences

I've been influenced by just about everything I've ever heard.  Though I've listed AbSynth Productitons as a "rock" band, you'll hear everything from rock to classical and marching band music.

What equipment do you use?

Cubase4 with Halion samples; Cubase4 and Audacity for mixing and the final encoding. The sound is "proofed" using headphones and again with a surround sound amplifier using 6 speakers. When in doubt, I cut a CD demo and see how it sounds on my stereo and in my car.

Anything else?

Though I've owned guitars since I was 16, played baritone (brass) in a band for 5 years (THAT I could play) and took piano and drum lessons, my brain simply never really connected with my fingers. The music, however, is in my head and it has been fantastic having a computer and software to make music the way I'd like to if I had any actual facility with instruments. That might turn off actual performing muscians but I ask that you consider the end product. Using computer sequencing is the ultimate challenge. There is no excuse for anything less than ABSOLUTELY PERFECT in execution. That burden is heavy, and has kept me up late at night. There are so very many elements to achieve versimilitude.