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Something I put together one day when I was just exploring some of the features on BIAB. I happened to run across this genre and decided I'd play around with it. All I did was add the acoustic lead guitar and change a couple of chords from the sample track. I really didn't do all that much. But, that said, it got picked up by a production company in England to be used as the theme song for one of the segments of a documentary on Gypsy Jazz. The documentary is a couple of years away, is what I'm told.

I've played around with the piano, on the left channel, trying to get the proper volume in the mix. It was too soft, but did I bring it up too much? I'm undecided. You be the judge! If you have any other suggestions, we're open to hear them. The song was picked up as is, so won't be changing the mix we sent to the production company. But, for our own mix, we'd like to hear your thoughts. Thanks in advance.

The somewhat abrupt is ending is all on BIAB ... I didn't plan it that way! That's one of the very few downsides I have found with BIAB ... endings are often less than spectacular. Nonetheless, it's a fabulous piece of software! We love it!

Alan & Di


*** PS: Re-edited to bring the piano forward a bit more in the mix. Does it need more? Did I give it too much? Also added a different link to the song.


"The Happy Gypsy" ------ > http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=12926091


Style is _GJFFIDS.STY (Gypsy Jazz Fast w/ Fiddle solo)

RealTracks in style: ~752:Bass, Acoustic, Jazz BeBop Sw 190
RealTracks in style: ~755:Piano, Acoustic, Rhythm Jazz BeBop Sw 190
RealTracks in song: ~1198:Guitar, Acoustic, Rhythm GypsyJazzFastGonzalo Sw 220
RealTracks in style: 1196:Fiddle, Soloist GypsyJazzFast Sw 220
RealTracks in song: 1203:Guitar, Acoustic, Soloist GypsyJazzFastJohn Sw 220 (Bluesy)
RealDrums in style: Jazz: a: HiHat b: Ride & Snare
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Posted By: Charlie Fogle Re: The Happy Gypsy - 09/26/14 06:41 PM
The Happy Gypsy made me a happy Biab'er - Good job and excellent playing. Congratulations on getting the tune placed. Hope you guys are doing well, still keeping you in thought and prayer.


Charlie
Posted By: Al-David Re: The Happy Gypsy - 09/26/14 06:51 PM
Thanks, Charlie!

Actually, that's BIAB doing the acoustic lead. I wish it were me! I just did a little arranging and chord editing. Thanks for the kind words. And we do appreciate the warm thoughts and prayers. We've developed some rather serious medical issues the past year or so and they have slowed us down significantly.

Wishing you well and hope you have a terrific weekend!

Alan & Di
Posted By: floyd jane Re: The Happy Gypsy - 09/26/14 07:43 PM
Alan,

Congrats on the pickup! That's exciting.

The track is nice. The piano sounds good to me (although I mix an acoustic piano so it falls across the sonic field instead of to one side - maybe "leaning" to one side - 15% maybe - but not all on a side - just the way I like to hear it).

I thought the bass needed a little "heft". It has real good definition, but seems to lack "bassiness" (not a real word, but it says what I mean smile ) - like it needs a little "thump" to it..

A super enjoyable track. BEST of luck with it!!!!

floyd
Congrats!!! I think the tune totally works for me. Great job!! Take care. Greg
Posted By: Al-David Re: The Happy Gypsy - 09/26/14 08:23 PM
HI Floyd ...

Glad you liked it and thanks for the well wishes with the pick-up. We can go back and do some remixing, per your observations and see how it sounds. We really appreciate the input. Hope you're doing well ... we're doing! Wishing you the very best!

Alan & Di
Nice choice of RT's and mix -- works extremely well.

I put together a gypsy tune called Gypsy on the Oconee (our local river)
that turned out well -- never posted it.

I do agree with fj on the bass...but then I'm a bass player and
I tend to focus on it a lot. I have an Ozone setting that makes
the jazz bass RT's pop - mostly slight compression and a small
EQ boost around 600-1000.

Our mentor, Randy Howard (http://www.janiceandbud.com/randy-howard.html)
could play about anything well and he introduced us to Django and Stephane.
Wonderful stuff.

You did a GREAT job with this. It's a real showcase of the power of
BIAB in talented hands. And it's VERY cool re the soundtrack.

Congrats!

Bud

Hi Janice & Bud ...

Would love to hear that song... post it sometime, maybe?

Thanks for the nice words! As we listened to quite a bit of Gypsy Jazz on You Tube before we dove into this project, we noticed the bass lines were all pretty thin, so we intentionally didn't give the bass line a lot of "thump". Sometimes an acoustic bass gets a little "mushy" or "muddled" with too much low EQ. We'll go back in a few days and redo the piece, suing some of Floyd's suggestions and the 2nd vote for more "bottom" on the bass.

Thanks again. So glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for letting us know. Wishing you two a fantastic weekend.

Alan & Di

PS: We had had BIAB 2011.5 but a few weeks when we went into this. We were pretty raw with it ... still are in many respects!
Hi Alan & Di,

Well, except for the ending, which needs a little bit more sustain on the last note, everything sounds quite well balanced to me. Very well arranged, and the GypsyJazzFastJohn soloist is fantastic.
Definitely exciting it got picked up for a documentary!
I wish you guys a very nice weekend.

Regards,
Rob
Glad to hear your song got picked up, nice arrangement; thanks for sharing!
AL and DI,
Interesting piece.
Well done for getting picked for the documentary!!

Alyn
Hi Greg ,

Glad it works for ya! Thanks so much for letting us know. Hope you have a terrific weekend! Best to ya ...

Alan & Di
Hi Janice & Bud ...

we forgot to mention that we're not familiar with Randy Howard. Thanks for the link ... we'll check him out!

As I think you know, I lived in Europe for 12 years and Django Rheinhardt is almost as familiar to the Europeans as Pink Floyd is to our Rock culture of the 70's and 80's.

Alan
Hi Robert,

Thanks for your time to listen and comments so nicely. Glad you liked it! Thanks. Best to ya ...

Alan & Di
Hi Alyn,

We're delighted you found it interesting! And thanks for the congrats ... much appreciated! Hope your weekend is fabulous!

Alan & Di
Hi Alan,
Originally Posted By: Janice & Bud
Nice choice of RT's and mix -- works extremely well.
You did a GREAT job with this. It's a real showcase of the power of
BIAB in talented hands.

Who could say it better?
An enjoyable listen.

Guenter
HI Guenter,

Thank you very much! We're delighted it was an enjoyable listen for you. Hope your weekend is going well.

Alan & Di
A few things.

First... a huge congrats on the placement.... a few years out is a long time to wait....

Second.... if you don't like the default BB endings..... make your own. Select the NO BB 2 BAR ENDING or whatever it takes to get rid of the default ending.... then simply use a hold on the last bar. Yup... it just ended.... go in and remove the 2 bar ending....or.... do what I did recently.....simply ADD about 8 more bars to the song right before the ending..... then do a hold. The held chord will ring through several measures allowing enough time to do a nice reverb tail/ natural chord decay fade with an envelope. Waa Laa.... perfection. Yep, those BB endings get cut short like yours did..... depends on the genre and the tracks used.

Third.... now what was that other thing????? Oh yeah... The mushy bass with no definition that Floyd mentioned. DO you have a multi-band compressor? If not, you need one. Ozone has one in one of it's modules and it's really, really convenient and useful on something like that. You can actually split the instrument or voice into 4 unique frequency bands and compress each one of the bands differently. This allows you to put the kick and punch into something without overpowering the rest of the frequencies. I use it from time to time on kick drum and bass to accentuate the lowest freqs without making the rest of them loud.... it gives a noticeable kick in the bottom end..... of the music.

Combine that multi-band with parametric EQ and you have a really nice pair of tools to work on things.
Cool style. congrats on having it picked up. Great chops on the guitar. well played.
SD
Hello Herb ...

First, thanks for the congrats on the pickup. As far as the time frame, we've run into that a time or two, particularly from Europe. We're good with it!

I'll give that suggestion a go ... about creating better endings by adding additional bars and then putting a hold on the last chord. Thanks!

As far as the bass, we're going to play with it and give it a little more bottom EQ for our copy. Like I told Floyd, most of the Gypsy Jazz pieces we listened to on You Tube had pretty thin bass lines. Perhaps it was a matter of the recording quality or technique. We intentionally kept it not too heavy on the low EQ because of that. But, we'll play around with it.

As far as Ozone ... it will probably have to wait a while ... but sounds great! Our granddaughter has stage 3 cancer and no medical insurance (she's 20 years old). We're putting every extra penny into helping her pay her medical bills ... five chemos already. We've exhausted our savings and are pretty much paycheck to paycheck now. No complaints, though. That's what you do for family. But, when the money is right, we'll look into it.

Thanks for the nice words and great suggestions. We listen carefully when you speak! best to ya,

Alan & Di
SD ...

Thanks a bunch. We always like to hear "cool!". Actually, that's not me on the guitar ... it's a BIAB track. But, I did spend a ton of time getting it just the way I wanted it ... if that counts for anything!

Thanks for the listen, congrats and nice words! Best to ya ...

Alan & Di
Hi All
Greetings from Anna Maria Island, Florida.
Being a big Hank Marvin fan and of his GJ recordings in particular, I have to say that is first rate.
Really enjoyed it.
Regards
Ian
Hi Ian!

Hope all is well down on the island. Sure do appreciate all those nice words. This is a genre that's almost forgotten about, over-looked, here in the States. But it's still popular in Continental Europe in the Jazz clubs ... don't know about the UK, though. Thanks again. Have a great vacation!

Alan & Di
Very nice track! Did the real track soloists include bios? Maybe you ought to let them know they turned out some authentic, documentary grade riffs! I think this is big news though it will probably make ripples through the PG Music staff community.
Alan and Di:
What a nice little Gypsy theme to support
video. As someone who has edited his share of video, let me pass along my thoughts as to what makes the tune work so well:
1) Has that elusive quality of being able to fade the song in or out just about anywhere and right away the listeners are right back into it.
2) By the same token, editor could increase or decrease volume with great flexibility. That is, don't have to wait around to long for a good edit spot.
3) Song definitely says what it intended to say. Like the teacher says, everything else can be wrong, but if the song has something to say, it is a success.

I learned a lot just listening to it. Band in a Box never fails to amaze.
I will remember your health issues in prayer
this week & wish you recovery soon.
Hi Dan ...

Glad you liked the track. Thanks for the nice words on it. There's a very brief bio of the artist ... 2 or 3 sentences. But, yes, i can advise PG Music about the song being picked up.

Not real sure what you mean when you said it might cause some ripples throughout the PG Music Admin Staff. That could be a good thing ... or a bad thing! Ripples of concern ... or ripples of pride??!!

Thanks again for the time to listen and comment. Much appreciated!

Alan & Di
Hi ed ...

Thanks for the listen and kind comments regarding the song. You left me a little confused about your comments on a video for it. perhaps it's just me ... going on 70 years old!

Anyway, thanks so much for stopping in for a listen. Best to ya ...

Alan & Di
Really nice job and grats.

BIAB has "such" talented musicians that I've been thinking of adding a few songs that are all BIAB (not me) to SoundCloud??
Congrats
Hi, Al (& Di) !


You found a genré that
is more seldom played
over here, but it is
a very intriguing genré that
must require a very high level
of playing skills at least
the guitar picking ?

I liked your production and
I also wish you all the best
of luck with it !

Cheers
Dani
Congratulations!

Having your material selected as the theme for a documentary is wonderful. Knowing you used Band-in-a-Box for the song project source material and didn't have to pay for the session musicians ... priceless! Sorry, couldn't resist. blush
Hi Soolan ...

Thanks for the nice comments! We always like hearing good things about our music! We hope we've honestly earned them.

We have quite a few tracks that are BIAB only. Will be posting some more off and on over the next few weeks. Thanks for the grats!!! Best to ya ...

Alan & Di
Preardon ...

Thanks a bunch!

Alan & Di
HI Dani ...

As always, you are much too kind. Thank you so much for those very nice comments. It is a difficult style and seldom heard here in the States. We appreciate the good luck wishes for the song. Best to you ...

Alan & Di
Hi There, Jim!

Yeah, these guys work pretty cheap once you give them the up-front $$! But, they usually do a pretty danged good job. Thanks for the kudos. Much appreciated. Wishing you the best ...

Alan & Di
Hi Al and Di

Well Done!! That is so exciting. I really enjoyed the track. I must say that I am venturing more and more into this type of stuff. With BIAB instrumentals I have never got a bad review from the pros. (The mediocre reviews have usually been with the stuff with my vocals). Looking forward to a link to the doccie!
Hi Joanne ...

First, thanks a bunch. We're pretty excited about the pick-up, too!

My vocals get a lot of, uh ... consideration, you might say ... Di's get adoration. That's fine with me! I've never pretended to be a decent singer ... merely adequate. Personally, I've enjoyed your vocals ... as has Di. And yes, BIAB players are exceptional ... love them!

When to documentary gets ready for air, I'll post a link. Thanks for the kindness! best to you ...

Alan & Di
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