Cross-eyed Studio

A new presentation of an old hymn

Lily (13) just picked up the guitar a few months earlier, and she is self-taught so far. She had the idea we should play an instrumental duet of Silent Night for Christmas. So I charted out the framework, and we separately wrote our parts. This video is just shot on a cellphone and it's just us practicing, but it puts a smile on my face to hear what we made together! We will be performing it publicly at church for our Christmas dinner program. Merry Christmas!

A reminder of the sacrifice made by the Man of Sorrows to save His Bride; and a call to Her faithfulness until the day of redemption. Lyrics and Music by Randy Hayes Performed by Randy and Jennifer Hayes Photography Credits: Andrey Grinkevich (Thorns) James Coleman (Bread and Wine) Randy Hayes (Sunset Sky, Rainbow)

Our family performs this classic Christmas carol on December 14, 2018. Based on the arrangement by Sovereign Grace Music. Left to right: Isaac (15) on bass Lily (12) on Korg minilogue Jennifer (Mommy) on vocals and tambourine Randy (Daddy) on vocal and acoustic guitar Samuel (18) on cajon Timothy (14) on piano Merry Christmas! Forgiveness and life is found in Jesus the Savior!

I created a lyrical song using only the PO-24 from Teenage Engineering. I had determined to create one lyrical song for each of my Pocket Operators and record an EP. Then I bought three more, so it may as well become a full album. I knew that the PO-24 would present the greatest challenge to create a compelling song, so that's where I started. Out of the box, this is the least musical Pocket Operator. So here is how I pulled it off: 1) Create charts of numerical equivalents for the bass and melody notes 2) Write the lyrics 3) Create the bassline (chord chart) and general framework for the vocal melody with help from Korg Gadget 4) Write out the bassline as a chord chart, and then create a chart of the numerical equivalents on the PO-24 5) Determine how to do it all with 16 patterns 6) Program 7) Rehearse soloing parts for the intro and live-performing effects throughout 8) Record the PO-24 performance 9) Added EQ, compression, and reverb 10) Add vocals & vocal effects

Learn how to use your own loops and stretch them to always play in sync with your step sequences, and open up and brave new world where tempo, swing, and sample playback speed are free and independent!

This fun little song is meant to showcase a trick I discovered while playing around with my Volca Keys: Sequencing 8 measures of music per memory slot as opposed to the typical one measure sequence. I will create a tutorial to explain how you can do it too.

This performance demonstrates the Volca Sample's hidden secret ability to do time stretching to any sample. This allows for even more potential than what was explored here, such as re-slicing your existing loop files to match any tempo or swing setting on the Volca Sample. I'll be creating a tutorial video about how to do this yourself, so stay tuned!

Use the stock samples on the Volca Sample to create a live-performable arpeggio keyboard patch

Salvation has a name, and that name is Jesus! Many times in the Bible, Jesus is quoted as personally addressing the person he is conversing with. Think of "Simon, Son of John, do you love me". Or at the tomb after the resurrection, he simply says, "Mary," and she instantly recognizes him as her friend, risen from the dead! "Saul, Saul," and the list goes on and on. But do the Scriptures ever depict anyone addressing Jesus by name while conversing with him? In fact, there are eight times that the name of Jesus is spoken directly to the Lord. And out of these, six unique needs of humanity are demonstrated: Salvation: Matthew 1:21, Luke 1:31 and 2:21 Cleansing: Mark 1:24 and Luke 4:34; Mark 5:7 and Luke 8:28 Healing: Mark 10:47, Luke 17:12-13 Redemption: Luke 23:42 Devotion: Acts 7:59 Forbearance: Rev. 22:20 Be sure to read those verses in their context to get the whole story of each situation -- the emotion, the need, the care shown by the Son of God in a way that only he could provide. I hope you enjoy hearing and singing along with this new hymn as much as I have enjoyed writing and recording it!

My family fulfilled a long-held dream of assembling a band, writing original material, and performing a full-length concert. The original date and location was 12/18/2020 at Crossview Alliance Church in Fayetteville, NC. 0:00 Introduction by Pastor Jeff West 2:38 Sing We Now of Christmas, acapella 7:25 Dawn of Anno Domini 12:24 Storytelling, Act I - Timothy's original piano solo 18:04 Winter Song 23:06 Star of Wonder 26:30 Storytelling, Act II - Silent Night guitar duet 30:05 Child Jesus 35:07 Father, It's Heavenly 41:24 Storytelling, Act III - It Came Upon The Midnight Clear piano duet (Jennifer & Lily), Away In A Manger piano solo (Timothy) 47:16 Away In A Manger (with original 4th verse) 49:54 Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee 52:44 Hark The Herald Angels Sing 55:18 O Come All Ye Faithful 58:39 Dawn of Anno Domini, reprise with kids 1:03:38 Closing

In this tutorial, I demonstrate the Korg Volca Keys' "secret ability" to create 8-bar (8-measure) sequences in each of the eight memory slots, and I teach you how to do it yourself using a dital audio workstation with a MIDI output.

I wrote this song to record with my six kids for my wonderful wife for her Mother's Day gift. For inspiration, besides their Mommy, I drew from Proverbs 31 when writing the lyrics. We were delighted to have her dad come join in on the third verse for a bonus surprise. Isaac (15) played bass, Timothy (13) played drums, I played everything else, and we all sang. The instrumental interlude was performed on a Korg Volca Keys. Besides adding reverb, the Keys was mixed exactly as it comes out of the headphone jack -- with no additional EQ or compression. Happy Mother's Day! Here's to all the women who work so tirelessly to shape the next generations. For anyone still reading and curious, the background image was a photo of last year's gift which was a shirt we made handprints and lettering on by creating hand outlines with gaffer's tape (see the last image in the video) and then lightly misting with bleach. It was her favorite shirt for the past year. If you want to try it yourself, get two shirts so you can experiment with the amount of bleach and the length of time to let it work in before washing. A little bleach goes a long way.

Music Credits Drums: Timothy Hayes Choir: Jennifer Hayes, Lily Hayes, Jessica Hayes, Samuel Hayes, Stacey McLeod, John, McLeod, Sharon McGhee, Carl McGhee, Timothy Hayes, Isaac Hayes, and Andrew McLeod All other instrumentation by Randy Hayes Thank you to all who have been an encouragement to me lately in songwriting, including my parents, my kids, Donna Bramell, Melanie Bowden, Jeff West, David Young, Fletcher Hardison, Eb Strickland, Andy Hill, John and Andrew McLeod, Danny Trimpey, Anil Samuel, Vijay Thombre, and Joey Ashley. Video Credits Photography (Unsplash.com): Jonathan Rados, Priscilla Du Preez Videography (Pexels.com): Harrison Haines, Tom Fisk, Wolfgang Saurwald, Joel Dunn, Motion Places, Richard Esquivel, Kelly Lacy, Ruvim Miksanskiy, Stefano Rinaldo, Eberhard Grossgasteiger, Caio Resende

This song was performed on the KORG Volca Sample in order to demonstrate a method of creating arpeggios and melodies using only the stock samples -- and a bass drum sample at that! I have created a tutorial to explain how it was done: (coming soon)