Well thanks to PG music I was able to realize a long-held dream and record a classical guitar and strings version of the Moonlight Sonata (first movement) that I would not have been able to do without Real Band.

https://soundcloud.com/david-snyder-gigs4/moonlight-sonata

The main instrument is my beloved Ramirez classical guitar, but I have some lightly played acoustic Bass and strings in the background along with held piano courtesy of Real Band. They allowed me to get a pretty precise sonic mixture of a sound that I was going for that would not have been possible to do using midi libraries.

This piece is fiendishly difficult and a real hand cramper. Including the chord inversions, there are approximately 37 different chord shapes, at least, in a 70 measure song, not including the diabolical single note runs, which go forwards and backwards with no room for error. It also demands barre chords on every fret from the first through the ninth, with notes that extend to the 14th fret.

In order to play this song you absolutely cannot look at your hands, but just have to know where you are, without looking down or else you'll be hopelessly lost.

On top of that, it takes some major left hand technique in order not to have continuous squeaks on the fretboard, because most of the chords are barre chords with really weird shapes and they move constantly. This technique requires you to lift your left hand very slightly before you move it to a new position so that it doesn't squeak, but you only have a millisecond to do this because there's a new note coming up right ahead, on an eighth note on a different fret.

The good news is, once you've learned all of these chord shapes and memorized them, there's pretty much nothing that you can't play at that point.

The really cool thing about the Real tracks on this, even though they're subdued, has to do with a certain part of the PG technology. Because almost all of the chords are atypical/weird (think Fdim/Ab, Bdim/D), Real Tracks can get really specific with the string parts and the bass, which adds a very human flavor that you simply could not get from midi strings. There's no way.

I'm going to be experimenting around with this technology a lot on classical pieces from this point forward.

David Snyder: Classical guitar

Real Tracks: Held piano, converted to midi, run through Abbey Road Grand, cello, acoustic bass, violin, quartet

(Not mixed too loud, just to add a spooky ambience)

David Snyder
Songwriter/Renaissance Man
Studio + Fingers

https://davidsnydersongs.com/
https://spoti.fi/359Gigs
www.davidsnydermusic.com/
www.reverbnation.com/davidpsnyder
www.soundcloud.com/davidsnyderchannel
https://www.songtradr.com/user/profile/david.snyder