The Grooving Arts Band Cellar

Music

On this page you can find some of my songs to download. All songs presented here under the name Grooving Arts are exclusively composed and recorded by myself.
If you want to use this music in any form you have to contact me first and ask for permission. Martin Ecker is the owner of copyright for all the material you find here but you are allowed to give these songs to anyone you like FOR FREE and only for free unless noted otherwise. You are not allowed to make any money with the distribution of my music.

This page also hosts a number of songs that I have recorded with some of the bands I play/played in. You can find links to these songs at the bottom of this page

If you have any comments or constructive criticism on one of the songs don't hesitate to mail me at martin.ecker@liwest.at.

Song Name	Release Date	Length	Size	Style	Comments
Time Shift	02.09.2006	03:11	5.10 MB	Instrumental rock song.	I put this little piece together on two weekends in a period where I wished that a time shift would occur and I could jump ahead a few weeks in time (to know what comes next, of course ;-). I really enjoyed recording the verse solo guitar for this one, in particular because of the cool guitar sound that is sort of in between crunchy and distorted and played with the neck pickup in single-coil mode of my 7-string. Also the tapping part of the main heavy solo was quite challenging to get it the way I wanted it.
Don't Bother None	12.08.2006	02:55	4.21 MB	Blues cover.	This is a cover of Yoko Kanno's beautiful song "Don't Bother None" from the soundtrack of the awesome Japanese anime series Cowboy Bebop. This recording is different from my other recordings in that there's only vocals and my crappy nylon acoustic guitar. Even the percussion in the background is just me hammering away at the body of my acoustic guitar. Additionally, except for parts of the main guitar solo, I only play with my fingers and not with a pick on this track. Enjoy!
Christmas Medley 2005	24.12.2005	03:47	5.75 MB	Instrumental medley of two Christmas songs.	This is my Christmas Medley 2005. It's a medley of the traditional, German Christmas carol "Oh du Fröhliche" and John Lennon's "Happy Christmas". Of course, there's a bit of shredding in there as well, otherwise it wouldn't be one of my recordings, but I hope you enjoy it nevertheless ;-)
Whatever It Takes	24.12.2005	03:07	4.45 MB	Soft instrumental pop song.	This is a slow instrumental tune that was created very quickly on the acoustic guitar. The acoustic guitar that plays the rhythm is actually my really crappy nylon-string acoustic ;) This is something I had lying around for a while and thought I'd never complete, but alas it is finished now and I thought I might as well release it publicly. It's very different from the music I usually make and also listen to.
Christmas Medley 2004	25.12.2004	03:03	4.81 MB	Instrumental medley of two Christmas songs.	This is the Christmas Medley I record for my friends as a kind of Christmas gift every year. This time it's a medley of "Merry Little Christmas" and "Joy to the World". It's a mixture of fusion and punk rock. Enjoy!
Desert Wars	11.11.2004	02:40	3.67 MB	Instrumental rock song.	This is quite a heavy, short, instrumental shredding rock piece that I put together in a hurry. It was inspired by one of the video games I was working on at work at the time I composed this. That video game was an action game involving a helicopter flying around in the desert, and that's what I had in mind when writing this little tune.
Happy Birthday	11.11.2004	01:44	2.40 MB	Instrumental cover song.	A guitar-oriented cover version of the well-known "Happy Birthday" song.
Christmas Medley 2003	24.12.2003	02:07	2.90 MB	Instrumental rock song.	This is the Christmas medley I record every year, this time for 2003. It turned out to be quite heavy this year...ah well :) There are three Christmas carols in the medley. Can you recognize all of them?
Dawn of Days (Karaoke)	29.04.2003	06:01	8.28 MB	Instrumental rock song.	Another instrumental rock song I recorded very quickly and totally out of the blue. I really love the instrumental interlude. Actually there are also lyrics and a vocal part for this song, but I'm not much of a singer so I decided to release a karaoke (off-vocal) version first and, when I get the chance, record the vocals with a good vocalist later on.
Test of Time (Karaoke)	29.04.2003	05:54	8.12 MB	Instrumental rock song.	This is the karaoke (off-vocal) version of a song I wrote some time ago. Since I'm not that great of a singer I decided to record the vocals once I get a good vocalist to do the vocals properly. For now just enjoy it as quite heavy instrumental rock piece with some weird measure changes in there :)
Black Night (Karaoke)	29.04.2003	03:34	4.90 MB	Instrumental cover version.	A karaoke (off-vocal) version of Deep Purple's Black Night that I recorded for the cover band I played in at the time of this recording. Maybe I'll record a version that includes vocals one day...who knows.
Pulp Fiction	29.04.2003	02:17	3.14 MB	Instrumental cover version.	This is a cover version of the Pulp Fiction theme that I recently recorded. Now for a bit of trivia that a lot of people probably don't know (including me, until it was pointed out to me by a nice fellow via e-mail): The original artist of this song is Dick Dale and the song is originally called "Miserlou".
Engl Boogie	08.02.2003	04:30	6.19 MB	Instrumental guitar rock song.	This is a little concatenation of various leftover riffs that I mostly recorded something like 2 years ago when I first got my hands on an Engl amp of a friend of mine (that's where the Engl in the song title comes from). Initially, it was supposed to be a boogie (that's where the Boogie in the title comes from), but yes, I know, it's not really a boogie ;-) See this as an experimental track with a bit of guitar shredding in it.
Christmas Medley 2002	23.12.2002	02:36	3.57 MB	A guitar medley of two Christmas songs.	After being too lazy in 2000 and not having my equipment with me in Australia in 2001, I finally managed to get off my butt to record another Christmas Medley just as in 1999. This is a guitar medley of the well-known Christmas songs "Silent Night, Holy Night" and "Jingle Bells". Merry Xmas everyone.
Come As You Are	20.10.2002	03:46	5.18 MB	A cover of Nirvana's "Come As You Are".	This is a cover of Nirvana's song "Come As You Are". It's an experiment with the Native Instruments B4 plugin and my newly acquired acoustic guitar. It also features me on vocals (a bit out of tune sometimes unfortunately, but well, it was a quick hack ;-)
Farewell to Arms	09.08.2002	07:48	7.14 MB	A progressive rock song featuring me not only on guitars but also on vocals for a change. Be warned ;)	This is an anti-war song I wrote way back when there was still war in Bosnia. I finally found the time to record it decently. But beware! It has me on vocals...and I'm not really a singer ;-) As usual I composed, arranged & recorded everything of this song, guitars, bass, keys, drums...and this time even vocals. The drums and bass takes were done about 2 years ago, in 2000. The rest was done in just about 2 days a couple of weeks ago in July 2002. Took me quite a while to record this baby, ey?
Exotic	08.06.2002	03:21	3.07 MB	Instrumental progressive rock song	I was playing around a bit with VST instruments (in other words, software synthesizers) and came up with this little thing. It's a rather guitar-oriented, progressive rock song that features a nice tabla throughout. Musically there's a lot of weird stuff going on in the C parts of the song. Enjoy!
Just Some Song	14.05.2001	04:13	6.53 MB	Instrumental guitar/keyboard rock song	This is a little tune I put together in a few days to further test the recording capabilities of my new AMD Athlon 1 GHz PC. It's a rather happy instrumental song with a slower part in the middle and features lots of guitars and also some keyboard lines in the chorus. The day I wrote this song we had really nice spring weather with only a few clouds high up in the sky. So that might explain why it's a happy tune just right for spring time and in the slower middle part you have to imagine some clouds that cover up the sun.
Simpsons On Acid	11.03.2001	01:29	1.36 MB	A cover of the Simpsons title melody	In February 2001 I bought a new PC (a 1 GHz Athlon with ABIT KT7A-RAID motherboard) and so I decided it would be a good idea to record some cover version to see how well recording works with it. And as I'm a big fan of the Simpsons cartoon series I thought it would be cool to do a heavy guitar version of the Simpsons title melody. This track uses 48(!) audio tracks and quite a lot of effects and EQs in Cubase VST and resource usage of my new PC was only at 25% :-) There's a also a very special treat for guitar players for this song: The corresponding guitar tablature in PowerTab format.
Christmas Medley 1999	26.12.1999	01:31	2.09 MB	A medley of the well-known Christmas songs "Little Drummer Boy" and "We Wish You A Merry Christmas"	I wanted to record some Christmas treat for a friend of mine. This is the outcome. It's a medley of the well-known Christmas songs "Little Drummer Boy" and "We Wish You A Merry Christmas". It was completely recorded on the 25th of December 1999 in approximately 3 hours.
Prelude	10.11.1999	01:28	2.01 MB	Classical piano piece played with electric guitar, bass, drums and of course piano.	This song is a classical piano piece arranged for electric guitar, bass, drums and piano. It is quite fast and a very good arpeggio exercise for every guitarist (probably also for every keyboarder out there but being a guitarist I can only judge it from my point of view).
Tightness	12.09.1999	03:16	4.50 MB	Instrumental Rock	This is a very rhythm-oriented, short rock song. It uses the classic rock instrument trio - drums, bass and guitar (although the guitar is clean throughout except for a short solo piece where I use a distorted guitar sound). This song has been spooking around in my head for ages and I'm happy that I finally have the time to record it.
Moving	15.08.1999	03:13	3.12 MB	Heavy Instrumental Shredding Rock	This song was basically composed shortly after a heavy car accident I had on November 6th in 1998. I began to work again on the song sometime in March 1999 when I started to record the basic riffs. The solos were worked out a little later, sometime in April and May 1999, but were recorded in the end of July 1999. The song turned out to be rather heavy and also I do more guitar shredding than in my other songs (at least that's what I think, but judge for yourself). This is also basically the first song where I really use the full tonal range of my Ibanez Universe 7-string (going deep down ;-).
Being Lazy	01.08.1999	04:39	4.26 MB	Instrumental Soul/Fusion/Mood or whatever?	A very smooth and relaxing song I composed last summer. It has some nice, slow guitar solos (I think :-) and a cool bass line. I basically composed this song in summer 1998 when I first got my TerraTec EWS64XL and made a quick and dirty recording of it. In February 1999 I began to record almost half of the song. Now I've finally finished it and I must say that I like this song very much. The song title says it all. So come on and be lazy.
Too Short Moments	17.04.1999	02:16	3.13 MB	Instrumental Rock Ballad	I made this tune as a demo for the Line6 POD for a befriended Italian guitarist. At first I just wanted to record some short jingles with only guitar just to demonstrate the capabilities of the POD. But later I loaded a drum soundset into my EWS64 and also made a drum track, then a solo line and so on. Almost all takes are first takes. The guitar stuff was all composed and recorded in about 2 hours in a moment of highest inspiration. That's also the reason why this song is called "Too Short Moments" because these moments of inspiration are usually much too short (might also be a reason why the song is only about 2:20).
Fingers Crossed	26.02.1999	04:24	3.96 MB	Fast Instrumental Rock	This is the first song I ever did using computer based harddisk-recording. So don't expect too much of it. Still, I think it's not so bad for a first try, although I had heavy sync problems with my TerraTec EWS64XL :-( which you can unfortunately hear sometimes. This is also the reason why I'm going to buy a more professional harddisk-recording-card in the near future. If I find the time (and when I have the recording-card) I will probably rerecord this song completely. I got the inspiration to this song from watching TV series such as Melrose Place or Beverly Hills. Although it turned out quite heavier and a little different from the intro songs of those series I think it still captures the spirit and has an easy to remember hook line.

All songs presented here were recorded with an Event/Echo Layla and TerraTec EWS64XL audio card. All of the synth and drum sounds come from the sampler part of the EWS64XL. As guitars I use an Ibanez Universe 7-string guitar, a Jackson Dinky Reverse Professional and a strat-like Kramer guitar. For bass sounds I use an Ibanez ATK 305. The guitars and the bass always go into a DigiTech GSP-2101 preamp/effect processor or into a Line6 POD and from there either with activated speaker simulation directly into the Layla or - mostly for distorted guitar sounds - first via microphone through a mic preamp. I also have a Marshall JCM-800 top with a Marshall 4x12" box and a Marshall Valvestate 8080 combo. Other things used for these recordings include a Dunlop CryBaby Wah and a Morley Bad Horsie Wah (which is simply one of the best wah pedals ever). As mic-preamp currently only a Behringer Ultragain Pro 2200 is used. Microphones in use include a Shure SM-57, a Shure SM-58 and an AKG C-414.

The songs below are songs that I have recorded with bands I play/played in. The quality of these recordings might vary greatly since some of them were recorded live in the rehearsal room. I usually only play guitar on these, sometimes also bass. Enjoy!

Band Name	Song Name	Release Date	Length	Size	Style	Comments
Souled Out	I Feel Like a Woman	23.11.2004	03:41	5.07 MB	Country/Pop	A cover of the well-known Shania Twain song. Nothing special really. This was recorded live in the rehearsal room. The guitar solo was overdubbed later. The song isn't as tight as it could be. I sing the background vocals and re-recorded the bass track on this recording, as well.
Souled Out	Just a Jigolo	23.11.2004	04:31	6.21 MB	Pop	A cover of the song originally performed by David Lee Roth. The vocals are sung by the bass player of the band. I played bass and guitar on this recording.
Souled Out	Perfect Ten	23.11.2004	03:27	4.75 MB	Pop	This recording was performed live in our rehearsal room with some guitar overdubs done later. Originally our female singer in the band did the vocals of the entire song, but then it was decided that I should sing the male part of the original song. So apart from playing guitar I also do half of the lead vocals in this song. Excuse the horrible English pronounciation of our singer ;)
Souled Out	Simply the Best	23.11.2004	03:59	5.48 MB	Rock	A cover of Tina Turner's hit song. Again, this song was recorded live in the rehearsal room and some guitar overdubs, such as the entire solo, done later.
Souled Out	Via Con Me	23.11.2004	02:31	3.45 MB	Rock	This is a home studio recording with the keyboarder of the band on vocals whose voice is perfect for this song. And no, he doesn't have a clue of what he's singing, so excuse any mistakes. This is probably the best recording I have done with Souled Out. The piano you hear is the electrical piano of my sister, if I'm not mistaken ;)