Author: wjl

After compiling and publishing my first “cool cats” album on Wikiloops this morning, people liked it but said I should as well make something which includes myself. Ok, here you go – this contains my collaborations since joining the loops in February, short before my birthday:

And just like with the previous one, clicking on the image will lead you to the album’s page on Wikiloops, where you can listen to it or even download it.

Edit: here’s the CD cover and inlet:

Thanks to all the other musicians involved here.

Enjoy…

Tried to achieve a bit of a medieval touch here. I come in very late, at around the 2:58 minute mark – the rest was more or less mixing and matching other tracks (of parallel branches further down below mine):

So the image of musicians would be incomplete here – it would be missing Jypeka on his violin, and Caroljoice on her celtic harp. I have a screenshot from Ardour in Flickr, showing all the tracks I used:

Enjoy…

Yesterday evening when I returned home, had eaten and played with my family a bit, I sat down with Wikiloops again, and I discovered a really nice new upload from davidaustin, a guitar player from England. So I took my bass and played along, then hit the record button and took this in one take:

Musicians:

Just David and me, so far. But overnight while I was sleeping, Jim (GemmyF), a singer and also a guitar player from the USA with whom I had chatted the evening before added some tracks and remixed the whole thing. To this:

Musicians:

So now it’s us three, with 4 uploads so far. I’m curious how this will develop, and which other branches might be split off at certain points – see my previous post about this. This is the nice thing about Wikiloops – take whatever suits you, and add something new. It’s a game of give & take, as someone sung long ago… 😉

Thanks for reading, and/or for listening.

Over at Wikiloops, some guy named Jim took my bass from the ‘Ask Stephanie’ song, and merged it into a new and different branch of the same song – which is totally cool. Now that new one is at https://www.wikiloops.com/backingtrack-jam-134557.php – and it has some 60s vibe to it. Nice. I chatted with Jim for almost the rest of yesterday evening – he’s a half year my senior, has lots of the same interests in music, and I showed him some Youn Sun Nah and Tom Waits / Jim Jarmusch videos and stuff.

Meanwhile, on my own version of that song at https://www.wikiloops.com/backingtrack-jam-133628.php someone had commented about my ‘bouncy bass line’ – which in turn reminded me of the Muppets’ ‘Swedish Chef’ making meatballs (‘Beansy bouncy burgers’ as he called them). Have a look:

Zuleikha loves this Swedish Chef, and indeed he’s almost as good as their ‘Animal’ on drums. Nothing beats a good Muppets show. 😉

Back to that ‘Stephanie’ song. Someone else also played drums over “my” version already, and it has kind of a half time feeling, which is ok as well. But my bass line consists of two lines actually, with one just doubling something which Joe did on his guitar already – and with that ‘bouncy’ part which is the main bass part you hear. This one I played with a plectrum on my fretless Squier VM Precision, something I normally don’t do. But what I wanted to emphasize is that kind of steam locomotive feel which the song has already – its topic is moving, and ‘Stephanie’ is the company relocation manager in Joe’s company (which really moved, he just rebuilt his studio at his new home). So that original song from Joe and Shi is about a woman who is kind of overwhelmed by her duties, and about moving – that’s what I had in mind when playing along with it. And at my workplace, we of course have such a ‘Stephanie’ ourselves, without whom nothing much would work around here, so I was reminded of her as well.

So that’s about ‘my’ – or rather, Joe‘s, Shi‘s, and my – version. But the whole purpose of Wikiloops is jamming, so taking and remixing is what it’s all about. What a nice and creative way of collaborating over the internet. Try it if you play any instrument – it’s fun!

Thanks for reading and/or listening and/or watching.

A wonderful Jam collaboration on Wikiloops by Klaus, Stef, Anne, and Kimbo, to which I just added a bit of low end. Thanks everyone, it’s a pleasure and honour jammin’ with you!

Musicians:

Thanks for listening.

Another masterpiece of Joe (Relativity) and Shi, to which I again tried to add a little humble groundwork type of carpet. Thanks to both for providing such gems of art on Wikiloops, I feel honoured that I could play along. Hope you like my noodling 🙂

Musicians:

And I think that this time I even got the target loudness of -16.0 LUFS right, which is the ITU (European) recommended loudness for streaming media (like Youtube videos, music, and such):

The first export (from Ardour) is the mix, the second one my bass alone.

Thanks for listening.

Today I did my first own remix of a song on Wikiloops to which I had previously contributed already. After receiving an HD file from Joe, who made the template for the song, I had all the parts together – and played in the bass again, since I wasn’t 100% happy with it anyway. So here’s my newer version of the song:

Musicians’ list is the same as before, tho now I have “bass” and “mixer” as instruments:

I used an equalizer on Joe’s acoustic guitar for instance, to make it a bit less “boomy” (also, low cuts help with the general mix later):

And this is the track window before I recorded my bass again, together with an instrument tuner, an Ampeg SVT amplifier & cab simulation, and a compressor (I used a multi-band compressor on Shi’s voice as well, which you cannot see here):

Thanks for listening.

Here’s a remix titled “The Way That Shi Moves (Take 2)” (it’s no typo but a word game on the singer’s name). ArkRockStudio had added some keys and remixed the whole track. Listen:

Musicians:

Thanks Ark – and thanks everyone here (and/or on Wikiloops) for listening.

Edit: and another one, from a musician from Italy, domiro:

Musicians:

Thanks for listening.