LinuxMusicians

Hi all,

I've been quite lazy, lately. My latest album, Rainmaker, came out almost a year ago, and in the meanwhile all I could come up with were a couple of silly Christmas covers . In practice, I've actually been working on a lot of stuff at the same time, but all of it is a bit more on the complex side, which means I've often felt less motivated to actually focus on that. A few months ago a few "simpler" ideas starting popping in my mind, and that's how this new "Axiom" EP was eventually born:

https://lminiero.bandcamp.com/album/axiom
https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/lorenzominiero/axiom

The first one is the Bandcamp link, but I'm also sharing the Distrokid one as it should become available on other streaming services (Spotify, Apple Music & co.) soon as well.

The EP title is a bit of a pun, which came quite naturally once I figured out what this EP would sound like. Paraphrasing its math definition (don't quote me on that...), an axiom is an undeniable truth everything else is based upon: in my case, that turned out to be guitars, and how they shaped all my adult life. And besides, can you really call yourself a true guitar player if you don't release anything with "axe" in the title? As a consequence, this is a very guitar-oriented work, but much more inspired by the 70s (and partly 80s) than any of my previous work, so definitely less heavy. Every track is basically a homage and love letter (sometimes almost to the point of plagiarism!) to artists I love that greatly influenced my way of breathing music, all with guitar very much at the center of it: my axiom, again. In the process, I also gave a lot of thought about what the cover should look like, and after trying several different options, I landed on the one you can see here: the moon is kind of an axiom for us all, if you think about it, and I liked how the purplish tone of the palette did fit the music content too.

And speaking of guitars, I recorded all of them with this new beauty I grabbed a couple of months ago: it's a second-hand Japanese Squier Stratocaster from 84, that I fell in love as soon as I saw it, especially because of the chromatic combination (which is a bit unusual, if you know strats). And, I'm sure you'll agree, it sounds great too!

Coming to the music, I didn't want this to be too long, boring or tiresome, which is why it's just a short EP. If you're curious about the tracks:

• Roots: I'm pretty sure the main influence in this song was John Norum, who I've always loved as a guitar player, both in his time in Europe (pre- and post-reunion) and his solo work. I feel this is a mix of a 70s and 90s kind of song, and I had a lot of fun working on the Hammond organ stuff too!

• Red and Blue: I guess this is pretty much self-explainatory... red and blue together form purple, and Deep Purple (one of my favourites of all times) are the obvious influence in this track. I tried to mimic some of their more groovy tracks like "Never Before" or "Rat Bat Blue", rather than the well known epics, and trying to emulate both Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore was a cool challenge!

• Topeka: This was originally meant to be on "Rainmaker" as a bonus track, but I didn't finish composing it in time, and I wasn't happy about its shape at the time. It's my explicit homage to the band Kansas (who are indeed from Topeka, Kansas), since it's basically a 70's prog song very much inspired by some of their classics, like "Song for America" or "Magnum Opus". I tried to mimic their composition style and their sound, in a short instrumental track.

• Hitori: At the risk of sounding like a cliche, this came to me in a dream (how many times have I said this already?). Specifically, I heard the first progression in a dream two nights in a row, and I knew I had to write it down. It eventually became a more emotional, atmospheric and somber track, where I tried to follow the steps of greats like Gary Moore and Andrew Latimer, who like no one else could make you cry with their notes.

• School Crush: I hope Van Halen won't curse me from the grave (RIP...), as this is such an obvious nod to "Hot for Teacher" that it's almost plagiarism It was the most fun to record, but also the hardest, as I realized I really can't play such a groovy and dynamic kind of music that easily. I tried to mimic Eddie a bit in the solo too, with all my obvious limits of course...

• Armadillo: I have no idea why I called the song like that: when I first thought of the main riff, the word popped to my mind and so it stuck! It's a bit of a mix between 70s and 80s hard rock, possibly inspired by Gary Moore who I've been listening to a lot in these past few months (after loving him already in Thin Lizzy).

• Axiom: The title track is also the most unusual of the bunch, since it basically starts as an 80s synthwave piece: soon guitars start taking over, though, which again is a reminder that, no matter the genre, my axiom is and remains those beautiful six strings.

From a technical perspective, the biggest change is that this was the first group of songs I recorded entirely using Pipewire's shim of JACK, rather than native JACK: after a bit of a rocky start, it really worked amazingly, no difference at all latency-wise! I also used Ardour 7.x instead of 6.x this time around: I didn't notice any major difference (I liked it before and still like it a lot now), but I did use MIDI less here, and that apparently was one of the biggest improvements they added. I mentioned how I used Hammond organs much more, here, and I did so thanks to a free Windows VST called HaNon that worked flawlessly via LinVST: while I can't say I'm an Hammond expert, I really loved the sounds it gave me, and I think it helped a lot making the EP sound as it does. Everything else is pretty much my usual workflow, so nothing to add there, unless you're curious about anything in particular.

That's all, I hope you'll enjoy this, and I'd really love learning what you think of it: what you think worked, what didn't, which track you liked/hated the most, the whole shebang!

An axiom is a self-evident truth, not an undeniable one. To an extent, axioms can be freely chosen or discarded, depending on what one wants to accomplish with it, and what one's philosophical disposition is.

I'm a pragmatist in those matters. If an axiom makes the mathematics easier then I'm all for it. The axiom of choice for example makes proving theorems much easier in some cases. But there are mathematicians who don't accept that one because it is not a constructive axiom (it asserts the existence of a certain set without giving any means of constructing it; moreover, it leads to some counterintuitive consequences).

The law of the excluded middle (asserting that either a proposition is true, or its negation is), in mathematical logic, is another such axiom which is dismissed by constructivists.

But on to Axiom: the EP has already finished playing so I'll stop the math lecture :)

I could sing praises for multiple paragraphs if I had the words for it, but since I don't, I'll keep it short:

Sounds great!

One piece of constructive criticism: especially the bassdrum could use some humanization i.m.o., and there are parts where a soft kick somewhere between two hard kicks would give a bit more groove.

Always crazy how fast you release new content. And I can see you've made good use of the HaNon VST I have to say I like Armadillo the best. Just really nice lead work and a great rhythm for the main riff. What did you use for the instrument that gains focus at around 1:08? I really like it.

The title track is very nice too. I like the sound of the low B from the bass you talked about in an earlier album. Great soloing on this song as well.

Cool to hear you're using Pipewire now, and even better that you get the same latency as with JACK. I recently switched from Arch to Fedora (both using Pipewire), but unfortunately it seems that added a bit of round trip latency in my case.

Very nice strat, looks beautiful. Hope you enjoy playing it!

Impostor wrote: ↑Sat Apr 22, 2023 9:48 pm

An axiom is a self-evident truth, not an undeniable one. To an extent, axioms can be freely chosen or discarded, depending on what one wants to accomplish with it, and what one's philosophical disposition is.

Hey, I said don't quote me on that!
Jokes apart, thanks for the correction! I'll fix it in the album description on Bandcamp too.

Impostor wrote: ↑Sat Apr 22, 2023 9:48 pm

I'm a pragmatist in those matters. If an axiom makes the mathematics easier then I'm all for it. The axiom of choice for example makes proving theorems much easier in some cases. But there are mathematicians who don't accept that one because it is not a constructive axiom (it asserts the existence of a certain set without giving any means of constructing it; moreover, it leads to some counterintuitive consequences).

The law of the excluded middle (asserting that either a proposition is true, or its negation is), in mathematical logic, is another such axiom which is dismissed by constructivists.

I wasn't aware of such philosophical implications, that's very interesting!

Impostor wrote: ↑Sat Apr 22, 2023 9:48 pm

But on to Axiom: the EP has already finished playing so I'll stop the math lecture

I could sing praises for multiple paragraphs if I had the words for it, but since I don't, I'll keep it short:

Sounds great!

Thanks, I'm glad you liked it!

Impostor wrote: ↑Sat Apr 22, 2023 9:48 pm

One piece of constructive criticism: especially the bassdrum could use some humanization i.m.o., and there are parts where a soft kick somewhere between two hard kicks would give a bit more groove.

Actually I did humanize drums in general, but I guess my approach is not that successful... what I usually do is write the different patterns and then, once I'm happy with them, I use the Hydrogen humanization feature, which basically means selecting the different rows where you play the same item (e.g. a kick, the snare, or a crash) and then asking Hydrogen to randomize their velocities. This introduces variations, as this way Drumgizmo won't play the same sample over and over (even though Drumgizmo has its own randomizer internally), but it also introduces a bit of randomness of course, since there's no conscious process (e.g., like you said, inserting a softer kick in a specific point) but just a randomization. This means that in some parts it will sound more natural, and in others it won't. I'll try to make some more conscious choices in the future, thanks for the tip!

Tenaba wrote: ↑Sun Apr 23, 2023 1:37 am

Always crazy how fast you release new content.

Well, it took me a year to come up with something (if we exclude a couple of isolated tracks), so not sure how fast I was this time
But this did come up in about three months, which is indeed not that much time (especially considering I spent three weeks in Japan!). I remember writing down some parts and drum patterns in MuseScore before FOSDEM, as I showed them to someone after my talk there: then I actually started recording only after I got the guitar, so a couple of months ago. I guess I was faster this time as there wasn't much orchestration to deal with, being much more rock and guitar oriented.

Tenaba wrote: ↑Sun Apr 23, 2023 1:37 am

And I can see you've made good use of the HaNon VST I have to say I like Armadillo the best. Just really nice lead work and a great rhythm for the main riff. What did you use for the instrument that gains focus at around 1:08? I really like it.

I really liked the HaNon VST, not sure if it's the best option out there but it's free and very customizable, with a few presets to make things faster! In general, trying to emulate the Jon Lord sound for instance was quite fun. In the Red and Blue solo, for instance, I didn't use a Hammond, but the Salamander piano chained with a Guitarix fuzzer, and that gave me a sound very close to his solo in Never Before.

I like Armadillo a lot too, which is probably the most "modern" of the bunch (if we exclude Axiom). The instrument you head ar 1:08 (that's actually there even before, during the verse), is a combination of two different instruments: a dulcimer rendered via a "DSK World Instruments" SFZ (I usually go with the one from the Spitfire Labs VST, e.g., as I did in Delusion's Master, but I wanted to try this one this time), and the "Trem Guitar" synth from Yoshimi. Together they gave a good mix of traditional and modern sound, and I liked the effect, especially after panning them out a bit.

Tenaba wrote: ↑Sun Apr 23, 2023 1:37 am

The title track is very nice too. I like the sound of the low B from the bass you talked about in an earlier album. Great soloing on this song as well.

Yes, I followed the same approach for the synth bass here, which is again a combination of three different Yoshimi presets (synth_bass_fat, bass, Chip_bass_2). They each highlight something different (some are more percussive, others are wavey or phased, etc.) and so I liked how they sounded together. The theme itself, in Axiom, is made of two different synths playing at the same time, and even a simple track like Hitori actually has four different synths playing in the background. In general, I like experimenting with different textures that play the same thing, which is something I do often with orchestration too.

Tenaba wrote: ↑Sun Apr 23, 2023 1:37 am

Cool to hear you're using Pipewire now, and even better that you get the same latency as with JACK. I recently switched from Arch to Fedora (both using Pipewire), but unfortunately it seems that added a bit of round trip latency in my case.

Latency wise I really can't complain, it worked great since the beginning. One thing I did do was editing the jack.conf file in the pipewire properties, to set the node.latency to 256/48000: if you never touched that file, you may want to tinker with that part too, since I think it's what dictates how low the low-latency will be (a bit like when you configure it in JACK itself before starting the server). IIRC 256/48000 means a latency of about 5ms which is quite low for my needs.

What I had to struggle with a bit was a bug they eventually solved. When Ardour started with a ton of tracks (which is always the case for me, as I use templates that include both DrumGizmo and Virtual Playing Orchestra), the input from my external POD X3 Live would be severaly distorted and progressively out of pitch, which made it unusable for me unfortunately. They fixed that recently, though: it still appears from time to time, but it's enough to replug the device to fix that most of the times (which makes me think it could also be its drivers).

Another ting that annoys me is that with that many tracks sometimes my keyboard input is outrageously lagged: e.g., you try to rename a track, write text in it, and nothing happens. When that happens, I've noticed ibus with a huge CPU usage: I'm not sure whether Ardour or Pipewire is to blame, though, as I haven't investigated further.

Those were minor annoyances, though: the ability to just start recording stuff while keeping on using my desktop as usual is really priceless.

Tenaba wrote: ↑Sun Apr 23, 2023 1:37 am

Very nice strat, looks beautiful. Hope you enjoy playing it!

I really did! It's not super comfortable to play (strings are a little stronger than what I'm used to, as I didn't change the setup it came with) but it was fun to play. I also tried using the tremolo bar more, which is something I never do, with interesting results. What surprised me the most though was how aggressive it sounds, despite the fact it only has single coils and no humbuckers: from what I read and my brother-in-law told me, that's indeed one of the features that made those Japanese Squiers quite liked by metal kids at the time. I definitely felt like I could play pretty much everything I wanted with it, and get different sounds, which was amazing.

Thanks for listening and for the feedback!

Track "Axiom" most beautiful! Professional work! Congratulations with realised EP!

psyocean wrote: ↑Wed May 10, 2023 4:43 pm

Track "Axiom" most beautiful! Professional work! Congratulations with realised EP!

Thanks! Unfortunately I don't have a four-neck guitar though

Great job, it sounds awesome... I've been lately listening to a lot of Deep Purple and lots of sections certainly brought me those vibes; great guitar and keyboard work. (It also reminded me of Uriah Heep).

My favourite tracks are perhaps "Roots" and "Red and Blue". For "Armadillo", I think the title is appropriate because you somewhat visualize the armadillo advancing forward, full of decision...

I also liked a lot the "Hitori" interlude. I can certainly see the tip of the hat to Gary Moore, it also reminded me of Jeff Beck's "Where were you", that kind of dreamy instrumental, and both finish a bit "abruptly", on purpose...

But I don't think it's "cliche" to say that you dreamt something, it's just reality, it happens to musicians, I also get songs in dreams all the time, although they are not recurrent like in your case, I only get one chance to grab them... Mysteries of human mind...

Funny, when "School Crush" started, I thought: "Hot for teacher"... then I read your comment. It's a good way of adding a new "room" to that school, I enjoyed it. To make the exercise complete, the guitar line seems like something that maybe could be sung by someone... (If possible someone with a deep, sarcastic tone a la David Lee Roth...)

There's one production choice that I don't understand: if I'm correct, for the kick you seem to have favoured the "click" over the "boom" sound, which is less audible. Isn't that a kind of production more for modern metal, industrial, things like that, where you have thicker guitars and need it so that it cuts through the mix? It just called my attention, I guess it'll grow on one after a few listens, but I find it peculiar given that the rest of the production is so "by the 70s book" (which is a great book )... Anyways, great work, thank you for sharing...

psyocean wrote: ↑Wed May 10, 2023 4:43 pm

crazy-guitar

laugh-out-loud crazy guitar!

Nachei wrote: ↑Wed May 10, 2023 6:07 pm

Great job, it sounds awesome... I've been lately listening to a lot of Deep Purple and lots of sections certainly brought me those vibes; great guitar and keyboard work. (It also reminded me of Uriah Heep).

Thanks for the very kind words, I'm glad you liked it so much! It means a lot coming from another DP fan; and good catch on Uriah Heep being an influence, as I like them a lot too!

Nachei wrote: ↑Wed May 10, 2023 6:07 pm

My favourite tracks are perhaps "Roots" and "Red and Blue". For "Armadillo", I think the title is appropriate because you somewhat visualize the armadillo advancing forward, full of decision...

Roots was the very song that I wrote of the bunch, and I was happy with how it came out, so I'm glad you liked it!
On Armadillo, that may indeed be it...

Nachei wrote: ↑Wed May 10, 2023 6:07 pm

I also liked a lot the "Hitori" interlude. I can certainly see the tip of the hat to Gary Moore, it also reminded me of Jeff Beck's "Where were you", that kind of dreamy instrumental, and both finish a bit "abruptly", on purpose...

I'm very ashamed to say I don't know much of Jeff Beck... it's one of those artists I always said I should start listening to and never did. When he passed away I wanted to finally do that, and it didn't happen either. I really should fix that, since so many mention him as such a big influence, including artists I admire! I just listened to the song you mentioned and it's truly beautiful, so I'm honoured by the comparison.

Nachei wrote: ↑Wed May 10, 2023 6:07 pm

But I don't think it's "cliche" to say that you dreamt something, it's just reality, it happens to musicians, I also get songs in dreams all the time, although they are not recurrent like in your case, I only get one chance to grab them... Mysteries of human mind...

I pretty much have to credit my subconscious for everything, not sure if I ever conscioulsly wrote anything of meaning

Nachei wrote: ↑Wed May 10, 2023 6:07 pm

Funny, when "School Crush" started, I thought: "Hot for teacher"... then I read your comment. It's a good way of adding a new "room" to that school, I enjoyed it. To make the exercise complete, the guitar line seems like something that maybe could be sung by someone... (If possible someone with a deep, sarcastic tone a la David Lee Roth...)

Yes, the guitar line was indeed meant to act as a sort of placeholder for vocals, since that was clearly a song meant to be sung, rather than something that could just be an instrumental. So, using my guitar like that simply "made sense" and I did it that way. I tried singing in the past and it became clear I'm not good at it at all, so better let the guitar do the talking (and the singing!)

Nachei wrote: ↑Wed May 10, 2023 6:07 pm

There's one production choice that I don't understand: if I'm correct, for the kick you seem to have favoured the "click" over the "boom" sound, which is less audible. Isn't that a kind of production more for modern metal, industrial, things like that, where you have thicker guitars and need it so that it cuts through the mix? It just called my attention, I guess it'll grow on one after a few listens, but I find it peculiar given that the rest of the production is so "by the 70s book" (which is a great book )... Anyways, great work, thank you for sharing...

Yes, that's a good point... historically, drums have always been my Achilles' heel. I happen to have a set of samples I enjoy (Muldjord kit from Drumgizmo) and that I've learned to work with, so I just use it everywhere, even where it may fit less. But in my defence, I'm pretty much an 80s metalhead at core, and that's how kicks sounded like back then, which explains why I have a preference for those

Thanks for the detailed feedback and for your nice words about the EP!

Wow great! Love instrumental guitar music. I very much like the middle-eastern influences in Roots, Armadillo and Axiom. I prefer the tracks without melodic synths. As for guitar, most parts did not sound like they were played on single-coils, I think you got a great distorted tone out of them! Good job

Much of this is a bit too aggressive for me, but I really liked Hitori

Basslint wrote: ↑Sat Jul 15, 2023 10:47 am

Wow great! Love instrumental guitar music. I very much like the middle-eastern influences in Roots, Armadillo and Axiom. I prefer the tracks without melodic synths. As for guitar, most parts did not sound like they were played on single-coils, I think you got a great distorted tone out of them! Good job

I guess I like middle eastern music so much that it finds its way even where I don't really mean to
Thanks for listening and glad you liked it!

folderol wrote: ↑Sat Jul 15, 2023 8:15 pm

Much of this is a bit too aggressive for me, but I really liked Hitori

Yes, it was indeed an attempt to do something more guitar oriented, even though most of the influences were 70s and 80s, so I didn't anticipate it could be seen as too aggressive overall (apart from maybe a couple of "heavier" tracks). But I'm glad you liked Hitori, it's one of my personal favourites too despite its very short length!

Playing some catch up down here..

Enjoying 'axiom'! As we've discussed before we work in very different genres but I think we have a nice overlap in appreciation for Deep Purple and I like the great riffs and organ work in the first 2 songs and you got a great Blackmore tone in Red and Blue! I would have liked a little more grind on the Hammond like Jon Lord but it's a tricky business fuzzing up a B3, it can get unnatural sounding pretty quickly..

Not directed at you in particular, I know this is a genre wide thing but WTF is with metal Kick drums!!?? For a music that is supposed to have such 'heavy mass' how does gutting a Kick drum to such a flaccid 'thup' accomplish anything but subtracting the one instrument that brings the weighty wallop?

I would guess you are really comfortable with DrumGizmo but I think at the very least the first two more retro songs would have benefitted from a more old school Bonham/Paice type of drum sound instead of the modern Metallica kinda thing..

The melodic playing in Hitori was lovely BTW, amazing! Amadillo has a great apocalyptic impending doom rumble to it, it not as manic as 'Tarkus' by ELP but it for some reasons reminds me of that ELP period..