"He Aloha No `O Honolulu" - Led Kaapana and Fran Guidry Slack Key

This classic by Lot Kauwe tells of a trip aboard the ship "Maunaloa" traveling from Honolulu harbor via Lahaina, Maui to finally land at Kona, Hawai`i Island. https://www.huapala.org/Hea/Healoha_N...

Led inspired me to learn this song when I heard his instrumental version on his wonderful "Ki Ho`alu" album. I've been playing something based in his version ever since. We have done one video clip of the song with Led playing a 1949 Martin Tiple. I asked Led to do a guitar duet version because we included the song on our new duet slack key CD, "Kaleponi & Kalapana."

Led is playing one of my guitars, a magnificent Kim Walker OM with Cuban mahogany back and sides and red spruce top. I believe this is the debut performance by the Walker, even though I've owned it for a number of years. I'm playing an OM as well, my OM-18GE. Both guitars are tuned to taropatch open G (D G D G B D from low pitch to high).

For this recording I'm using a pair of Shure KSM141 mics set to their cardioid pattern. The mics are arranged as a spaced pair - basically each instrument is close miked from below just out of the video frame. The mics are connected to my new Zoom F6 recorder. The video was captured on two Panasonic Lumix GH4 cameras.

I'm using REAPER to adjust and convert the 32 bit float WAV files produced by the F6. If I crank in too much "gain" or too little on the F6 it's quick and easy to get the levels just right for handing off to my video Non Linear Editor. Edius has been my choice for an NLE ever since I tried it. No subscription model, great flexibility for inputs and outputs, great real-time effects, efficient enough to let me edit comfortably on my three year old laptop.