Hey Guys, just thought I would let you all know that my book Blood, sweat and treason , my story , is now in paperback format. I have been truly humbled by the reponse to my autobiography. It has been nominated for three British book awards in the last 11 months ( never won though ) and I have very positive feedback from people who have read it. So thank you all for supporting me and I really hope that you have found my story worth reading. Thanks to the media and my publishers as well who have been wonderful in their support.
The paperback edition and also the newest hardcopy has an extra chapter bringing everything up to date so if you haven’t yet purchased my book you can get extra. Waterstones have kindly offered to stock the book better this year so do support them if you get the chance.
A few years ago after I left Plumtree School in around the late 90s I visited Felix Westwood my former school teacher, choir director and mentor at Plumtree. She has been such a great blessing to so many people over the years and she kindly allowed me to borrow some of the tapes from Plumtree school while I was there. I stumbled upon them again recently and decided to digitise them. These bring back soooo many memories. I have to say that listening to recordings that are over 16 years old is sobering. First these recordings were done using old school dubbing techniques from cassette to cassette so the quality is not great. I had to do some heavy noise reduction to get them even barely palatable. Second – well the singing in most cases makes me cringe especially when I am singing – but this was before we had access to autotune. Thirdly – it reminds us that time flies and it waits for no one. Anyway – for the sake of nostalgia here are some songs recorded in my last prize giving at Plumtree High school. Of note from the night in my memory was Mr Hepburn chastising me for not mentioning the hockey results enough in my headboys speech. I think he was right ya know because I was biased towards rugby he he he
UPDATE – as a result of this post Mr Hogbin who had been at Plumtree for many decades just got in touch. Those of you who went to Plumtree will know that he made all the recordings of the choir and plays – anyway – he sent me a file from way before my time and I will share it pending his permission.
In 2006 I released my first studio Album. I worked with the wonderful record label producer Robbie Bronimman
It has had steady interest over the years and now I am making it available for the first time as high Studio Quality 24 Bit Flac files for those who enjoy high quality music.
Aurelia 2006 CD Quality Flac Price £ 10.00 [wp_eStore_fancy:product_id:18:end]
Once in a while a kind soul says something really nice about my performances………..trust me – this is rare in modern Britain so I am truly humbled by such a wonderful review. Anyway – I was in Wales for a concert a while back and this is what they said.
I have made some tutorials to help people get their heads around editing with first light from Cineform and have also provided a few Free Luts ( Look files ) as well.
For 300 Looks to add to your arsenal of tools you can get them using PAYPAL as an immediate download right here Looks for Cineform first light Price £ 10 [wp_eStore_fancy:product_id:15:end]
View the Marcie gallery soon to see what they look like – HERE
Hey Everyone. This is a drums reverb for Nebula and it absolutely kicks some serious you know what when it comes to giving your drums a space. It has depth, 3D quality, power and life. Sampled at 96 khz this is a serious CPU hog but there are no compromises here. Sorry – if you have a slow computer – good luck. It also weighs in at 270 MBs so make sure you have plenty of RAM and a cutting edge computer.
Give your tracks dimension and depth that other reverbs cannot give. Distortion is also recorded so this will give your track power like nothing else. I hope you like it.
I really need to fix the preset as it was one of the first attempts at sampling but alas it is in the wild already. I must apologise to one and all who had the shock of their lives on loading it so after downloading and please apply this fix.
First turn the FX slider down to taste. From the nebula front page Click edit – top right corner. Click glob – third from left on the bottom. Click on the Pad out setting so it is highlighted. Adjust to -40 db using the second fader on the right ( or decide what the sweet spot is for you). Make sure that the Pad in setting is 0. That should buy you about 12 or so dbs.
If it is still too hot adjust the PAD in setting as well. Turn it down as much as needed.
Click exit. Click save – top right hand corner. Job done. . This works on a per preset basis of course and you can use it to adjsut other troublesome presets like some more of my ahem earlier presets attempts.
For all the Zimbos out there – I have been invited back to Zimfest this year thanks to the team at ‘We Zimbabwe’. I will be giving a short talk on the Friday and also signing books and singing on the Saturday fingers crossed… hope to see you there – 3rd and 4th of September – details to follow
Sometime before this year is over I vow – fingers crossed – to do a new release of ‘Our Zimbabwe‘. The orchestration was mainly done by Andy Wright who has produced Simply Red, Pavarotti and many others. He has given it a fresh take and to my ears anyway, it sounds wonderful……….
I will also include Nkosi Sikelela in the release
You can also order the original Our Zimbabwe in mp3 format quickly as a download using Paypal here
This is an interview I did with a fascinating man. Watch the full series here. This story is about a Zimbabwean man who lived a nightmare until only recently……….
