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In Your Own Backyard (Instrumental)Edit: OK, I finally uploaded the right mix. But I won't guarantee it's better than the prior one. The changes are fairly minor, so if you heard it the first time, you're unlikely to notice anything different. Any credit goes to my son, who spent far too much time re-working this than I had a right to ask, and any blame goes to me.  It's been a while since I've posted anything. This song started out as the _MAIN_ST Demo - Main St RnB Acoustic Guitar Solo. A lot of changes later, I ended up with this. It's different enough from the demo song that I don't think anyone will mind.  I tried to do something in the style of the 70's, with some chord progressions that I don't typically use. It was a bit of a struggle to get a proper drum track from Jamstix, but I think it's fairly successful, even if it's a bit too busy. The lead instruments were played on my EWI and then heavily edited. I got a lot of help from my son on the final mix - especially getting the bass and kick drum to play nicely together. Comments welcome!  2906: Piano, ElectricVintage, Rhythm BluesyPopMike Ev 100 3203: Guitar, Acoustic, Soloist RnBPopBrent Ev 110 1403: Guitar, Electric, Rhythm Soul70sWarmHeld Ev16 100 2762: Piano, Acoustic, Rhythm 70sBritPopMike Ev 110 3755: Guitar, Rootsy Funk 3776: Guitar, Electric, BackgroundFunkSingleNoteWah Ev16 2617: Guitar, Rhythm Funk WahWah 1435: Guitar, Rhythm Jazz Funk Grooving Chords 2606: Guitar, Rhythm Jazz Rock 8ths 2612: Bass, FunkHalfNotePulse 2524: Bass, FunkHalfNotePulseSync 1433: Bass, Jazz Funk Groovin Ev16 Drums: Rayzoom Jamstix, EzDrummer Funkmaster Jabo Saxes: SampleModeling SWAM Alto, Tenor Flugelhorn: AudioModeling The Trumpet Strings: NI Session Strings and Amadeus Orchestral Library Other Tools: Reaper, Lurssen Mastering Console, Raum Reverb
-- 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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It's certainly a busy backing.
Not sure if the horns sit a little too much in front of the mix, but maybe this is the intention.
I like the chord structure and interesting changes. The further I listened the more I became involved.
Good job, no question.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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David,
Wow - what a huge band!!
Really nice theme/melody lines. Impressive playing on the EWI. Excellent arrangement.
I agree with Trev that the horns are SLIGHTLY too-out-front. They "come out of the mix" a little (they sound great). It causes the bass & drums to seem slightly too low (to my ears).
Nice to see you post something again...
And cool that you can work on music with your son.
fj
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Hi David.
I thought the mix was good but to nitpick, maybe a tad too heavy on the drums for me.
That's probably just me though so don't worry about it.
Clever stuff on the horns.
Vic
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It's certainly a busy backing. Yes, simplicity is a virtue I haven't quite embraced in my arrangements. Jamstix allows editing at the macro level, but there's no "play less kick drums" option like there is in EZDrummer. You know who's the first to blame their tools. I haven't figured out how to non-destructively edit things in Jamsticks. If there's a "freeze" sort of option, I haven't found it. So rather than risk losing settings (again), I left it As-Is. I should have rendered the MIDI out and edited that, but I haven't figured out how to record the MIDI in my DAW yet. I'm sure it's simple, I just haven't gotten around to looking. And yes, I know that it's not just the drum that's too busy. Not sure if the horns sit a little too much in front of the mix, but maybe this is the intention. The horns are up-front on purpose, but that doesn't mean that's the best choice. I like the chord structure and interesting changes. The further I listened the more I became involved. Thanks! There are a lot of stepwise chordal movements, as well as major to minor and minor to major shifts - something I don't do a lot of. I also cribbed a few notes from a video that talked about how Burt Bacharach would occasionally wander out of key. I'm glad you liked it!
-- 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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I was surprised a by how big the brass sounded in parts. It only gets as complicated as a harmonized melody duplicated an octave below. I suspect the wide stereo spread helps. The strings are four parts, but they don't really count, do they? Really nice theme/melody lines. Impressive playing on the EWI. Excellent arrangement. Thanks! But honestly, there's a lot of editing going on behind the scenes. Big chunks of the melody were invented by playing it only focusing on the rhythm, and then editing it after the fact. It was simpler than working out the proper key changes, which really didn't pay much attention to the key signature. I agree with Trev that the horns are SLIGHTLY too-out-front. They "come out of the mix" a little (they sound great). It causes the bass & drums to seem slightly too low (to my ears). Thanks for the feedback - I'll take that into account in the next mixdown. Nice to see you post something again...
And cool that you can work on music with your son. Yep! There were a lot of things going on last year that made it tough to find spare time, so I figured I'd try harder this year - even at the expense of rushing things a bit.
-- 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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I thought the mix was good but to nitpick, maybe a tad too heavy on the drums for me. Thanks for letting me know. Nitpicking is good. If I used reference tracks, I'd probably avoid this issues. Clever stuff on the horns. Thanks! It's amazing what can be done with technology these days, and I'm happy to benefit from it.
-- 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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Very cool song. Loved the mix. I thought the drums were good. Well done
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Very cool song. Loved the mix. I thought the drums were good. Well done Hi, Scott. Thanks for stopping by to listen!
-- 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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Hi David,
Good to hear you posting again.
I loved the whole thing. A big sound with nice wide stereo and the
mix sounded absolutely fine on my monitors, but I appreciate that this
is always going to be subjective.
You've definitely captured the 70s vibe and to me, it has a sort
of AWB / Shakatak sound going on, which I was always going to like.
Hope it's not too long before we hear some more.
ROG.
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Yep, there's obviously a lot going on here - trying to mix a project like this is well beyond our pay grade But it ALL works for us. You snagged that 70's groove and the soundstage is great on our monitors. The use of BiaB along with the myriad other products is amazingly well done. The horns are really standout. Well done and welcome back! J&B PS This should be a good tune to place on the sync libraries.
Our albums and singles are on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora and more. If interested search on Janice Merritt. Thanks! Our Videos
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Good to hear you posting again. Hi, ROG. It's good to be back. There were a lot of things going on last year that made finding a block of time to work on music difficult. Hopefully this year will be a bit more stable. I loved the whole thing. A big sound with nice wide stereo and the mix sounded absolutely fine on my monitors, but I appreciate that this is always going to be subjective. I'm glad you liked it! I was going to choose a more conservative panning, but my son suggested full LCR pan on the brass. I think it works here. On the other hand, he was tempted mightily - but ultimately resisted - going mono with the drums. I've been listening to the mix on my headphones using dSONIQ Realphones. It doesn't recreate the ambiance like VRM Box or Waves Nx, but it keeps the family happy, since I like in a relatively small house and they don't have to listen to me spend hours making adjustment after adjustment. I think I spent more time on the mix than composing the song. I suspect if I were a bit more careful with the arrangement, there would be less issues in the first 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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Yep, there's obviously a lot going on here - trying to mix a project like this is well beyond our pay grade I've heard your mixes, and they're stellar! And if I put a bit more thought into the arrangement and didn't try for such an overstuffed production, mixing would be less of a chore.  You snagged that 70's groove and the soundstage is great on our monitors. It's good to hear you liked the mix. I can't really take credit for most of the work, so I'll pass it on to my son. The use of BiaB along with the myriad other products is amazingly well done. There are some groovy 70's RTs I've been itching to use ever since I've heard them in the BiaB demo tracks. I'm glad I was finally able to put them to use. I'm still on the fence about Jamsticks, but since I paid for it, I should figure out how to use it. What really sold me on the software was the 60's style drummer emulations. So using them for something like that's on my "To Do" list. The horns are really standout. The horns ended up working better than I expected. I'm not a particularly good player, and certainly not fast. Fortunately the backing track was busy, so the horns could be slow in contrast. But I tend to forget that many classic horn parts on songs are just sax and trumpet. So I'll try to keep that in mind going forward. And they're a lot easier to play and record on the EWI than using the real thing! With a small house filled with people, there doesn't seem to be any good time to practice horn around here. This should be a good tune to place on the sync libraries.
-- 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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HI David ...
I didn't hear the original but I really enjoyed the remixed version - a lot! I'm probably not the right person to make a lot technical comments as my mixing is about as Neanderthal as wooly mammoths! I just want to hear a song that makes me smile, cry, laugh or just kick back and say "Yeah!". And this one does it for me.
Di and I are big fans of the 70s sound, particularly large pop-rock bands - BST, Chicago, etc. Also, the pop-soul music of that time plays nicely in our ears.
You hit every button that makes our ears smile! IT's a big production and difficult to pull off. I think you and your son did a marvelous job. Tip of the hat to both of you.
As I said, I don't worry about the technical stuff as much as other folks usually do. I just want to hear some good music. And I just did. Thanks!
Alan
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David, nice to hear from you again. I found the entire track very enjoyable, and interesting. I liked the chord changes a lot. There is something about the busy-ness of the mix, but I’m not analytical enough to sort it out… I’ll leave that to my other form friends. Nice work, and kudos to your son for the help!
Windows 11, Intel Core i5-8600T 2.3Ghz, 16 gig ram, BIAB 2025 MegaPak, SampleTank 4, Keystation49 Kybd, Neewer NW-800 mic
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David,
I missed the original version, but this sounds very good to me; flowing changes and with such a big band I like the horns being out front... although I`ve no idea how you created them, they are impressive!
Robert
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I didn't hear the original but I really enjoyed the remixed version - a lot! I'm probably not the right person to make a lot technical comments as my mixing is about as Neanderthal as woolly mammoths! I just want to hear a song that makes me smile, cry, laugh or just kick back and say "Yeah!". And this one does it for me. That's the best I could ask for! Appropriately enough, just last night I was watching the 1955 Czech fantasy/sci-fi film Journey to the Beginning of Time, which featured woolly mammoths. There's a scene where the young boys discover cave drawings - a The Caves Of Altamira moment - and one of the kids says how the drawings make him realize how these people aren't primitive at all - they're artists that can draw better than any of them. You hit every button that makes our ears smile! It's a big production and difficult to pull off. I think you and your son did a marvelous job. Tip of the hat to both of you. Thanks! Much appreciated.
-- 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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Nice work, and kudos to your son for the help! Thanks for listening!
-- 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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I missed the original version, but this sounds very good to me; flowing changes and with such a big band I like the horns being out front... although I`ve no idea how you created them, they are impressive Hi, Robert. Thanks! The original version was only slightly different in content, in ways probably only of interest to me. I use a wind controller called an EWI (electronic wind instrument) that's hooked up to my computer via USB. When I blow into it and press the buttons, MIDI information is sent to my computer, which triggers virtual instruments. The "virtual instruments" are basically physically modeled versions of the saxophones and flugelhorn. That means that - unlike static samples - the timbre and volume are responsive to the breath pressure. It's a lot more expressive than playing a sampled instrument. Mario also uses one. Thanks for listening and posting!
-- 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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Hi Dave,
that's an amazing priduction - I understand that you've put a lot of effort, time and passion for detail into this one. Enjoyed the listen from A - Z
Take care,
Stefan
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