The Contrafact - A "contrafact", by definition, is the act of using the chord progression of an existing song as it comes, and construct a new melody on top. It doesn't have to end there though, for quite often this (very legit!) method of music making will also include creating an entirely new instrumentation, a different rhythm & key, shift around or cut parts and whatnot. In my case here I have in fact done all of the above, except the key remains unchanged.
Now, this one is a bit of an oddity for me, I admit, was probably more of an experimentation at the time. The song (originally written in the 80's) is named thus for two reasons. One, I've recently learned that making a song in the way I have done here does in fact have a name, as explained above, and I just thought that word sounded fine as a name for the song since that's precisely what the song is. And the other reason, I simply couldn't remember its original name!
Right, as I don't expect any of you to correctly guess the song from where I 'lifted' the chords, I'll resist the "turn it into a game" temptation, for a change - It is from "The Model", by Kraftwerk (kudos if anyone here has even heard of them, they weren't exactly msainstream in Europe, let alone known overseas!).
And now for the 'Formalities':

Style is _BOGG70S.STY

UserTracks in song: Piano, Acoustic, Rhythm FunkyTriplets Sw 120*
RealTracks in style: 2362:Bass, Electric, MotownFunkyTriplets Sw 120
RealTracks in style: 956:Guitar, Electric, Rhythm CountryBoogieGrittyA-B Sw 110
RealTracks in song: 2363:Piano, ElectricClav, Rhythm MotownFunkyTripletsJohn Sw 120
RealDrums: RealDrums in Song: LaPopJazzLiteSw

*My own UT

A "contrafact"... How interesting. I learned something new today.

An admirable job on the creation of the new usertrack, very impressively done.

The song has a great vibe to it, and the graphic is weirdly complimentary.

Good sound!

Had a progressive rock sound and clever melody. Well constructed.

Eddie,

When I read Kraftwerk I went YEH, I was into electronic music in a big way and this band led the way. My last band even played a hybrid electronic/rock version of "The Model".
Anyway, enjoyable listen and the intro is definitely a contrafact

the picture on soundcloud is also excellent, did you do that???
I stared at that as I listened to your song.
Well done for the usertrack, fitted well.

sorry but I sang their words to your song

good ending by the way!

Alyn

Nicely done.Most enjoyable.
Rob

It's a pretty new term to me too, in fact I only first heard about it from another user on this very forum! So I guess I'm merely "paying it forward", as it were

p.s. Ta for the complimentary note on my Usertrack, it is in my view my best one yet.

Thanks for that, nice to find someone who knew the reference. I did try retain at least some of the "electronic" essence by picking those "hard to define", obscure sounds for the melody (and the drums), but I still found it necessary to swap out the electric keyboard of the style for an acoustic one or it was getting a bit overstated (if that makes any sense).

I can't take the credit for that one, no. It's just something I found in my Pictures folder and seemed to be "mind boggling" enough to fit the piece
That's a relief, thanks. Choosing the instruments gave me a bit of a headache, actually, and I tried a lot of RT pianos before finally deciding that my own was probably the best fit after all. Usertracks are still ever so tricky to construct in terms of actually working in a song, but this one seems to be fairing alright.

ROFL!!

Hi Eddie,

I'm not familiar with Kraftwerk so I can evaluate the song just by what I heard.

The tune is pretty melodic and the choice of instrumentation evokes the eighties, synth sound.

There is a lot of difference between the apparent energy level of the two lead instruments. The first instrument sounds similar to a harpsichord while the second more of a wind blown instrument. Even though it doesn't show up in the waveform sound envelope the apparent sound of the second, wind blown instrument is much louder.

I enjoyed my listen.

Very melodic and enjoyable.

Kenny

The 'loud' one is in fact listed as a Shehnai emulator, a reed instrument from India or thereabouts, so you came surprisingly close with that guess!
And yes, I do agree somewhat about it being perhaps a tad too strong in the mix especially in relation to the other main sounds. I guess that's what you risk when you're trying to be 'economic' with the tracks, for I actually played all three on the same synth (they all take turns as opposed to play toether, you see) and just manually switched between each on their respective a-b-c parts turn. Something I wouldn't really do on a 'pro' recording unless for some very exceptional reason.

But well spotted!

Oh, I quite like the sound of that - "Mr. Melodic", that's me down to a T!

Interesting back story and quite an interesting tune. Impressive work for your user track. That's something I have on my to do list with BIAB and not gotten to yet.

Charlie

Hello,

nice track and good melody.
Great synth.

Hello.
Sergio.

Thanks for that. I realise the piece isn't exactly "rich" or inventive on the chords front, so I tried to compensate by picking obscure lead sounds to grab the attention instead.

Good luck with that! We could certainly do with more contributors to that cause
Have to tell you though, it's not as 'easy & straight forward' to pull off as these so-called 'tutorial' videos will have you believe Sure, playing along their Templates and recording is pretty simple (and you can easily churn them out by the truckload from that alone), but you'll find that's barely half of the story if you wish to go for any sort of decent usability! Case in point, this particular one here took me weeks to get it to the level of stable playability it's at now.

And a note back to all of you:

I have to say that yet again you've managed to surprise me with the level of feedback and (even more so) the share interest shown! Here I was quite sure I had such an odd and ill-definable piece to present, that it would hardly bring on any listeners to more than maybe the first few seconds before heading on to more 'recognisable' territory. I mean, I myself can hardly begin to place any sort of 'label' or genre onto whatever this thing turned out to be in the end - and I wrote it!

And yet, here we are 2 pages in on the feedbacks already, amazing!

wow its nice!! I have done this with a song before, but I didn't realise there was a name for it. I guess I would put this into maybe alternative? Its very listenable (if thats a word)
PS Ive hard of Kraftwek but not too familiar with their stuff.
Thanks for posting, I enjoyed that

I remember the name Kraftwerk, German right? Don't remember the music. This is a cool little tune you've constructed here!! The contrafact is an interesting concept. I heard John Lennon say that one of his songs (may have been "Love is" or something) was created from a classical piece played backwards, the contrabackwardsfact. Leave it to John. This is a very enjoyable creation! Thanks for sharing. Take care. Greg

For those invested in the concept, here's the original Kraftwerk song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHHv4u8Vomw

Very interesting concept and the final result. I can recognize the Kraftwerk chord progression, I have always liked its melancholy. I like the funkier feel in your song. Maybe the piano soloist part could have more chorus/reverb effects to better fit in.

Contrafact concept is new to me as a name. I usually try to avoid any known chord progressions, but once I tried to make a pop rock song with John Coltrane's chord progressions. It was only a starting point, I changed those chords that sounded too jazzy and not enough pop and added my own chords for some parts. For those who are interested, here is an instrumental version of it (melody replaced by piano soloist Realtrack #2026).

Anyway, thanks for the inspirational song. I hope to hear more with the same concept.

Janne

If by that you mean more cases of contrafact, then I have to say that's quite unlikely, as I've only ever made two songs of that method and both of them are now on here already.

However, you may not have realised that BBox itself makes creating contrafact pieces a very easy thing to do, by simply utilising the built-in Melodist of the program. So those who wish to experiment with this particular concept only have to input a chord progression from any song they so desire, pick a style, press the Melodist button and let BBox do the rest!

All has been said already. Very nice and melodic tune!

Cheers!

I get a vision of maybe a Dr Who show where he is searching a crowed landscape for a special object or tool of some kind.

much enjoyed

That's just too brilliant! Right, that settles it - this forum is officially bonkers

No wonder I felt so at home in here straight from the get go, eh

Well, after Gruve's comment there's really nowhere
left to go. :-)

That signature piano riff is hypnotic. Still hearing it.
Glad you went the user track route.

Thanks for the backstory and the introduction to
a new, for me, word.

This a really interesting production and I suspect
it took a lot of time to mix.

Enjoyed it!

J&B

This just made me laugh!

It wasn't really the plan from the offset, as I mentioned earlier in this thread it simply turned out to be the best fit. I never deliberately intended this piece to be the UT showcase it's apparently become, But now I'm pretty glad I did use it, for that seems to have helped getting it the extra attention.
And speaking of attention, my dream has come true:

PG has featured this song on their Facebook page - WORLD FAME, HERE I COME, WHOO-HOO!