My first released ALBUM! This is all solo violin, with my computer processing the audio and recording phrases so I can do live real-time orchestrations.

You can listen for free, or donate $5 or more to download the whole album, or buy the physical CD by contacting me, or ping me and I’ll send you a CD for free (I have enough to give them away!) I’m hoping about 10% of people will buy or donate, which will cover my reproduction costs.

http://jasonmarsh.bandcamp.com/album/digital-acoustic-violin

Remember, nothing is pre-recorded before I begin. The pizzicato is transposed down 2 octaves by the computer to create the bass lines. Hopefully the end result captures the spirit of screaming guitar solos!

The video camera work is done by my wife Melissa. I think she did a great job capturing the ‘musicians’ view, where you see the nice close-ups of the bow, fingers and foot work. Enjoy!

This entire piece is a single pass-through, created live only on an acoustic violin. The violin parts are performed live, recorded and played back (similar to looping), but I’ve programmed the foot pedals to give me complete control over each track, up to 16 simultaneously. This enables me to create and improvise musical form and orchestration, which I find more satisfying than the typical looping.

Nothing is pre-recorded before I begin. I create the bass drum part by tapping on the bridge and electronically transposing it down 2 octaves, and the bass line by plucking in the normal range, and transposing the part down 2 octaves. The snare-like effects come from “chops” with the bow. It’s satisfying to watch live and know that everything is real-time. Most of the piece is improvisation, and every performance is quite different. You get a quite different sense of what is happening musically when you can see everything happen in real time.

My wife Melissa did the camera work, with a colorful setup with the lights. I edited the video. I hope you like it!

[Edit: remixed on July 3 and posted]

I do a classic composition technique to build energy, so by the end I layer the B section tracks (selecting them one at a time) over the A section, underneath a ‘crazy fiddler’ improvisation.

Not For The Faint tracksheet

As always for my ‘Digital Acoustic Violin’, all sounds are created on the violin. In this case, the piece opens with strumming processed to sound like a bubbly, underwatery groove. The bass line is violin pizzicato put down 2 octaves digitally. (If you listen carefully, you’ll hear it in the correct octave, live, before I put it down into bass range on its first loop.)

I play this piece live with all the parts recorded and played-back with a foot controller to enable/record/playback each of the tracks.

I hope you enjoy it!

A bit of explanation: This is my wanna-be guitarist piece. I start with the violin in my lap strumming it like a guitar. As with all my “Digital Acoustic Violin” pieces, all the sounds are created on the violin, with no effects except reverb (and a bit of delay), so the fed-back guitar sound is produced just with the bow on an acoustic violin – think of it as Hendrix on an acoustic violin!

This is a SINGLE pass (no overdubs)… start to finish, with all the parts recorded and played-back with a foot controller to enable/record/playback each of the tracks.

Someday I’ll do a YouTube version so you can see how it is all produced, or attend one of my fundraisers!

Here’s the flyer… click here for a better-quality pdf.

Additional information:

To hear some samples of music, visit my Music Downloads page.

To get tickets or make reservations online, click here: http://marshworks.eventbrite.com. Please feel free to pay at the door or pay Denali in person and save yourself credit card processing fees of about 5%. Come one, come all: please don’t let the suggested donation keep you and your family from attending, there is no minimum, but we do need a count, and space is limited, so please do register at that site or via email (see above) or phone (530 368-2979).

Anyway, his ability to make a violin groove, with chops and rhythmic parts is still great all this time later. I came home and had to finish working up a song, a happy-go-lucky tune I’m calling Rollin’ for lack of a better name.

[Edit: Download removed... see more recent version]

7 tracks A section, 4 tracks B section, all live, single pass. I’m switching back and forth between microphone and pickup, and throw a chorus on the melody. It gets me closer to a distortion guitar sound without going all the way there. The ‘feedback’ sound at the end of along note is produced by playing very close to the bridge. Classical violinists call it ponticello, but I use the effect as though I was a screaming guitar. And the bass, as in many of my pieces, is played first at normal range, and then dropped down 2 octaves when the loop repeats.

The performance isn’t quite where I want it, so I’ll post another version before long.

[Edit: remixed the piece on April 4]
[Edit: re-recorded the piece on June 11 and posted]