Here's a short instrumental I made with BiaB today: I'm Going Home. It's more a exercise than a real song - the goal was use a RealTrack soloist to come up with coherent melodic line. Seems a simple enough task, right? I don't want to admit to the number of hours I spent fiddling with this...

The track was initially generated by BIAB using the Melodist using the Pop 8 - JBuffet style. The instruments are:

• NashvilleEven16^1[Sidestick,Ride]
  
• BossaRockPerc^2-Congas Only
  
• BossaRockPerc^2-Perc Only
  
• 683 - Bass, Electric, PopHalfNotesPush Ev 120
  
• 691 - Guitar, Acoustic, Strumming AcRockBrightEven 120
  
• 708 - Guitar, NylonElec, Rhythm Bossa Ev 140
  
• 553 - Guitar, Acoustic, Fingerpicking Ev 120
  
• 811 - Piano, Acoustic, Solo-Acc PopVancover Ev 100
  
• 704 - Flute Soloist Bossa Ev 140
  

The tracks were exported as .WAV files and imported into Reaper. The flute tracks were rendered at 140 BPM and time stretched down to 120 BPM them in Reaper to avoid artifacts. BiaB does an excellent job stretching material upward, but going down is prone to artifacts.

Three different flute parts were created, and I tried to cut and paste together something resembling a melody. There's a lot of editing done to the melody line, including stretching and pitch shifting notes. The other instruments are pretty much "raw" from BiaB, with the addition of volume envelopes. Various reverb has been applied to instruments, and the flute has some FX added to it.

I hadn't intended it to make this quite so short, but the end of one of the flute phrases had a nice cadence in it, so I decided to end it there.

Rather than EQ this properly, I EQ'd a few of the instruments and then got lazy and used the free BuzzRizer2 VST with the Classic 3 setting for the entire mix. So it's not properly balanced, and the upper end is a bit grainy.

I'm probably done fooling around with this, although I'm an inveterate tinkerer... Feedback is welcome!

Hi David,

A skillful arrangement that shows a good sense of the bossanova style. Everything flows really well. Just today, I was playing around with time-stretching on Reaper and found myself wondering how it would go with Realtracks! You've saved me the effort of experimenting. I'm impressed. On my speakers, the flute overshadowed the accompaniment and I wondered how the arrangement would sound with the rhythm section brought a little more forward.

Other than that, I enjoyed it.

Regards,
Noel

Hi, Noel. Thanks for listening! Instead of bringing the rhythm up, I'll first try bringing the lead down a bit - I think it's a tad shrill. But first, some sleep, and some fresh ears in the morning.

I'm also a bit unsure about the piano at 0:35. Where it overlaps with the flute, it's fine, but where they're both playing it's a bit fussy. I wanted to give the listener a short break from the flute at that point, and initially dropped it out entirely. But there was a nice little flute phrase what worked nicely as a response to the piano, and bit by bit the flute came back.

I'm very happy with Reaper's time stretching. BiaB has a number of RealTracks - like the flute - which I just love, but don't have native lower tempo options. You can get very surgical precision as well. For example, at 0:30 I've messed with the phrase pretty extensively, and the playback rate for the notes ranges between 152% down to 51%. If you listen carefully you can hear the difference, but it's more because I've used short notes with differing vibrato.

Just be warned that you can end up tweaking stuff forever, and no one other than you will ever hear the difference.

Hi Dc,Nice mix though I find the flute a little bit to much up front and would have liked a bit more reverb.Also I would have preferred to have listened to the intro accoustic guitars a bit longer before the flute came in.But the point you are making is spot on showing what could be done with this great software.Cheers Frankie

David, this sounds really good - love the way it flows. Nice job.

Bob

Thanks for all the input! There's a new mix: I'm Going Home Mix 2.

I've made the following changes:

• Added a guitar vamp at the beginning.
  
• Lowered the volume on the flute.
  
• Changed the reverb on the flute.
  
• Brought the nylon string in on a few parts.
  
• Fiddled with other bits.
  
• Once again resisted adding a "cha-cha-cha" ending.

So it must be better!

Hi David,

Yep, it's definitely easier to listen to. The mix blends together as a whole now. The only thing I'd suggest is to raise the bass a tad higher. Maybe it's my ears, but the bass seemed very quiet. I'm impressed with your ability to make electronic adjustments sound so natural.

Regards,
Noel

Mix 2 is the winner There are some great songs being posted with RT's and this is another example of what can be done with them. Fantastic job with the ol slice and dice to come up with this one, I liked it !!

Trax

Hey David,
I really enjoyed listening to this. I liked MIX 2 a lot better than the first. BUT, I was impressed with it before I heard the 2nd verson ....

Danny

OK, I've posted another (and likely final) mix: I'm Going Home Mix 3

Noel, you're right about the bass. I'm always a bit paranoid about setting the bass too high, so I'm a bit conservative. I checked it out in the scope, and it was about 10db lower than my reference song. So I boosted it up a bit.

I also couldn't resist adding a bit more of an introduction. I'm not sure that it's an improvement, but this isn't really a serious piece, so no biggie. I fiddled with a number of other things, but can't remember them off the top of my head.

Thanks everyone for listening and your feedback!