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My first new instrumental of 2025 ~ a dreamy smooth jazz piece. I kept the title as the incomplete "Dreaming Of" as the listener won't dream what I dreamed.

I began this composition early in January, but it took until the 30th to finally have it sound as I wanted. The first problem I had was that I could only find a very few solos which worked with the chord structure and even the samples that did sounded poorly structured and thus the two guitar solos had to be constructed by cutting and pasting from numerous regenerations. Only the 3rd and final solo, the fiddle, worked without editing, but even that was the umpteenth regeneration of the sample. The 1st guitar solo is a hybrid cut and pasted together from 7 snippets from 5 different regenerations of the style; and the 2nd shorter guitar solo is a hybrid of snippets from 6 different regenerations.

Next, the 2nd piano track had to be much edited to get rid of individual way too loud high notes; then the 1st occurrence of the electro flute is a 2-part hybrid from the same sample as wanted the opening phrase to repeat.

The biggest problem I had was getting the gains balanced as each time I listened to a 'finished' product I found it wasn't. I've always found that what sounds balanced when listening at my average listening level won't sound as expected when listening to the track at either low or high volume, but this instrumental in particular I 'finished' at least 8 times before it sounded right at any volume. I also regularly find that what sounds perfect in Audacity will sound different when played in another app, so my usual routine with an assumedly finished product is to add it to the centre of a playlist of at least 5 other BiaB compositions so I can compare balances.

Cast in order of appearance:
Bass: Oleo Bop w/ Acoustic Bass ~ Neil Swainson
Drums: Oleo Bop w/ Acoustic Bass ~ Craig Scott
1st Piano: Oleo Bop w/ Acoustic Bass ~ uncredited
Acoustic Guitar: 3 Guitar Country Rock ~ Tony King
Organ: Country Rock Guitar Solo, Pop Ba -- Gene Rabbai
2nd Piano: Slow Jazz Rock w Soloist ~ Jeff Lorber
1st Guitar Solo: East Dock Latin Fusion Gtr Solo ~ Brent Mason
2nd Guitar Solo: Bricks Indie Rock w Guitar Solo ~ Mike Durham
Electro Flute: ElectroFlute Pop Ballad ~ Miles Black
Synth Pads: Whales LSS Synth Pads 1&2 ~ Blair Mastters
Fiddle: Fidget Bluesy Pop with Fiddle ~ Andy Leftwich

C / 85 bpm / 112 bars/ time: 5:27

Chay, know this is a new song, but...it sounds uniquely like you, with a new twist or two. From your description this was clearly a challenge, though the results don't show it. On my listen, the organ dominates the early section, and the first solo is further back in the mix, but I like it there. The middle section through the electro flute are a change of pace, and it all sounds great. Wouldn't have thought of a fiddle solo to start the wrap up, but it works really well. Nicely done!

Your discussion about level setting really resonated with me. I probably average seven "final" mixes to get things sounding right with multiple soundstages. Low level monitors and medium level auto listening are my hardest challenges. But if those two sound right, everywhere else tends to work out.

Enjoyed your tune!

Chay, I'm glad you stuck to it and finished this - it sounds great
I hear you about the final mixing levels. That takes most of my time, just getting the levels correct. And that is with my simple songs; I doubt I could mix something as adventurous as this song.
Sounds great

Nice smooth jazz piece. You hit all the marks with this one.

Hi Chay,

Very nice Jazz! In the first part, the organ somewhat overpowers the lead guitar. But after that, everything sounded great! Nice work!

Smooth and "luxurious". Ya did good!

Alan

Chay,

Nice instrumental.
As others have said, that early guitar needs a bit of volume to compete with the organ.
The later one is good.

fj

Nice, soothing sound, WaoBand.
I know what you mean by it sounding different on different platforms and volumes.
Drives me nuts when I think it's all done and mastered but when I upload it to a site like Soundcloud it sounds off.

Vic.

Nice job on this. I will tell you that the organ felt intrusive to me. It may be that as I age, certain frequencies fade and some heighten. But that was my main thought while listening. Otherwise, it sounded good to me. A lot of tracks and you did a good job managing them. Nice work.

I wouldn't call it jazz other than the guitar solo and, even then, aside from the note bends.
It is a smooth thing though, very smooth.

Ron, Mario, Elliot, Al, Floyd, Vic, Tune & Ray,
I usually prefer to reply to all responders individually, but there's are some recurring themes.

Re the organ and 1st guitar solo, Ron wrote "the organ dominates the early section" plus "the first solo sits back in the mix, but I like it there." I agree in that I didn't want that 1st solo to be too loud. Al wrote "In the first part the organ somewhat overpowers the lead guitar"; and Floyd "that early guitar needs a bit of volume to compete with the organ" Then TuneMonger wrote "the organ felt intrusive to me". These comments re the organ really baffled me so I've played the track back as the video, just the WAV file at different volumes, plus I also created a mono version to see if that shed any light on the mix. To my ears the organ is pretty much at its right volume level as is the stereo bias which separates it from the louder 1st guitar solo, so I don't really see a 'competition' between the two. I even wondered if different hi-fi settings made others here the balances different to what I hear. However, if I do a remix in future I'd probably lower the organ's gain by no more than 0.2db and higher the guitar's gain by no more than 0.2db; though there was for me one major error made re the shorter 2nd guitar solo which was pasted together from segments of 5 different regenerations: the 1st elongated note which is followed by 2 louder shorter ones are from the same segment and that opening note was actually way lower in volume than the next 2, thus I automatically increased the volume of that 1st note to even it out with the 2nd & 3rd, but what I should have done was lower the volume of the 2nd & 3rd as they would have then not been so 'shocking' a start and would have also balanced with the following segments.

Related to mixing purely from BiaB Styles, I really wish whoever decided on stereo channel biases and the gains of individual instruments would pay more attention to balances. For example, some solo instruments in some Styles are way, way too low in volume, while often other instruments are too loud; then some instruments are given extreme left or right channel biases, which are really too far in either direction. The B3 organ I use a lot of defaults to extreme right - though I switch it to left - but it would be better if it was a little closer to centre. I'm currently working on a new instrumental which uses the "Heliotrope Hazy Rock Soloist" Guitar2 solo, which also defaults to the extreme right which makes it sound like the guitarist is playing 'stage right' in the wings. So I had to load it as 2 tracks, 1 with the channel switched to make it sound central as pushing the pan in Audacity to 100% left doesn't do the job. Ditto the B3 organ.

Re getting the final mix right, it seems I hit a subject Ron, Mario and Vic empathised with, Vic mentioning everything finally sounding right, then once the track's uploaded "it sounds off." That I really relate to! I upload to YouTube first and having waited over and hour for my recent remix of "Zuzu" to load I cringed when I first played the video as before the upload it sounded perfect and suddenly it didn't. So I deleted the post and made a single change before re-uploading it and after another long wait I played the video and something else sounded wrong! But I left it as it was as I wasn't confident I'd get it right a 3rd time. I've since done a better mix, but if I re-post it it'll be a year away assuming I live that long!

And finally, re jazz, Elliot wrote "Nice smooth jazz piece"; Al wrote "Very nice jazz!", but Ray wrote "I wouldn't call it jazz …" I'm very often confused by genres and sub- and sub-sub-genres, but I think Elliot's "smooth jazz" is right here as "smooth jazz" really covers a very wide range of 'styles'.

Always such cool imagery in your videos, Chay, and thereis also a ton of magical movement in your instrumentals. I got the YT notice a few days ago, but had to watch in on the better stereo in my studio. Defintely worth the wait.

Easy listening jazz. Smooth throughout, with some very interesting vision as well.

Thanks Marty! Something that I think about a lot as I only have my PC speakers or headphones to listen on is that others will most likely be hearing my music in far better quality than me. That's just not fair! I've got an old analogue separates hi-fi system, but the amplifier's blown and getting a compatible and still functioning replacement is no longer easy.

AudioTrack, thanks for listening and responding. Very much appreciated.

Nice relaxing sound, perfect for winding down after a hard day's work.
I'm not the biggest fan of the organ, I think something less heavy and more airy (a synth pad or something) would suit this song better, but I know you love that organ sound, so who am I to change that

Enjoyed my listen nonetheless

Nice mashup of multiple genres presented in a complex mix ... and one that works.

I've said it here on the forum many times that mixing is never finished - just abandoned.

Sometimes we find that regardless of all our efforts it is only via mastering that some tracks finally sit in a good place.

We enjoyed this ... it's quite emotive.

J&B

Thanks d for the response B.D. O sometimes use SynthPads for additional atmospheric backing, but I think at least 50% of the time I use 2 together, though as regards replacing the organ I don't even think 3 or 4 would add enough 'mass' to replace the B3.

Thanks for listening and responding J&B. Having to channel-swap and remix so many tracks I agree that the mixing is never finished. I've no experience at all when it comes to mastering, though I've been doing a lot of reading up on it, but where I've been experimenting I've always preferred the cleaner original render. I think I wrote at the top that the one guy I tried for a free mastering completely ruined the track. One thing I don't understand is why so many go for super-loud final takes. I see a lot of that on YouTube. A 'local' studio which is just to far from me to get to has a page of advice - what not to dos - and at the top of this list of mistakes is going too loud.