Blues with a Rhumba backbeat was quite popular back in the day, Albert king did quite a few as did B.B. King, Magic Sam, etc. Pretty much everyone had one or two in their repertoire, about time we added one to ours

In the still of the night


In the still of the night, 2018 Christiane Spruit

V1) when the night shines silver
and the dark takes the sky
when the band begins to gather
in the smoke and the light

Come on and dance with me
in the still of the night

V2) while the dogs are sleeping
one eye open wide
in the heat and in the gleaming
lonely cats come alive

Come on and dance with me
in the gleam of the light

Bridge:

they will come
and they will go
some will say I love you
I'd love a gin, a drink on ice
but baby we both know

Solo

V3) we walk the street of money
he's been talking for a while
little children and the struggle
hush now baby, we'll survive

Outro vamp: Come on, hush now, survive

A note from Chris about the lyrics:

"It is a song about a private dancer in a bar.

The dogs are the pimps, and the cats are the johns on the hunt for love...."

The Band:

RealDrums in Song: Rumba^1-a:Sidestick, HiHat , b:Sidestick, Ride
RealTracks in song: 1417:Bass, Electric, RootsRock Ev 100
RealTracks in song: 2905:Guitar, Electric, Rhythm BrightBluesyPopColin Ev 100
MIDI SuperTracks in song: 3004:Piano, ElectricVintage, Rhythm BluesyPopMike Ev 100

I'm playing the lead guitar.

Mixed with Reaper, mastered with Ozone 8 and LMC. Plugins from Waves and iZotope, I'll go into detail if anyone is interested.

Soundcloud link: https://soundcloud.com/blue-attitude/in-the-still-of-the-night-featuring-chris-spruit
Youtube link: https://youtu.be/mnvdN5exp_0

Thanks for stopping by and all comments welcome!

Dave & Chris,

LOVE everything about this!

The beat is infectious. Chair dancing happening immediately...

Excellent write - such interesting lyrics - especially for a Blues song. Chris' vocal is SO in-the-pocket - goosebumps good.

Dave - your solo on this is a real standout. The tone is sweeeet (S-gear, I assume?)...but more importantly, it sounds more like another singer than a "guitar guy showing off". EXCEPTIONAL.

The mix is Top-Notch. EVERYTHING in the right place, So good.

I think this is another 4-time listen (maybe 5) as I write this... Enjoyed each one more....

fj

Wow, I'd have never thunk blues would sound so good with a rhumba beat Love the slow, smooth groove to this. It has a smoky quality, and the vocals are top notch. Thanks for sharing!

Really COOL vibe and lyrics. So smooth and slinky fits the lyrics perfectly. Love the vocals.

Boy did this sound good on the headphones. What a cool mix. I am with Floyd what a cool rhythm to the song. Lovely vocal from Chris. She has quite a few different textures to her voice. Very cool.. Loved your guitar. Neat how you had it set a little bit to the right side. Gave the song a live feel to. Tone and touch was so good. Well done..

You two have resided on a high performance bar for a long time but...

We gotta say this one pushes that bar into the stratosphere!

We've always enjoyed the two Kings when they used this groove and, man, is it ever cool to hear y'all take it on.

The groove is infectious, everything is mixed to perfection and that allows your performance on guitar and Chris's vocal to just smoke. Both are spectacular. And that write just won't leave you.

Pro level any way you want to look at it and deserving of a wide audience!

J&B

Edit: We just listened more today and Janice said that during your sublime solo she could picture water flowing down a winding stream.

Dave & Chris

Wonderful sultry blues. Beautiful vocal and an excellent lyric.

Loved the beat and Dave that guitar sounds superb. Great intro to the solo (need to borrow that one)
and great phrasing throughout.

As Bud & Janice said absolutely pro level.

Peter

Rumba Blues! I love it

solid write, very nice vocals

guitar sounds great as usual

a cool song, I can sense the smoky atmosphere

Kenny

Hey Dave

Nice job. Love the guitar work. I might cop a few of those licks

Thanks for posting this and opening up peoples ears that Blues is not just about 12 bar shuffles.!!

Cheers
Mark

Cool vibe!! Steamy lyrics and vocals, and some very sweet, tasty guitar! Everything works for me. Great job guys!! Take care. Greg

Dave & Chris,
Very smooth and infectious rhythm and I agree with the plaudits already written- especially Floyd`s comment on your guitar sounding like a second vocalist.
And what a singer Chris is! Nice touches of harmony too.
Your vocal processing is flawless here.
The bridge lyrics gave me pause `til I read the note and then I understood what a cool write this is.
Top shelf in every way!

Robert

Dave and Chris

That was astounding the guitar playing, the vocals, the style, feel,

Through the headphones I swear I could hear it in my fingertips, this is pro stuff and what a mix.

Hi, Dave & Christiane !


Absolutely superb tune and
performance ! I enjoyed it
very much ! Oh, that wonderful
voice !:))Could hardly get any better
than this !!!

Cheers
Dani

BRILLIANT, Love the vocals as well. Nice one

Night-timey tone, Dave. Smokey vocals and smokey lyric. Head-nodding rhythm, just a bit alcoholic. Good one.

Cool,
there were spots in the vocal that reminded me of Chrissie Amphlett .
Who is that cool voice?
VERY well assembled package - the solo guitar has a very sweet tone.

Hi Dave,

You and Chris have done it again! You've created yet another outstanding work.

I love the rhumba (and Latin dance styles in general). Incorporating it with blues/jazz and getting that crossover between the two styles makes for a really, really fine listen. As J&B have said, you've reached the stratosphere with this work. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

You and Chris have become a songwriting force extraordinaire!

All the best,
Noel

Thanks so much, Floyd! Every so often you start working on a project and everything just seems "right" about it, and this was one of those times. Took us a while to get the arrangement sorted, but we both had lots of fun working on it.

For the guitar, what I've been trying to do over the last little while is to keep things melodic instead of just playing a bunch of licks, sort of treating it as a little mini-composition that compliments the rest of the piece. Sometimes I pull it off, other times, not so much!

Yes, I've been using S-Gear for a couple of years now ever since I heard the great tone that Tom Adams gets with it. For the last few songs I've been experimenting with copying the guitar track onto a new track and using a different instance of S-Gear on each one. In this case, one has a totally clean preset, and the other slightly dirty. And then, blend them to taste. Also on this song I shifted one of the tracks by 10ms to thicken things up a little, first time I've tried that before but sounded good I thought. Also I should mention that I almost always use the CLA Guitars plugin along with S-Gear.

Thanks again, we very much appreciate your comments!

Loved this a lot Dave! You use that new Vocal Doubler plugin on this one? Vocals sound awesome as usual.

Rhythm guitar sound reminded me a lot of the "Eagles - Witchy Woman". It was very well placed in the mix.

Leads were awesome as well.

Aw, yes. This is right up my street. I love the slinky rhythm (nice upfront drums), the vocals, and the superb guitar work (I've been using S-Gear for years also). Also, the engineering is first class and the mix spot on. Off for another listen...

John

Engaging opening

Wonderful Rhumba Blues! Inspirational!

Love your panning choices and the entire mix

Super vocal lead and background (and love the whispers too)

great write, vivid, colorful, and seductive



much enjoyed!

Blues with a rhumba beat has been around for a while, I didn't invent it unfortunately

What prompted me to do the song in the first place was a post in one of the other forums with someone asking for more blues styles, and one of the styles he was looking for was a rhumba style blues.

It's true that pgmusic doesn't have a style specifically for rhumba style blues, but a "style" is just a collection of realtracks. So I thought it would be a fun exercise to make one, and I think it probably took me less than 10 minutes to come up with something that I thought sounded pretty good. In fact I liked it so much I thought I would develop it into a full blown song.

If I have time I might do up a quick article for the tips and tricks forum about the workflow I used, it's basically what I use for all of our songs (I almost never use a "style" right out of the box (bad pun there :P)

Thanks for the listen and comment, Deryk!

Good song with a truly excellent feel, beautifully sung, with really nice guitar. Well mixed, mastered and presented. I reckon this is one of the better songs I’ve heard on the forums. But then, what would I expect? Well done, keep it up.

Tony

Thanks for the listen and comments, Donna!

Very nice Dave! This totally works! Guitar is killer as always and what a vocal! There is some really catchy stuff going on in here! Thanks, Torrey

Thanks, Scott!

As far as the guitar goes I almost always pan them to give the vocal center stage. Exception of course is if I’m doing an instrumental, but I don’t do too many of those these days.

Thanks very much, Bud! We had lots of fun working on this, and at the end of the day that's what matters.

And thanks to Janice: "during your sublime solo she could picture water flowing down a winding stream"

Yeah, I love that!

Yes this is a very familiar groove. I hear BB Kingtoo

I love the vocal too.

SD

Pro song, smooth all the way!
We are particularly impressed by the solo guitar work.

Rob and Anne-Marie

Hey, you can borrow my licks anytime! However that means I get to borrow some of yours

Thanks, Peter!



Yeah, that's exactly what we were going for as far as the mood went.

Thanks, Kenny!

Dave,
First of all, super nice tune! I enjoyed it very much.

You mentioned you can go in details about mix. I hope you are still up for it.
Overall mix is great, I am ages from this sort of sound, but what I am interested is how is vocal routed & processed.

Specifically two questions, if you can.
1) Was any external hardware (except for interface) used, such as preamp or compressor for microphone or it is all software?
2) If it is not trade secret, what plugins were used specifically on vocals? Mostly I am wondering because you mentioned Waves and I am curious if you have used Vocal Rider on it?

Thank you,
Mike.

Yeah Dave,

This is really sultry and sexy. Tell Christine she did a great job!




The mix is excellent as others have noted and that guitar is smokin' man.

Oh wow Dave, outstanding playing, vocals and all around mix. Enjoyed it very much.

Mike B.

Hey Mark,
Sure, you can cop any of my licks! Just so long as you give me credit for them when you get famous and are interviewed by Guitar Player Magazine

Yeah, there is lots more to blues than shuffles, you are right about that!




Thanks for the listen and comments, Greg!

hi dave love this great mix everything perfect vocal spot on love the guitar thanks for sharing eric

Dave / Chris,

This is really great! I love the overall slinky feel of this one. I hear some blues, some Albert, but also some Sade in the way that Chris delivers this song.

Absolutely great!

Bob

BlueAttitude:

Love the vibe on this—love the vocal on this, and particularly that killer lead guitar. Very easy on the ears. Well done!

All the best,

Deej

Thanks very much, Robert!

When it comes to lyrics the ones I write are quite predictable, I just don't have that special gift that people like Chris and you have.

As far as the vocal processing goes, after a couple of years of experimenting I've come to the realization that less is more, at least for her voice. If it was me singing it would be just the opposite




Thanks for the very kind words, appreciated!




Thanks very much, Dani!

Steve, no I didn't use a doubler on this. Chris doesn't like it when I add too much stuff on her vocals, I try and slip stuff in there from time to time but she always tells me to take it off

Here is a cut and paste with a couple of modifications from a post I made over in the songwriting forum that gives the vocal effects chain I used on this song:

1) Neutron 2.
I get the initial setup by running it's track assist function, that is great for finding the interesting EQ nodes and setting the initial parameters for the compressor. Then you can press ALT left mouse button and zoom over those nodes it has identified and hear exactly what is happening there and tweak if needed.

For this mix I am only using the EQ portion and the first compressor, I disabled the other modules.

2) Waves De-Esser

3) Waves Vocal Rider.
This is a great little plugin that saves lots of time drawing in volume automation to keep the levels more constant. Depending on the track sometimes it is all you need, and I see that on this track I didn't do any manual volume automation.

Also I have two sends coming from this track, one is going to a dedicated reverb track, the other to a delay track. Reverb is set to 100% wet, and I adjust the volume of that track until I get the amount of reverb I want. I prefer having the reverb on a separate track because I find it's easier to control that way.
The delay track is using a stereo delay (the one that came with reaper) with two different delay times. The one panned left is set to 100ms, the one panned right is set to 150ms. Subtle but effective.

Thanks Dave!

Thanks very much, Graham



"just a bit alcoholic", I like that! Thanks, Tangmo.




Christiane is from Germany, we bumped into each other over on soundcloud a few years ago and have been working together ever since.

Thanks Ray, appreciate it!

Yes, it really gives it an entirely different feel, that's for sure! Thanks very much, Noel!



Thanks, Steve!




Yes, I love S-Gear! There is a new version coming out soon, before the end of the year I think. Thanks, John!

Really appreciate the positive comments about the mix, means a lot coming from a mix master such as yourself! Thanks!



Cheers, Tony!



Thanks for the listen and comments, Torrey! Love your latest!

Thanks SD! Yes, B.B. Used this groove on a couple of his songs.




Thanks, Rob!



Thanks very much, Mike!

I don't believe in keeping mix tricks to myself. I've learned lots from hanging out on on this forum from guys like Floyd and Bud who are always happy to share their knowledge.

I answered your question about the vocal processing chain I used in the post on the songwriting forum, give me a shout anytime you have questions about something I did.

Thanks, David!



Cheers, Mike!




Always nice to get comments from a fellow guitarist! Thanks, Eric.

Thanks, Bob. Love your latest!



Thanks for the listen and comment, Deej!

Hi Dave and Chris,

Smoking blues! Love everything about this. Everybody has already said everything I can think of to say. So I'll just say - fabulous song, fabulous vocal and fantastic backing tracks. And Dave, your Blues licks are second to none. Chris did a splendid jon on the vocal. Top shelf all the way. Loved it!!!

Alan

Very kind of you, Alan, thanks very much!

Hello, Dave

Super vocal and super guitar!
Superb mix!
Blues and Rhumba get together extremely well.
I agree with David.
This is really sultry and sexy. Tell Christine she did a great job!
Enjoyed my listen a lot.

Best regards.

Shigeki Adachi

Great feel to this, all the way around. Voice quality and instrumentation perfectly matched. Production quality +++. Dave, playing sounded great. Thanks for posting!