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Generating BIAB tunes can create some wonderful sounds there’s no doubt about that. But being a fan of Ennio Morricone’s music (e.g. Fistful of Dollars, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Gabriels Oboe etc) I wanted to create some of his style, not an exact copy, but the fun elements (the essence) he uses in his music and also have some fun doing this. Well let’s say at this point I’m slowly getting my head around how to do this.

For those who maybe have the same inclination in making BIAB more orchestral I have described below the method I have used to start approaching this goal. As it turns out its not that difficult using some of the excellent East-West sample libraries available together with 2010 BIAB drag-an-drop into the SONAR 8 sequencer. (If you want to hear the result before the description- see the link to my web site at the end)


So the goal was an alternative theme for “The Good the Bad and the Ugly”. First I downloaded the $2 sheet music from www.musicnotes.com. This is the piano version but is sufficient since it has the theme and the chords.

The other software required included the East-West ‘Goliath’ sound library.

www.eastwestsamples.com

So the ingredients are:

BIAB : Style _AFDG120 Med. Temp. Folk (120RS) at 115 temp (Whats this ? Folk?? Don’t worry it doesn’t sound anything like this when finished)
RealTRacks: 579 Bass; 522 Ac Guitar; RealDrums Nash 8 SideStick Ride;405 Ac Guitar Strum; Guitar Slide EasySouthern Ev120 (for the blues solo parts)

East-West: Goliath Sound Library (an excellent compilation of many samples). Here I used Men’s Choir (shouts, Choir Oh);Oboe and Trumpet and ‘Crystal Tower’ (new age assembly) sample for the main theme, and also Bell, Strat Guitar. (But no strings in this example)

Sound Effects: these were obtained free on the Net with some whistle and “wha-wha” voice recorded. A harmonica doubles on the “wha-wha” bars.

First up BIAB was used to generate a skeleton backing - these tracks were then drag-dropped into SONAR with volume envelopes adjusted and the GS-201 tape echo plug-in applied to all guitars and subsequently all instruments and voice.

Next in SONAR the East West Goliath samples were each given separate tracks in SONAR. The Oboe carries the main theme to start, so from the sheet music the notes were step entered using the Piano Roll method. So to were the ‘Crystal Tower’ Trumpet and Stratocaster guitar parts (they just follow the music) and the bell at various beats. The shouts were placed also in piano roll at the right points in the theme. The choir was also step entered as chord triads (3 notes at a time equal to the chords). No adjustments were made to instrument and voice velocity, as the samples seem to be just right and often carry their own intonations.

The second (short extract and unfinished) piece is the other theme used in the same movie its called L’estasi Dell’oro or I call it the GBU lament (its used in the end of the movie scene where Tuco runs around the cemetery looking for 'Arch Stanton’s' grave). The chords and theme were worked out on the piano - it’s a fairly straightforward progression but together with the theme is very Morricone.

For this piece I used BIAB:_PBALADS Slo PopBal Dreamy ElGt (65 RS) at 95 tempo ; 366 Bass (this was muted because the piece has Double Basses); 364 Ac Guitar; Drums: RockEven 8; 368 Guitar strum; Resonator guitar back travel. Also used was the East-West Symphonic Orchestra package and one of the female voices in the Voices of Passion package.

The orchestra includes 11 violins, 10 cellos and 9 Double basses, Oboe and an English horn. The 11 violins and Oboe were step entered (you don’t need to do each violin individually to make them sound good as with other packages). These instruments play the theme in unison with the lead voice. The cellos play 3 note chord triads (with some inversion for better effect) while the Double basses play a single chord root note but placed in an ascending then descending pattern. The theme starts with the female voice and oboe and strings followed by the English horn and strings in just two verses.

The link to the web site for playing the two examples is: http://Frankk.webs.com

All examples have been compressed to only 22,000 Hz 48 kbps so some of the dynamics, spread and presence is missing but it gives a reasonable impression of the original. Of course the second piece needs to, in typical Morricone style, work up to a crescendo and mods to the melody –but that’s work in progress.

Hope the above gives at least a taste of some further possibilities with BIAB

If anybody else out there is using these same packages I’d like to get in contact with you via email. I have a lot more to learn about orchestration.!!

Cheers F

Nice work, Frank.

Gary

Frank, I like what i hear. How long did it take you to create these compositions?

Steve

It sound great Frank! You did achieve the ambient and that cool vintage film atmosphere. The interactive potential in BIAB with other audio/music production resources is a strong added value. Kudos to you.

Sounds great man!

As Carlos said you managed to capture the era perfectly!

Bravo! Excellent job.

Something a bit different –

We (my buddy lead guitarist Dick_H. and I) were asked by another friend to do a ’59 tune originally done by Frankie Avalon called ‘Venus’ but as a guitar piece in the style of the Ventures guitar group. Well two things we reckon we needed to add apart from BIAB were first a harpsichord that “strums” throughout the original song and some choir voices that do some “oh oh oh oh etc” sounds. Also we decided it would also be cool to get the choir to sing the particular phrase “Oh Ve-nus Oh Ve-nus”.

Well we didn’t have a real choir available! So we used the East-West Symphonic choir with word builder (WB) and the harpsichord from the Goliath package. Word builder allows you to use phonetics (Votox) to simulate choir singing words. (A demo tutorial is on their web site). So for this song we worked out the chords on guitar and then added the following ingredients:

BIAB: DIRE_FS Fast rock w Dire El Guit (140 RS) Tempo 115
All Realtracks: 521 Bass; 406 Guitar Acc Strum; Drums:Nashville Even 8-Sidestick_Ride;510 Guitar Rhythm Dire 140; 528 Guitar Acc Fingerpicking Sw 120

East-West ‘Symphonic Choir/WB’: Boys choir, programmed to sing Oh Ve-nus etc
East-West ‘Goliath’: harpsichord step entered in close staggered chordal notes.

Lead Guitar: DH’s Stratocaster recorded in two takes set up in the left and right stereo channels in SONAR.

All guitars and voices used the GS-201 tape echo plug-in.

The result can be played back on my web site: http://Frankk.webs.com

(Not sure why there are some pops and clicks- they’re not in the original? Ah well just pretend it’s an old 45 RPM disc we had to put up with in the Dark Ages!)

Cheers F