I succumbed to the Black Friday madness back in November when I received a bunch of e-mail promotions from music gear makers. The most alluring was 50% off two pieces of software on which I’ve had my eye — Guitar Rig 4 Pro and Kontakt 4, both by Native Instruments.

Cakewalk SONAR came with a limited edition version of Guitar Rig 3, which I wasn’t really able to use with the old computer. The new computer, on the other hand, handles it wonderfully, and I’ve been re-recording a number of songs with actual guitar parts. (I’ve been faking the parts with Reason, fooling most people when I don’t mention it’s actually a sampler they’re hearing.)

The professional version of Guitar Rig includes more amplifiers and effects, but the software-only version is not sold by retailers — places like Guitar Center carry the version with a hardware controller, which I don’t need and probably wouldn’t know how to use anyway. So I’ve been keeping my eye out on a discount from the company, which happened on Black Friday.

Yes, I know I’m supposed to shop for other people on that day, but I’d been waiting a long time for this kind of discount. Also, I had a feeling it would pick me up after what I anticipated would be a bad trip.

My anticipation certainly underestimated the outcome.

So yesterday I installed my purchases, and today, I record some guitar parts for a song titled "Revulsion". I still need to clean up a few parts, but on the whole, I like the results.

(I hope this link to the Eponymous 4 Facebook Page works because that’s where I posted the audio file.)

$(function () {$e4($(‘#revulsion’)[0]).load_track(‘Eponymous_4_-_Revulsion_Ex_Machina_Mix.mp3′,’vocals’);});