One of my racks of gear:

On vacation with my beautiful electric oud made by Viken Najarian (www.oud.net)

Here is a generic picture of a Yayli Tanbur. 


A Yayli Tanbur is a long necked Turkish stringed instrument, lower pitched than the cumbus, played with a plectrum or a bow.  

Friday night I had the pleasure of recording at my friend Ian's studio.  I played my Yayli Tanbur through a Neumann U87 mic with an API 512 Mic Pre. 

  I am now in the production phase, constructing accompanying sound layers with Spectrasonics Atmosphere.  Atmosphere is my absolute favorite "Dream Synth" software and I went without it for most of this year since it didn't run on my new Intel mac.  The company finally created a Universal Binary wrapper that resolves the problem and I am thrilled.  Just used it again for the first time last night.....ahhhh, sweet!

The U 87 is probably the best known and most widely used Neumann studio microphone. It is equipped with a large dual-diaphragm capsule with three directional patterns: omnidirectional, cardioid and figure-8. These are selectable with a switch below the headgrille.

I just received my Kore 2 update in the mail...will be installing it after I come home from the studio tonight where I am recording my Yayli Tabur with some great mic pre's and high end mics.

  I am looking forward to playing with Kore and Komplete 5.  I've been so busy with some friends visiting from out of town that I haven't had time to play with the new Guitar Rig and Kontact.  Too much cool stuff!

>>KORE 2 is the Super Instrument – a powerful software / hardware system with a versatile library of more than 500 production-ready sounds, with over 3,000 sound variations and over 400 FX KoreSounds. Find, play, and tweak sounds with unprecedented speed, power and ease.

KORE 2 features six integrated audio engines, a dedicated hardware controller, and the ultra-fast KoreSound® browser. Additionally, KORE 2 is infinitely expandable with the KORESOUND PACKS, KOMPLETE 5 or any other Audio Unit™/VST®-plug-in.<<

Thanks to my new friend Ian giving me intense tutorials, I am learning Reason very quickly.  I've actually had Reason since v2 and never really used it aside from a Subtractor patch now and again.  Now I am moving at quite the clip, so to speak,  being fully enchanted by the depth of this program.  Thanks, Ian!