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PRearden, The Good: So glad you enjoyed this! Thanks! The Bad: It is actually a 1/2 bar intro. So it's twice as abrupt as you thought, and I like it. The Ugly: I could have made the intro 3 bars, but that would made the guitar get tedious about 17 seconds earlier, but your point is noted.  The Beast: Why, thank you! HaHa! I never noticed the "Chicago Connection" before! You young whippersnapper! I was a junior in high school when 25 or 6 to 4 came out. Great song, great band! I was listening to an Aimee Mann song a couple of years ago, and it occurred to me that if you take some of the rhythm section out of the mix, the melody is basically "Happy Birthday To You"! Thanks for listening and posting! Steve
Steve Young Music"In order to compose, all you need to do is remember a tune that nobody else has thought of." - Robert Schumann
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Very nice tune and production Steve ! Enjoyed that very much. I'll be checking out more of your music. Keep up the great work !
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Dang! You just keep raising the bar, don't you?
There's really nothing left to say that hasn't already been said. Nicely done - as usual, solid work with lots of nice detail all over the place.
-- David Cuny My virtual singer development blogVocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?BiaB 2025 | Windows 11 | Reaper | Way too many VSTis.
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Mitch, Thank you so very much. I have been listening to your stuff, and it's quite impressive. I especially enjoy the lap steel and dobro. I look forward to hear more from you, especially now that you are working with Band In A Box. Great stuff. And this is not the saccharin speaking. David, I always appreciate your comments. Your words have helped me in the past. Appreciated. Steve
Steve Young Music"In order to compose, all you need to do is remember a tune that nobody else has thought of." - Robert Schumann
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Quote:
Brallan,
Thanks so much! As to my mellow harmonies, I guess the secret is age. I'm getting old! But seriously, I layer my background vocals. In this song there are 4 part harmonies, and each part was recorded 3 times each. So there are 12 tracks of just background vocals. I don't copy and paste them, I actually sing them individually. I usually just one-take each part - I don't worry if I'm a little off on some of the tracks (only a little of, though). That way, when mixed, it gives it a little more of a real choir sound. Hopefully this answers your question.
Wow, that is heroic effort, and it pays off.
Apropos of this, and a couple of other recent threads which discuss singing and pitch-shifting and stuff, I think your approach nicely illustrates that the best way, maybe the only way, to come up with good singing is to practice, practice, etc. Over and over, and doing background vocals is a sure way of "tuning" the instrument.
There has been some recent commentary against software manipulation of voice, and I agree that it should be avoided, or at least used judiciously, but not for moral reasons, but simply because it takes away the practice effort.
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very well done kept me engaged all the way through thanks and it demostrates band in the box very well eric
AMD (TM) 5950 4.9 GHz 16Core Processor 64 bit 32 bits of ram windows 10 pro 64 bit os. sound card Antelope ZenQ guitars Ibanez 2202a 1968 les Paul Custom and Cavin ae 185 Guitar boss Gt-100,GT1000 pedal Yamaha HS8 studio monitors
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hmmm.. this was posted 4 days ago, and I didn't see it until now!
Many postings on the forum are easily identified as having been created with BIAB, but you made a lot of subtle choices here and the end result is a song that sounds very original and human. If I had heard it anywhere else, I would not have assumed it was built with real tracks. I'd guess you put a lot of effort into this song... you certainly didn't just enter some chords, pick a style and generate!
As stated already, your vocals are amazingly smooth! By our age, most people's vocal chords have been ravaged by a lifetime of detrimental influences.
I like the variety of ways you built the song up without allowing it to get redundant. The guitar solos were particularly suitable to the song... they didn't sound generic, but rather more like the sort of passage that was specifically tailored to one and only one song
Another thing I notice is that the choice of instruments was such that everybody wasn't emphasizing the same beat all the time... each instrument filled in the space with timing that was different enough to avoid the predictable tempo that undermines a lot of songs. It had a pleasant syncopation without risking the consistency of the tempo.
I liked the intro, the development and the conclusion... and no muddiness whatsoever.
I'd agree that there were moments when I was reminded of Chicago and Bread... plus:
Emerson Lake and Palmer (intro reminded me of "from the beginning")
the Beatles (guitar solo reminded me of "my guitar gently weeps)
the Association (due to the layered backing vocals in "Cherish")
Very nice! And high praise from all the heavy hitters here on the forum who routinely post excellent songs themselves, and know a good song when they hear one!
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Lovely development and end result! I too feel the guitar may be a bit exposed in the intro, and sadly out-of tune on the second chord following the Am7, which sounds like an Am7/F# with the F# somewhat sharp... That would be a sharp D string on my guitar... But it's a fly in the ointment, and perhaps only to my ears... and I ask your forgiveness given all the very positive responses, especially to your fine vocal work and the string arrangement, which are marvelous. I too, enjoy the Bread style affinities and tip my hat to you.
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Brad, Thanks once again for your kind comments! Eric, Thank you very much. I appreciate your listening time and comments! Pat, What do you mean, "at our age"?!?!?!? Why, I'm just getting started. If you want to get old, go ahead! Seriously, thanks so much for your very kind words! Very much appreciated! DrDuBose, Thank you so much for your input! I do know the guitar is slightly out of tune. But it's a RealTrack, and I can't do much about it. It has the "sound" I was looking for. I tried the other fingerpicking tracks and they just didn't have what wanted. It does bug me just a little every time I hear the guitar but for now, that's just where it is. When I get to where I have some time I may record the guitar part myself. Just been swamped lately. With BIAB I can put together an entire song in an hour or 2. Awesome tool! Thanks again for your input! === Steve
Steve Young Music"In order to compose, all you need to do is remember a tune that nobody else has thought of." - Robert Schumann
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Quote:
I do know the guitar is slightly out of tune. But it's a RealTrack, and I can't do much about it. It has the "sound" I was looking for.
Steve - I envy you guys with the good ears.
Maybe just use G-SNAP pitch correction - just highlight the out of tune section and try to fix that way - not much of a nudge.
What a wonderful production! Ian
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Thanks, Ian.
I use Logic (Mac), and it has its own (pretty decent) pitch correction plugin. I hadn't thought of using a pitch correction plugin, since this is not a single pitch, but rather a triad, and I was under the impression it would not work. I will give it a try next chance I have to go to it. Can't hurt to try!
Does anybody have any experience using pitch correction on a chord?
Thanks,
Steve
Steve Young Music"In order to compose, all you need to do is remember a tune that nobody else has thought of." - Robert Schumann
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Melodyne handles polyphony. I only played around with the demo version, and managed to correct a chunk of music where the alto was way out of tune, where I didn't have the option for re-recording the track. Pretty amazing stuff.
-- David Cuny My virtual singer development blogVocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?BiaB 2025 | Windows 11 | Reaper | Way too many VSTis.
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Quote:
Does anybody have any experience using pitch correction on a chord?
The Melodyne demo is 30-day that Dave is talking about. I've never tried the chord pitch correction but if Dave says it's so . . . I can't wait.  . . . seriously.
Ian 
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Steve,
Absolutely beautiful. There are other superlatives I could use, but brevity is the soul of wit.
Regards,
Bob
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Quote:
Melodyne handles polyphony. I only played around with the demo version, and managed to correct a chunk of music where the alto was way out of tune, where I didn't have the option for re-recording the track. Pretty amazing stuff.
it should be noted that there are several versions of melodyne, and not all of them handle multiple notes.
Melodyne EDITOR and Melodyne STUDIO both handle polyphony (any of their products that say "DNA" on the box can handle chords.)
Melodyne ESSENTIAL and Melodyne ASSISTANT can only work with mono tracks that have no more than one note playing at a time
You see lots of negative reviews from people who thought they were getting the flagship DNA product for a cheap price only to learn that they bought the entry level product instead.
But the Editor really is SLICK! It does a lot more than just correct pitch. The videos on the celemony web site are worth watching.
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Thanks, David for the heads up on Melodyne. Thanks, Ian for confirming the heads up. I guess 2 heads are better than one!
Bob, thank you for listening and posting such a kind comment!
Pat, thanks for the heads up about the heads up about Melodyne! I hope to download the demo tomorrow night.
Steve
Steve Young Music"In order to compose, all you need to do is remember a tune that nobody else has thought of." - Robert Schumann
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I hate it when that happens! A Real Track with a flaw. It happens, and I was afraid of something like that. What to do...? Alternative instrument? Transform the chord where the flaw is less prominent? It's very rare whenever that happens, isn't it?... Throw a little chorusing at the track maybe? Wetten it a bit with some modulation effect... I still love your creation, and thank you for sharing it, and bringing back some of that lyrical quality in the melody and harmonies, that I recall from D. Gates.
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Quote:
I hate it when that happens! A Real Track with a flaw. It happens, and I was afraid of something like that. What to do...? Alternative instrument? Transform the chord where the flaw is less prominent? It's very rare whenever that happens, isn't it?... Throw a little chorusing at the track maybe? Wetten it a bit with some modulation effect... I still love your creation, and thank you for sharing it, and bringing back some of that lyrical quality in the melody and harmonies, that I recall from D. Gates.
sometimes just using a slight variation of the chord will yield better results.. instead of a C maybe a C7 or C2. I recently had the same situation, and a variant of the chord yielded results I could live with.
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