Hello everyone,

We've been away for a little while.
I have been busy moving to a new place in a different location. A small village quite nearby Anne-Marie's place :-)
Besides that, we just got back from a holiday to Berlin.
Here's the new contribution to the forum. It's a solo project I created some months ago:

MONDAY

The basis of the song was created in ChordPulse, the following BIAB RT's were added:
391 guitar electric rhythm metal
1007 piano acoustic solo accompaniment popflowing
1275 piano acoustic rhythm popupliftheld
1278 Synth Pad Pop Uplift
1530 guitar electric soloist pop power
RealDrums: Soul 70s Ev16

The video is a combination of lyric screen recordings (which took me ages to sync properly) and Dani Millán's wonderful skater footage.
I compiled everything in MoviePlus X5.

Hope you like it, any comments are welcome.

Rob

Rob, as always, your work is amazing. Your vocals are just beautiful, great control and range. Well written song. Great video.

Can't wait to hear more!

Steve

Rob you have done a lot of beautiful music on here. But this is my absolute favorite. The melody is super - the lyrics and arrangement are spot on. And the vocal is top notch.

I love this. You've set a new bar for yourself with this one.

Josie

Rob,

Great song as usual, you have an EXCELLENT voice.

I do like the ""written" effect on the words in the video and can see that they would have taken hours to get right.

As Josie (Sundance) wrote "You've set a new bar for yourself with this one."

Alyn

Great song - loved the video writing on the page - very nice effect.
Excellent vocals.

Rob,

This is top class music. You're performance is brilliant and your production is outstanding. As others have said, you've raised the bar really, really high with this one. Great video, too. Like Sundance, this is my new favourite of yours.

Regards,
Noel

Hello,

I like your song a lot as usual.
great sound and excellent voice.

Beautiful the part when you sing "and I feel..."

Hello.
Sergio

What a superb pop/rock song; I love the changes. Stunning vocals guys!

John

Rob,

Great song. Every once in a while I hear some Roy Orbison in your voice - very nice. Loved it.

Bob

Rob, as usual, fantastic melody, lyrics, and absolutely superb vocal delivery. Perfect build, and nice balance of instruments.
Very, very good songwriting and presentation. This is capable of air-play.
Trevor

Rob: thanks for the song. I've just purchased ChordPulse.

DE

Thanks Steve!

well, there's much more to come, the year isn't over yet ;-)

Rob

Thanks Josie,

What a very nice comment!
Reaching those high-pitched notes wasn't easy
'Monday' and 'Amanda' (for which I'm going to create a video in the near future) are my two little favorites, as far as my solo projects are concerned.
Credits go to ChordPulse and of course BIAB, without these two programs I wouldn't have been able to create this kind of sound.

Rob

WOW!!

We didn't think there was room enough left for you guys to raise the bar
again. This is fabulous in all aspects and we love EVERYTHING. Superb
vocals and mix and write. No need to go into details because everything
works together so well.

And the video is off the charts. How the heck did you do the "lyric writing?"
Specific software or very carefully using conventional vid software?

Amazing presentation!!

J&B

I could not say this any better than J&B did. I don't usually watch videos - but this caught my attention immediately and I could not stop watching - a great mix of lyric video and film...

Terrific write, vocals, production. Your best (among so many good ones).

floyd

Just what I was about to write. Excellent song.

I quickly recognized the 1530 solo guitar. One of my favorites that I use anytime I can.

Hi Rob,

I totally agree with everything said above.
A very enjoyable watch and listen.

Guenter

Great song! Love the vibe. How do you like working with Chord Pulse? What extra does it bring to the table so to speak??

Rob you have a very smooth and pleasant voice and good range. I enjoy videos and yours is superb. The chorus is my favorite part and one in particular that you nailed it to perfection. Everything about this production is right on!
Sonny

Beautifully done soft rock ballad!! As others have observed, the vocal is beautiful (Rob "Roy Orbison"). The chorus just rises and soars-grabs the ear in a very nice way. The rest of the arrangement/mix is excellent as well. An all-around winner!! Take care. Greg

Rob, This is so very easy to listen to and like. The melody is outstanding. Your best vocal to date. Nicely written and well produced. However I thought it was a bit odd to pan the bass hard left, but I got over it pretty quick. I think the holiday did you some good. Great work. Tom

Rob:
Outstanding, love the shades of Roy Orbison. Interested to hear how you team ChordPulse and BIAB together. I just bought ChordPulse yesterday and I like the simplicity and quickness of it (and small footprint).

I saved the YouTube video into my favs so I can hear it many times again.

DE

Hi Alyn,

Thank you for the compliments on my voice. What can I say, I do my best
Definitely a challenge to try to maintain this level as far as possible.




Thank you Peter!



Hi Noel,

Thanks very much for the positive comments on the song.
Like I replied to Alyn, let's hope I can maintain this level a challenge, but definitely worth while.

Love the song! and the chorus is superb!

And the video is excellent, creative and technical

outstanding!

I hate to just +1 what's already been said, but: your best so far, and that's a high standard.

Very enjoyable. Love the head voice!
Very interesting video. Great job. Cheers.

Everybody already said everything I was thinking.....


But I'll say it anyway.

This is a great song, well written and performed. Nice chops on production both audible and visually.

The chorus's high notes reminded me of one of the best singers ever,,,, the one and only Roy Orbison. One of your better songs and my favorite in quite some time.

Thank you Sergio, your support is always appreciated!





Thank you John! Also for your nice comment on YouTube.





Thank you Bob. always a pleasure to be compared to Roy Orbison (one of the best singers ever) ;-)





Thank you Trevor! I always try to create music that would I would like to hear on the radio myself. The 70s and 80s are my main references. The 45s sound so to speak :-)





Thank you DEddy! Yes, Chordpulse is a great addition to BIAB and worth well the money (it's not expensive).
Combining Real Tracks with it works seamlessly. There is another program, similar to ChordPulse which you may be interested in: ChordPad you may want to check this out.

Thank you J&B!

The 'lyric' video part actually was done very conventionally. I did a screen recording while typing the text (on an imported picture of a piece of lined paper) in a standard photo editor.
I recorded everything in steps but the hardest part was syncing the lyric with my voice.
This way, if you're good with a pen tablet (which I'm not), you could do a really nice animation video using solely a good screen recording program (like Gilisoft for instance) ;-)

Rob

Thank you Floyd!

Thank you Charlie!

Yes, the 1530 solo guitar is definitely the best (non Brent) electric guitar soloist. However, I had to regenerate several parts to get a proper build up.

Rob

Thank you Guenter!

Hey, you two just be careful now or I'll end up actually liking mondays - and we can't have that!

Hello David,

thanks for your very nice comment!
I sent you a PM about ChordPulse.

Rob

I purchased ChordPulse last week and I love it. It takes me 2 min to put together chords and find a style. No need to test out hundreds of styles (w/BIAB), it would take me 1/2 hr (or more). My main use is for practicing.

The price is very "reasonable". Takes 5 min to get the basics, about 30 min to learn all the features. Can't go wrong with this app.

DE

Hello DEddy,

Good to hear you like the program. If you're looking for a good Soundfont you could use the free Musyng Kite SF2

CP only sounds as good as the Soundfont used.

Remember though that Band in a Box is crucial for creating the final sound. Adding BIAB's RT's (and User Tracks!!) to basic ideas created with ChordPulse will result in a more natural sounding arrangement. Especially the use of Real Drums will enhance things quite quickly.

If you're looking to create backing tracks for your guitar playing as fast as possible you can use BIAB's Melodist function. We use the Ultra Plus Pack and it contains all available Melodists! you can generate an full-fledged song in 2 seconds.

Have fun with it all!

Rob

ha ha, well I'm not too keen on Mondays either (that's why I chose this as the title....)

thank you!

Rob -- if you've got the time.
Dumb question: if I export ChordPulse as a midi, then import it into BIAB.

Do you then change all the midi with RT? and RealDrums?

Thanks for your input.

DE

Well that depends, what usually works is replacing the midi drums with real drums. Real drums usually always sound better.
Next, you can add several other RT's like a rhythm guitar for instance, or an acoustic fingerpicking guitar. You can either replace the midi tracks with these RT's or simply add them, leaving the CP midi tracks intact. Finally import everything into your DAW and start mixing everything, cutting and pasting etc. In our case this process is usually the most time-consuming part
Experimenting with UserTracks is also a very good idea Seeker has created a huge collection of them, you can download them in the UserTracks (and other add-ons) section of this site.

Rob

As a late responder, I'm just going to agree with everything that's been said! I really enjoyed the text entry part of the video.. I thought it was a very innovative touch! You always have great videos, and I think that ramps your productions up to the next level consistently.

When I listen to your vocals I marvel that English is not your first language... if I didn't know you are from the Netherlands, I'd guess you lived in LA! You have that hard-to-acquire "non accent" that is sought after by nationally broadcast television people who need not to have a regional accent.

As usual, your key strengths are a well defined melody, your highly elastic and controlled voice, and your intuition about how to string all of the parts together in a pleasing way. Like Floyd, it's obvious that you aren't just experimenting to see what works. You wouldn't consistently hit the mark unless you had a good grip on what works so you could repeat the formula without repeating the composition.

Lastly, I like your songs because they tend to be ballads, artfully executed and emotionally evocative.

Keep 'em coming!

Thank you Pat,

Oh yes, we will certainly keep them coming!
We always appreciate your thorough comments on our songs, your expertise, and the time you put into it.
Keep them coming too!

Regards,
Rob