PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic New user likes to say hello - and welcomes suggestions

Dear all
My name is Daniel, I'm new to the world of BiaB and would like to say hello to you all here. Although I have been lurking on these forums for a couple of weeks (and found answers to many of my questions), this is my very first post.
I've just finished - if one can ever finish a tune - my very first tune (100% Real Tracks) and would like to know your opinion of it.
Bossa Uno

It's a Bossa Nova (well - it turned out to be a sort of Bossa Nova at least) and I am not quite sure about the mix and if I should pan the instruments further apart which sounds nice on the speakers - but not on the headphones). I would welcome all suggestions for improvement. I used to play in my younger days the horn, trombone and even learned (was forced to learn) to play the clarinette. In the mid 90ties I did some midi composing & recording on a AWE32 (notator/creator etc. for those of you who remember these times). About a year ago I started to "manufacture" music again with MusicMaker, then MusicStudio, then Samplitude 10 (which I upgraded now to 11). This is great for creating electronic music and of course for arranging and mastering. But using short samples for creating some decent Swing or Jazz Music proved to be nearly impossible for me. When I first stumbled upon PG Music (just by chance through some comments at KVR) I nearly fell of the chair just listening to the demo songs. Ever since I'm hooked to learn BiaB and TrealTracks. I do use Samplitude to finish the songs, but I'm sure one could do all this work as well with the on board tools of RB & RT. I found out that there's quite some work to do to clean-up the single tracks once they have been auto-created. I guess that's just about the same as if one is recording live at a studio.
This is a great forum for great software and a great community here.

Daniel

Hi Daniel, and welcome!

Will be able to give a listen and a report later on, promise to do so.

In the meantime, let me say that your English is much better than my Swiss would be, not a problem to read and understand your post at all.

I'll be back to listen and will post about that,


--Mac

Welcome, Willkommen, Bienvenu, Benevenuta. You gotta watch the Swiss, they are quite the linguists.

The only thing Swiss about our family is that my wife, and all our kids got an Engraved Swiss Army knife from my father in law for their 10th birthday. My wife carries hers everywhere, unless we travel on a plane. And we use it at least once a week for something!

Your English is great, even some of the 'native English' speakers slay the Queen's English as we say in Canada.

Music is the universal language, let's go.

Hi Mac

Thank you for your quick response! Of course, when I re-listen to the tune now, I seem to want to make changes again.....
But there are other things in the works as well. I'm out of the house soon but am looking forward to be hearing from you.

Daniel

Thank you John
"Willkommen" will do nicely. I'm from the German speaking part of Switzerland. I do speak a little bit French of course (compulsory here at school), but no Italian. The universal language of music I'm just about to learn again. Thank you.
Daniel

Hi Daniel,and welcome to the best forum on the net.

I like the tune,there doesn't seem a whole lot wrong with it.
We have a saying in the UK,if it sounds right,it is right,and this sounds just fine.

Looking forward to some more from you.

Oh and I used to use Notator on the Atari 1040 ST,and I reckon everyone had an
AWE32.

Speak later

Alan

Welcome Daniel.

I'll leave the technical stuff to others but your composition sounds great here. Crystal clear.

I'm curious what styles and instruments you used?

Don S.

Welcome Daniel,

I agree with Don, and others, I don't hear anything wrong at all. Personal preferences aside, I tend to like a little warmer sound, but thats a personal thing.

Good job,

Robert

Welcome to the site. Very nice song. Is it an original song? Very nice work with the horns. Thanks for sharing!

My Music

Another Welcome Aboard Daniel! I am off to a gig now but will listen as soon as I can tonight.

Later,

Welcome to the Forum,

I liked your arrangement. No criticism, just comments. I picked up on a prior comment from toucher above, "...I tend to like a little warmer sound, but thats a personal thing." I think I heard what he heard, a little too much emphasis on high range versus midrange. In other words, a little too bright for a Jazz Combo. Could be described as the room ambiance. Was this recorded in the bathroom (...only joking!). Think about warming things up with some additional reverb to add ambiance. Maybe dial in a little more midrange sounds. Also I vote for moving all those horns even broader in the stereo dynamic (more left - right).

Very nice, have to love those horns. Hard to tell if they are Real or Midi but the guitar sounded real. Do tell!

Hi Daniel,

Very nice.

Yes, the overall EQ is perhaps a bit on the high side, but not all that much here on my nearfield monitor speaker system.

Rather than boost the midrange and cut the highs, I'd recommend use of the "Smiley Face" EQ curve here. Boost the lows slightly, CUT the mids and Boost the highs slightly. On a graphic equalizer screen, that would look like a human smile. In the world of acoustical physics, it would bring your EQ into line with the Fletcher-Munson curve of human hearing response. Don't overdo those settings, I'm talking a boost of perhaps 3dB and a cut of perhaps -3dB at the widest points.

Good jazz.


--Mac

Hi all
Thank you very much for your warm welcome and nice comments.

@ Alan - thank you for your "heads-up". I am not sure if you were holding back something you wanted to mention. As I said, I do like comments.

@ Don S. - thank you. "Cristal clear" leaves me lots of room to ponder. I guess you also feel maybe there should be more "dirt" in a jazz recording. (you're right, I think). As to your question about the style and instrument tracks used:
The style is *_B140_BD Latin Brazilian Bossa
Bass = RT464
Piano = RT470
Guitar = RT708
Trumpet = RT479
Trombone = RT477
Sax = RT706
Drums = Bossa TerryClarke^1-Brushes

@ Robert - I am very grateful for your remark about a warmer sound. This is quite an issue here on this end. I could go on now on a discussion about what I personally like in a recording. But you are absolutely right. I guess I have gone about a bit too heavy handed on the EQ's of the various tracks. What I wanted to avoid is the "sometimes omnipresent" mud around 300 -600 Hz. And by playing with the EQ at about 5000 Hz I usually can "clarify" or "liberate" some otherwise "hidden - or embedded" sound qualities. But this does not really work with Jazz, or any wind instruments for that matter. I shall work over the tune again and see if I can put some warmth into it. Thank you for your input.

@PgFantastic - yes it is a "original song" - as long as one can call a computer based song with pre-recorded loops based on a pre-programmed style and a copied chord progression an original song. But this is not an issue here. I guess all of you know what it means to spend countless hours behind the computer, buried in piles of notes and obsolete CD's (the one from yesterday and the 100 days before) and the 05.30 a.m. rush to the computer to do some changes just before leaving for work etc. etc.
BTW - I visited most of your homepages to listen to your songs. And boy am I impressed, and I want to get as good as you! Unfortunately I cannot play live any instruments anymore. But PG now offered the means of creative music production and it brings great fun (and less sleep).

@ Danny C. - hope your gig was a good experience today. It's just short of midnight here in Europe and I guess in your corner of the world people just start getting ready to celebrate T.G.I.F. Thanks.

@ Jazzmandan - Again a very good comment I think. Thank you. I put reverb on about every track in this recording. First of all - the drum tracks are quite "wet" as they are recorded by PG Music (quite roomy so to speak). Therefore I thought I'd have to adjust the combo to this room feeling. But as I see it now, again, I have overdone it heavy handed. The warmth I can bring back in by reducing the EQ'ing I've done on all the tracks. Also mayby some plug-in could do the job in simulating some tape saturation. I'm not talking of compressing - not in Jazz - but simulating the warmth of a live recording. I did this tune with having in mind of sitting in front of a Jazz Combo in a small, cosy Bar. But your suggestion of increasing the stereo dynamic is actually what I was waiting for. I am not sure if it will work, but I shall give it a try. Thank you for your suggestions.

@ Mac - why did I think your answer will be very helpfull for me. I appreciate your helpful advise very much. I will reset most EQ's and try the Smily Face approach. First I will cut (carve) the smile - if necessary more than I have to increase on the side. I once read that lowering EQ is supposed to be far better than increasing the signal. That said, I cannot show you what I had to do with the bass signal to get it audible on desktop or car speaker. (I do have good car speakers - mind you, but this particular bass track lingers so deep down that it normally is only audible on monitor or hi-fi speakers).

Thank you all
Daniel

Quote:

---

@ Don S. - thank you. "Cristal clear" leaves me lots of room to ponder. I guess you also feel maybe there should be more "dirt" in a jazz recording. (you're right, I think).

---

Hi Daniel,

No, I wasn't thinking there should be more dirt in a jazz recording. To me crystal clear means clean, which is what I prefer in all music.

I really liked the piece.

Don S.

Welcome Daniel.

Your control of BIAB in such a short time is remarkable!

Lovely changes on your tune. Really pretty.

I had no issues with the mix, but I'm listening on headphones and can't turn it up just now. The suggestion about widening the stereo image might be worth trying.

From an arrangement standpoint, I would have liked to have heard more of the melody. I think it was in the guitar line, but the trumpet had some, and then, well, where did it go? I have this mental image of a Dixieland band dropping in on a guitar & piano trio rehearsal, and just starting to wail (gently). As odd as that probably sounds, in your song, it actually works. You have a theme that is picked up by instrument after instrument.

Just, when it's all over, I would like to know what the melody was. It could be great.

Please do not be disappointed by my comments. I don't say much unless I see a lot in a song. And the Brazilian genre is my favorite.

Looking forward to more of your work.

Thank you Don for your clarification.

Matt, thanks for the helpful comment as well. While listening to your CD I realised how far away I am at producing decent sound (especially Bossa Nova). But I hope I'll get better after a while (my one week leave is nearly over now and it's back to "real work" soon = less time to spend with BiaB). Your comment is absolutely correct. But you know - I got somewhat carried away while recording this track. I thought "gosh, I'm even able to produce Bossa Nova" - which is of course not true in the sense that I've created a real melody. I only "mute/unmute" single parts the way I feel it sounds nice. The next thing to create a melody would be to "cut & paste" appropriate parts in a repetitive fashion to get the song structure going. But even by repeating the chord progression BiaB seems to re-create with RealTracks some sort of similar melody lines (has to of course since there's not an unlimited resource of loops available). It's all great fun here.

Daniel

Well, here's a 3rd re-mix - a new attempt at trying to figuring things out.
Bossa Uno_3

edit: link modified to newest version

Very good effort Daniel. This is an example of how someone with no preconcieved notions of how things "should" work can produce a great sounding song right out of the box. Taking several different Real Track soloists and muting/unmuting them to come up with interesting solo phrases could be considered an "advanced" way of doing things by someone with years of experience yet you decided to do it immediately because it just seemed logical. This is you looking at the tools available and figuring out a way to make them do what you want. Good job. Of course if you decide to write a specific melody for this song, it would be extremely difficult to cut and paste enough individual notes to stitch it together using those Real Track soloists but it could be done. Probably much easier to keep the melody in midi and use a good sounding midi synth for that part or play it yourself.
This is what grabbed all of us who were involved with the original Real Band beta test a few years ago. Since you've already figured this out you really need to drop Biab for now and open up Real Band and start working there. It's way more flexible that Biab is for this kind of thing. If you found what you just did fun, visualize having 48 tracks to do this including multiple midi/Real Drum latin percussion tracks. RB will work with and generate both Biab tracks and prerecorded midi tracks at the same time. I have some midi files of hot latin tunes that combines the original midi tracks with several Biab instrument parts and Real Drum percussion. RB will generate the Biab and RT/RD tracks without changing your original midi tracks. There is no other program I've ever heard of that will do what Real Band can.

Bob

Finally got back to listen and I see from your post above you have made some revisions. Not sure what the 1st or 2nd sounded like but I truly like what I hear on the third one.

As always good advice given by the group who have already posted and commented.

Keep up the good music!

Hello Danny C.
Thanks for your comment. I will try to keep it up

Hello Bob
Thank you for your kind words and good advice. In fact, I did already use RealBand to some extend. I create several (usually 2) tracks of the same instrument and 2 ore more tracks of soloists etc. Then I export the individual tracks as .wav tracks to Samplitude, where I continue the work. Samplitude simply because I own this software and am more adapt to its workflow than RealBand. But I agree - it would all be possible in RealBand as well. I'm still at the very beginning and will be more detailed in my work (e.g. various drum tracks merged into one) but as it is now, I have tremendous fun just letting BiaB creating a tune and then polishing it. I want to do some Country, Blues, Rock & stuff. More or less still trying out the styles and realtracks at the moment.
The previous two tunes I re-mixed and hope you like the result.

Daniel

Here are the new versions after a Sunday long mixing:
Bossa Uno remix

latest version of my "warming-up" piece:
Warming Up remix