4. A Sample of One   (3:54)

music © 1990 by colin nicholls

Notes

This little instrumental was hiding inside my Yamaha nylon-string guitar in 1989, and took shape in 1990 when the relatively new Korg M1 sequencer allowed us to throw some strings, drums, and acoustic bass at it.

For the longest time this piece was "Untitled" but recently one seems to have become appropriate.

When I re-recorded this track for 2013,  I was having trouble settling on which guitar to use. I couldn't record a version that had the same quality of sound that the original demo had.

I ended up using my Ovation Balladeer, recorded using a Zoom H2 portable recorder as a stereo feed into my computer.

Production Notes

Percussion

XLN Addictive Drums VSTi via the Roland SPD-20 pad controller.
Tamborine
Shaker

Bass

Wendler ElectroCoustic Fretless

Strings

eSline String Machine VSTi

Acoustic Guitar

Ovation steel string

Lead Guitar

Fender Telecaster

Early Stages

Since 1988 we've been recording our jam sessions on tape cassette. In 1999 I digitized the archives for reference. Any moments of magic relevant to this track, I've extracted and present here.

Original 1990 version (excerpt):

This little instrumental was one of the first things we recorded using the Korg M1 built-in sequencer. The drums, strings, and bass are all from M1 patches. I think Walter played the chords to accompany my nylon-string guitar playing.

I made a couple of attempts to "properly" record this composition, but I abandoned it until the Great Reset of 2010.

Lyrics

(instrumental)