Wyrd by Greg Rapaport

Wyrd is the third solo venture and has a lot of new ideas and interesting sounds. I took it upon myself to expand on my songwriting using Artifacts as my jumping off point. I used songs like Heavylikejupiter, Dr. Ha, and Liar as good models to follow. The songwriting got a lot heavier and a bit more complex as the album continued to develop.

I was interested in creating seriously heavy guitar tracks and by spreading them far apart I created a large sound but being careful not to cloud up the mix. The bass sound changed from song to song as necessary. The drum sounds remained fairly consistent. The keyboard sounds varied from the traditional to the outlandish.

I recorded all the rhythm tracks first so I could continue to develop my soloing ability. (don't really know if that helped). Wyrd was recorded at my home studio on my VS-1680 using the Line6 POD as my preamp while employing the effects on the VS. About half of the rhythm tracks were done using my Ibanez 7620 while the other half was done with my Carvin DC-747c. The solos were done with the Carvin as well. Additionally I used an Ibanez 5 string bass to cover the low end. I also tried to expand on my bass playing a bit by featuring it more as a solo instrument in a few tunes.

Greg is an extended range guitarist and bassist. His musical focus is a combination of instrumental progressive-metal and jazz-fusion. He currently teaches at U Music School in Croton On Hudson NY. Living in Yorktown New York, he writes and records his own material and does production/engineering work for clients in his project studio.