New album

Superexcited to have spent a weekend in Studio Knutby with wounderful friends and awesome musicians recordning some new and some old songs, dating back to my time in Prague late -00s…

It’s going to be my second Self-titled album and this one is going to be both fast and slow songs.

Musicians was:
Oskar Johansson Werre – Drums
Eric Tengholm – Trumpet and organ
Johan Tengholm – Double Bass
Jonathan Guzman – Piano and organ
Eric Lindh – Production, recording, producer, guitar, clarinet and soprano saxophone

Rotator

Finally I have gotten a real Rotator software plug again, this time directly from the creator himself, Robby Kilgore.

The rotator is a software in this case that for every note I play on my MIDI sax or whatever ads additional notes, from a pattern of intervals. Basically making my EWI into a mean chord monster!

I have long listened to the few demos of this that was previously available online and last spring me and my friend the software developer Bernhard Wagner managed to build a software that did this. However the program was specific to some particular software and hardware and when my old computer burned up I had no way of recreating it on my own. So I was really excited now when I got an email from Robby Kilgore and he had himself built a program that works in Logic. As a hardcore Cubase user since 15years I got straight away and bought Main Stage and started fiddling around.

What you see below is some examples from my first live try of the rotator, or first musical try at least. Some interesting ideas, sounds and places I think.


Robby Kilgore ‘Rotator’

It has been my dream for a long time to build a Rotator as Robby Kilgore calls it. You can see it in action in some videos below.

I first got to know about this through my friend Bernhard Wagner and he also just built it so I could fool around with it!

To tell you shortly what it is, it is a software that adds a second note to whatever I am playing on the EWI (or any other MIDI device) with set intervals. It also rotates through this settings so I will have different intervals every time I change or replay a note! As a horn player, I can’t tell you how exciting it is to create harmonies! (I even started playing accordion some years ago to get harmonies)

To read more see Robby Kilgores own website like: http://robbykilgore.com/?p=19

 

Here is Mike Brecker using the Rotator (for some reasons the video didn’t play on phones but on most computers)

EWI Crash Course

Just starting to get on friendly terms with my EWI (it’s a 4000s for you gearheads) and I just wanted to share some of my thoughts on practicing this instrument.

When I got it I had too little time to really dig into it, but past weeks I’ve been having and taking the time needed to get into this. Partly because I’ve been traveling without any other horn, and partly because I’ve broken my wrist and it is way easier to play ewi than an 50s Buescher tenor with a broken wrist. But most of all, I’ve always loved synthesizers (my dad’s being a great keyboard and synth player and lover) and I found the right motivation and inspiration from instagram and his birthday coming up.

1. Setting up the EWI

Once you’ve got your instrument you’ll probably want to play around with it and get some feeling for the instrument, I’ve got stuck in this stage for almost a year but maybe you’re quicker?

After that you should download the Vyzex editor (if you’re on Mac) and make sure you’re instrument runs on the latest software update. Mine was a demo instrument before I got it and doing this resolved a bunch of malfunctioning. There is a manual and although it is boring and time consuming it is a very good idea going through ALL of it and make sure your fingering ect. is what you want it to be. As a sax player I chose sax fingerings, but oboe, flute, and others are available too! But I frequently go through the manual again to fine tune the instrument to work as good as possible for me.

This is probably the most important step!

2. Choosing a sound

Although the EWI has a lot of built in sounds, I found most of them dull and boring so I’m sticking to one of the presets for practicing with earphones but connect it to a desktop synth with lots of patches in it to get a fatter sound. I find that using both of the sounds together is the way to go for me. But as my dad remarked it is important to find your synth sound and when listening to great synth players like Zawinul, Zawinul or maybe Zawinul you realize that he has a very distinctive synth sound that he uses all the time. Although there is variations, it has the same expression from the musicians standpoint. So I spent some time finding a sound I am happy with.

Also, as a saxophone player that suddenly is using AMPS at gigs to be heard at all, it is wise to start practicing and rehearsing with amps and find out that there is a jungle of amps and sounds out there. It is a strange notion not necessarily having your sound close to you as with a saxophone. And don’t do the mistake of placing your amp at the floor and turn up the volume until you hear good enough. Angle the amp towards your ears or put it on a chair so that you get most of the sound. Or else you’re gonna start a volume war with your band mates.

You’ll hopefully see which one to go for in the picture below.

3. Practicing the ewi

It is basically just like practicing any instrument, and in particular the saxophone. I’ve been doing my regular scale exercises, my flute fingering exercises and mostly, playing slow transcriptions that I did in the past just to refresh my technique for the EWI. One of my favorites is the one below, I’ve been searching for the origin with no success, but I belive it beeing a flute exercise.

The hardest part have been the thumb, it is still hard, my broken wrist makes it harder to move my thumb, but as all EWI players know going between octaves can be a real hassle. But from Björn Arkö which is a big inspiration for EWI I learned that you should initiate the switch before it actually happens by starting to move the thumb, kind of like playing piano. This seems to work fine although there is still lots of work to do. As always when dealing with music, thankfully 😉

Feel free to ask anything or leave a comment if you feel like I can help with your EWI.

 

Caius Cat trio – Caius Cat trio

Caius Cat trio

 

Our second cd with Caius Cat Trio is now for sale in physical record stores as well as online, I’ve seen it in iTunes and Spotify so far!
 
Thanks to Pedro Martinez Maestre, Raphael Nick and Gunnar Åkerhielm for the playing, Otto Niklasson Elmerås and Daniel Aldenmark at One Touch Edit music production for recording, Pawel Lucki for final master, Jorge Ochagavia and David Delgado for Cover Design, Daniel Lantz and Do Music Records for Record Labelling and all friends and family supporting us!
 

Proudly presenting!

I am very happy and excited to present:

Caius Cat’s upcoming record!

will be released on DO Music Records probably already in October this year!

It is the material we recorded in One Touch Edit over one and a half year ago, but with the help of a lot of people and a lot of invested time and money it seems as if we’re actually gonna finish this now.

Caius Cat trio is the modern jazz (i.e sixties jazz with a bit of free/atonal too it) trio that I run together with my long time friend and colleague Pedro Martinez Maestre. This bass player and me met first in Texas in 2011 where we booth studied at University of North Texas at the time. Since Pedro moved back to Barcelona and then to Switzerland we’ve kept the project not only going but also accelerating. About two years ago master drummer Ralph Nick joined us and it was love at first note! We’ve been playing mainly in Sweden and Switzerland but also did a tour in Barcelona and another one 2014 in Alicante and Elche, where we was a main act at the Elx Jazz Festival! I believe over the years we’ve done around 50-60 shows. Which is not bad for a vocal-less jazz band that lives 2400km apart from eachother.

Check out some previews here: