PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic First composition with biab/RB

It's taken me a while and I've probably made a pest of myself here, but I finally got done with my first creation. It's all real tracks, except for one vsti for strings, using GPO. It's not miraculous by any means. It was really just an exercise while learning the ins and outs of biab, RB and real tracks, as well as drag and drop. I stumbled upon a style I liked and wrote up a chord chart and there you have it. I weaved a number of different instruments in to see how everything would work, which turned out nicely. I think it's a good example of how good RT's are. I look forward to putting all this amazing power to good use for serious song writing and recording. In the mean time, this track is fun for me to throw on in the car and groove while I drive. My sweetheart always wanted me to record something as cool as the jazz on the weather channel, so she was pleased as well! LOLOL! I don't play a note on this by my own hands except to program the string part, but she got her wish courtesy of the RT players following my chart. And I learned a whole bunch in the process. Frankly, the only thing I may do further is bring up the strings a bit, but it is a nice pad under there regardless.

For those readers questioning the sound of real tracks before a purchase, like I did, hopefully this serves as a better demo than the ones on the web site. And for the record, this was all mixed down in Reaper, although RB was indispensable for putting the whole thing together.

http://www.songramp.com/mod/mps/listenrm.php?Download=56698

Dan

I like it just the way it is. Nice work.

Very cool, from sunny South Africa

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LOLOL! I don't play a note on this by my own hands except to program the string part

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No problemo . Lol - maybe you didn't play but you wrote the charts, hired the players, mixed the product and wrote it. So what if you didn't play.

Congrats on a good product. (aside) I hope the Weather Channel isn't the new standard. LOL

Cheers - Ian

Hi Dan,

You've done a great job. It sounds excellent to my ears.

Regards,
Noel

Dan, That is very good. I really enjoyed listening to it.

Steve

Hi Dan,

For your first composition this is pretty good.
Just think how you will grow as a composer with the tools you have available to you with Biab and RB.
Well done

Michee

Thank you all for the kind words. I really look forward to incorporating everything this software has to offer in my productions. So much possibilities!

Dan

Those real tracks are suberb. Very nice job with the guitar also. Great work.

Hi, Dan -

Loved the song. Nice progression and tasteful use of various RealTracks.

Hi Dan,

It’s all been said. Great song! This should be used as a RT demonstration; it’s that good.

Nice job Dan.

That is well put together -- sounds natural and organic to me. Very cool mix of sounds.

Can you tell us which real tracks you used, or is that too much work (ha, ha)?

Kevin

Thanks again! Kevin- I'll post what RT's I used later tonight when I'm at the software.

Dan

Great one Dan. Your approach to Band in a Box fits very well within its broad range of applications, and even more with enhancements like RealTracks and RealBand. You are using BiaB and RT/RB as instrument and at same time as a producer tool, and you are doing it with good taste and excelent results. Alternating with my musician work, I am dictating Band in a Box clinics and workshops, among the students and assistants there are musicians ranging from novice to seasoned pros, however I meet also audio engineers/experts or just home recordist who don't play an musical instrument (or barely does). They are fascinated with the broad of possibilities of BiaB and the power of RealTracks. Many of them now feel it as a great chance to bring to surface with their hidden skils as composers or arrangers. Newcomers to BiaB and RT sense a straight way for make and create music. Nowadays with techno music focused primarily on loops music construction and tons of edition and barren tweaks in a monitor screen, Band in a Box emerge as a fresh perspective for a crammed computer music market.

Cheers

Carlos

Outstanding!! That is what I had done when I got BiaB. There are so many levels to this product that you can approach it as a musician writing tracks to accompany you or act as an arranger but tweaking around the many styles and tracks (live instruments) to produce something beyond your four walls.

Are you playing any of the instruments yourself? Or, are all these real tracks? Also, what style # are you using?

RickeG

Thanks again. I did not play any instruments myself accept to program the string pad. The basis for this song was RT set 73. THAT is a great set and a must have, imo. In fact, a style demo in there started my creative juices flowing, although I did take the track in a decidedly different direction than the demo! LOL! But the sax parts, distorted guitar, jazz guitar and soloist, and acoustic piano were all just random selections from different RT sets that worked well together.

An interesting note is that the acoustic piano that I used in the middle of the track is a 'rhytum bossa' piano. Can you imagine? This track is ANYTHING but a bossa! But I was amazed at how well it fit and how tasty the pushes and comping were working with that piano in this track- at my tempo no less. It's a good reason to have all the RT sets, frankly. Anything could possibly work with anything.

Thanks for the listen everyone. I do plan on using RT's in a different role for my song writing. I normally write full blown productions with vocals and I will get to that. But at the moment, I'm having too much fun just letting the RT players do my bidding. And this may last a while! LOL!!

Dan

I also wanted to mention that as great as RT's are, they do need mixing. I don't claim to be a hot-shot mixer by any stretch, because I'm not. But I have put a great deal of effort into learning how to mix over the years. I'm your typical musician who while in the studio, got interested in the other side of the glass- VERY interested. That's a common tale. Anyway, as I suspected, realtracks have a decent raw recorded sound. Thankfully, I can live with WMA files and it all washes out in the end to sound perfectly fine. But I did contemplate the audiophile package a while before purchasing, that's for sure. All things considered, from a mixing standpoint things work well but they need mixing beyond just levels, panning, and some effects. The tracks still need eq, compression, and such.

I always love pictures- maybe you do too.

This is the eq on the bass guitar, which worked in this mix. There's a pretty far reaching low shelf and while it cleans the bass up, it doesn't kill it. A boost around 1200k brings out some clarity. There's also some compression applied too. The bass doesn't sound too full on it's own, but it sounds great with the kick drum on the realdrum track. Nice and punchy.



The distorted guitar needed a hefty notch around 200hz to clean out some nasty buildup in that area. A high shelf also helped take the harshness off the top end. All that made the distorted guitar sit better and induce much less boominess in the mix.



I used a verb plugin as well as a delay plugin for auxes. The verb plugin really creates the sound of this track. All the instruments have a certain amount on them and without it, the mix overall falls totally dry. It's the only verb in the whole mix and it's setup to be subtle, leaning towards a room sound. The delay is just for the solo instruments ans is also very subtle.



Then there's the master buss. What worked on this was multiband compression, more for a little extra eq sculpting than anything. I used an L1 for limiting- each one being a Waves plugin.



Maybe you find all that interesting, maybe you don't. I always find it fun to share stuff like that. And it's this stuff that realtracks need as well, like any other audio track. It helps keep them sounding 'real'.



Dan

Wow. Like, really, really wow!!

When I hear the gtr solos I am thinking you or someone close to you is channeling Larry Carlton.

For a first up effort I'd say this is quite extraordinary.

I might add that the clarity of production is making my little desktop 5" Edirol nearfields sound like Klipschorns!


Someone sign this guy....!


John

There's so many qualities in this, brilliant!