River of Doubt (2008)
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I originally posted this in November of 2005 and it got a lot of good comments then. When I got Logic I decided to rework a lot of my songs. I've been working on this one for a while now and I think it's at a point where I can work on it no longer and would be interested to hear what you think.

If there are those that recall the previous version, this is the Logic Pro re-working of it. There is a section added in the beginning with a bit of an intro on Sculpture synth and charango. The rest of it is the original tracks with some replaced instruments. I took out the Drums on Demand drum loops and programmed EZ Drummer parts instead, and I had to replace the SonicBoombox Berimbau midi parts with EXS24 parts since the Sonic Boombox instruments don't work on my new Intel Mac and I lost those and replaced those with some instruments from the Ultrabeat Asian kit. The mix is pretty well re-worked in Logic, with some tracks getting deleted and other effects being added. This will only be evident to those who are familiar with the original version. If you are really curious, you could listen to the original version (posted on MacIdol):Here. I thought rather than replace it with this version I would leave the original up for comparison's sake, as its interesting to see if I've made any advances in 2+ years! LOL

I heard this great story on NPR about President Theodore Roosevelt traveling in the Amazon up this river somewhat ominously named Rio da Duvida, the River of Doubt. Here's a link to the story. This inspired me to reflect on my own life and this song came out. I was thinking of changing jobs at the time and felt it was rather risky but needed to be done for questions of sanity. I did change jobs, and actually the new job didn't work out very well and I went through a very rough patch; after a year and a half I was laid off. I did land another job that actually is pretty much perfect for me anyway, so it was well worth the risk and all came out well in the end.