My Story

I am a songwriter, guitarist and keyboard player. I have been making music in my home studio for forty years. I have had a number of releases over the years with my virtual band, The Rabinettes. In 2003 an instrumental song "A Tribute To Santo and Johnny" was number 6 on the Amazon download list. One of my newest releases, The Shape Of Almost" has had 60,000 streams on Spotify since it's release a month ago.

I have had Parkinson's Disease since 2017. Thankfully most of my symptoms are well managed by medications and physical therapy. Nevertheless my skills in playing instruments have eroded over time and I have had to rely more and more on different things, like Ai, to create my music. The growth of capabilities and quality of Ai music is moving at about the same pace as my skills are declining. I make no excuse for using Ai to make music. I put a lot of effort into every song I make and the result is the expression of my music.

How I Make Music

I have used a number of different workflows over the years. Going from recording to a 4 track cassette tape recorded to my current very complex Ai Hybrid music workflow.

How I made the music in my latest releases:

I start by writing songs. I usually start with lyrics. Then I create a melody and chord changes to fit.Then I record a demo of the song. The demo will usually include Drums, Vocals, Bass, Guitar and Piano and some times rough ideas of horns and / or strings. Or sometimes its a very simple Guitar ad Vocals.

Then I upload my demo to Suno Ai - a music creation website. I input lyrics and prompts to identify different elements in the song, such as [increase vocal intensity] or [Instrumental Break]. Then I add style prompts that can be very complicated.

Suno creates two version of how it interprets my direction. Sometimes it gets a pretty good idea of what I'm looking for, sometimes I need to change my prompts. I typically run somewhere between fifty and a hundred iterations before I have something that I like. When I have something I like, I download the stems (the individual instrument and vocal tracks).

Now I put those stems into my digital audio workstation, usually Logic Pro or Studio One. Then I do my best to replicate the Suno tracks with my guitar or keyboards.I usually keep about 50% of the Suno tracks. I use a number of tools to clean up the Ai tracks and make them useable.

I mix all the tracks to a stereo track which I proceed to master. Usually in Logic Pro. When a song is done I upload it to DistroKid where it is distributed to all of the music streaming sites.

Parkinson's Disease

My first album in wide release was "My Friend Parky". A collection of songs I wrote based on my journey with this disease. 

If you are interested in my journey with Parkinson's you can click on the link below to see videos I have been making every six months for the last five years.In each "chapter" I play the same short song on guitar and then talk about the last six months. The guitar part is for people to see how the progression of PD has affected my playing.