I started working with BiaB at the beginning of April, during a lot of the Covid-19 lockdown. I bought the Pro Pack, not knowing that something called RealTracks even existed. I was initially looking for an app where I could type in chords and generate simple MIDI that I could feed into various plugins. I quickly saw the potential of using RealTracks for the kinds of music I want to produce, so within a few days had upgraded to the UltraPak. My genres of choice are jazz/latin primarily, with a dose of exotica and rock mixed in. And I'm primarily focused on doing rearrangements/reimaginations of pop/rock songs.

This particular song is a cover from the repertoire of Nazz, a group from the late 1960s. It was Todd Rundgren's first band, and he was the primary songwriter, although not the vocalist. Todd has been one of my primary influences since the early 1970s, so it's only natural I mess around with his songs. The original is a rock ballad, but my take is as a samba.

https://youtu.be/TEGuX3hqXtw

One of my primary vocal inspirations is Kenny Rankin, and a lot of the arrangements I'm coming up with are influenced by the instrumentation he has on many of his early albums. Nylon string guitars playing bossa or samba patterns are the foundation for many of these. When I started working with RealTracks, I was blown away by how well the jazz guitar tracks worked for the songs I want to produce - especially the nylon guitar tracks from Oliver Gannon. It's been like working with real musicians :-)

I've also suffered a dislocated shoulder and rotator cuff injuries in the past couple of months, and am awaiting surgery. My original intent was to play all the keyboards and sing, and use BiaB for everything else. But I've even had to use some keyboard tracks, and have been very pleased with them. So I'm able to comfortably sit in the arranger/producer/singer chairs and let BiaB handle most of the rest. Really great product. I hope you enjoy this song!

The video was produced by a good friend and fellow Todd Rundgren fan, Ronnie Temple, who I met at Todd's house in Hawaii during his 60th birthday celebration in 2008. We've been close friends ever since, and he worked in the corporate video world for many years, so was a natural to partner with.

Everything but vocals are from BiaB. I mixed/mastered in Cakewalk.

Style is _NOITE+.STY (Noite Brazilian Samba MultiStyle)

RealTracks in style: ~717:Bass, Acoustic, Samba Ev 190
RealTracks in song: 2892:Piano, Electric, Rhythm FusionFastLatinJeff Ev 190
RealTracks in style: 3256:Guitar, Nylon, Rhythm SambaRamon Ev 240
RealTracks in song: 723:Sax, Soprano, Soloist Samba Ev 190
RealTracks in song: 1773:Piano, Electric, Soloist JazzFunkMovin Ev16 130
RealDrums [in style:SambaBrazilFastBrushPercAlex: a: SambaBrazilFastBrushPercAlexb: SambaBrazilFastBrushPercAlex

Chuck Wiggins

BIAB 2023 Win UltraPak, Cakewalk, Windows 10 Pro
Custom AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core, Focusrite Scarlett 4x4 interface

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chuckwigginsmusic
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR1cGfP_abwQWwhX6TRcYsg