Mark Laurent, Brenda Liddiard and Harmen Hielkema at Rawene

This video was taken By Louis Tourenberg of Hokianga at a recent house concert featuring Brenda Liddiard's original songs. These two songs are originals written by Mark Laurent.

Clip one is called "Someday."
Clip two is called "I just wanna be God."

I love playing along with Mark and Brenda. as always, it's all there for me, gentle, melodic, beautiful, meaningful, warm, heartfelt music.

Mark wrote

"The song's actually called Someday & it's on my CD Undergrowth which came out just before we did that gig. Great to have you there Harmen & thanx Louis for videoing it - I never realised - & thanx Janine & Mike for having us do the concert, it was a lovely night on all sorts of levels."

My Cahon and I have a live gig

Richard Adams Nigel Gavin

Last Friday night Julie and I traveled to Kerikeri to meet up with Nigel Gavin and Richard Adams for a performance at the Marsden Estate Winery.

Nigel and Richard opened the evening with a couple of ethereal pieces before inviting me to sit in with them (literally) on my cajon.

We blended well, very quickly, with the cajon directly plugged into the PA system.
Plenty of bass, very little midrange and a tiny bit of treble gave us a very commanding drum sound in the mix. The AKG mike does the business again.

I had a blast, the audience did too!

My Cajon has a microphone

Last week I fitted my AKG C411L active microphone into my Cajon.

This mic is designed for stringed instruments, in my case I had used it in my one string skiffle bass for around 10 years but I have found that it is also suited to the tonality of the cajon.

As always placing it in the sweet spot is the secret to getting a good sound.
















The AKG, 9 v phantom power supply and preamp fits neatly against the outside left panel of the box attached by velcro strips. The 1/4" Jack plug from the amp plugs into the the microphone power supply control box. The mic output lead is connected via a 3 pin Cannon plug set into the box back panel, that way I can remove all the exterior gear when not in use and transfer it to my one string bass which has the same mic set up.




















In my cajon I found that the microphone sounds best placed just above the port at the rear of the box. The microphone is secured with contact gum inside the cabinet at the 11.00 o'clock position at the inside rim of the port.

Played through my 50 watt Jansen Bassman tube amp with its 4 x 12" speaker quad box it sounds huge and very convincingly kick drum and snare like.