n-Track Studio's Featured Artist of the Month

DECEMBER, 2000


The Five W

 . Featured Artist's Web Page: http://michaelerwin.com


Where: Anniston, Alabama - USA

Who: Guitar, Vocals, Keyboards, Bass, Drums by Michael Erwin

 When: Michael Erwin has been the lead guitar player for many bands through the years. Most recently he has been a member of the Alabama based group Freeway Shamen

Why: The focus of his songs is life including all of it's complications and humor while putting it into perspective with Christ.

What: The style varies from song to song but can all be classified as pop/rock alternative

In Short:

 Influences are 70s and 80s rock.

Albums -
Cosmic Thang, 1999
Be a Light, 2000

Michael Erwin
 by Alessandro De Murtas
Featured Songs: 
Backslide Boogie
Let It Rain

Michael Erwin is a musician / songwriter from Alabama, USA. His unique style of Contemporary Christian Music is the result of years spent in the secular music business. The focus of his songs is life including all of it's complications and humor. The style varies from song to song but can all be classified as pop/rock.
[..] Being part of the secular music scene for many years has shaped the songwriting of Michael Erwin perfectly for his target audience. "Although I write lyrics that contain spiritual content, I hope to connect to the everyday lives of the average person" Michael quotes. His songs are about personal and world issues that concern people of every race and culture. Life is a central theme to all of his writings, including all of it's beauty and complications. "The difference in what I have to say is that I have found a light at the end of the tunnel". (from mp3.com)

Michael is also currently hosting a free service for the N-Track users. Rev-Radio (revolution radio) is the n-Track Studio Users Cyber Station with mp3 downloads, streaming audio in Windows Media and Real Audio formats as well as helpful links. You can find the Rev-Radio web site at http://revradio.cjb.net and listen to n-Track at work!
Tips and Tricks from Michael Erwin using n-Track Studio.
(..) Michael usually handles all of the recording chores himself at his home studio. It is a humble set up consisting of a computer, mixer, preamps, a few outboard compressors and effects, guitars, amps and a few microphones. The computer system is powered by an Intel Celeron 466mhz processor with 128MB of RAM. A small 8 Gig hard drive and a Crystal Audio soundcard has been the only other elements to the works until the purchase of a Hoontech DSP24 audio card that hasn't been used on any finished material as of yet. The core of the system is n-Track Studio audio recording software along with Wavelab as a wave editor. Without n-Track there would be no possible way for me to get a decent recording hassle free and fast without going into serious debt. I really need to use the extra money for clean preamps and microphones, which mean more to me than a software package with a bunch of glitter and a huge price tag on it. n-Track works, period. Why use anything else?
The drum parts were all created using Hotstepper which is a very simple pattern sequencer that's cheap too... $15 I think. It is layed out like a drum machine, so if you are used to one then getting started is a no brainer. Their samples are not that great though... soundloops.org and many others have a wide variety of one shot samples that are available to use. The best idea for drum samples that would satisfy is probably to create some yourself. I use some that a friend gave me and some of my own creations, also sampled some off of old vinyl recordings to get a more grungy sound... you can tell on the opening of one of my tunes "Who is Your God" that they are in there mixed with other or better samples. Got an old kit that I hung onto for recording and just tuned them up and started wacking away until they were what I wanted. If you don't have a drum kit then maybe you could borrow one for an afternoon and give it a try. Just record them without EQ or anything one drum at a time, then you can always go back and do whatever you like to them (EQ, compress, verb) without destroying the original sound?

Breaking News 


CDs for Sale:
Be a Light

The CD is available at MP3.com for a $6.99 blow out price! Get your copy by clicking HERE or listen to the songs by clicking "stream tunes" on top of page.

What's Being Cooked Up?
Featured Artist of the Month - Comments and suggestions are welcome.

Are you an n-Track Studio's User? Would like to be reviewed? Send email to alex@n-track.com, reporting as much info as you can. Also including your recording equipment, procedures, tips & tricks for advantage of all the n-Track Studio's users.


New songs are occurring swiftly and don't have much time to record them. It's hard to avoid the occasional "head banger" even though I am trying to focus more on acoustic guitar at the moment.