My mother passed away almost two years ago. Due to circumstances in my youth I didn't have much contact with her anymore. Arising issues about what she left in her house led to conflicts with my younger brother with whom I even had less contact. This inspired me to write this song. I combined this theme with the well known Banshee legend. The real star of this song is the Embertone Arcane Kontakt plugin. You'll hear her throughout the song. For the intro I time stretched her down for about 90% to get that real witchy effect.
Anne-Marie (who also did a co-write on the lyrics) created a very atmospheric video for this.
Hope you like it, any comments are welcome.
Rob
Song specifics:
Style is C_JETHRO.STY (Jethro Bluegrass) GuitarCustom Synth is Synth/Plugin Loaded StringsCustom Synth is Synth/Plugin Loaded Style MIDI Instruments are : Clean Electric Guit (28), Brass Section (62), 1153:Bass, Electric, Reggae Ev16 100 380:Guitar, Acoustic, Strumming Syncopated Sugar Ev 102 1697:Pedal Steel, Rhythm CountryDrivin8ths Ev 150 1412:Guitar, Acoustic, Rhythm CelticHornpipe Sw16 070 Female Voices: Kontakt Embertone Arcane free instrument
We are Rob Meulman and Anne-Marie Bovenkamp from The Netherlands.
Wow, what a really great song. Love that bass line!
The music supports the lyric perfectly. That Cajun-sounding fiddle was great. All the effects were perfect ... not too much but just enough. Great lyric and production. As always, your voice is magnificent. Anne-Marie's video was great! Everything about this is top shel.
I (Alan) also do not have a close relationship with most of my family. Makes me sad sometimes. Wishing you both the very best,
Rob, Atmosphere with a jaunty celtic beat - very creative! The background voice is great and even without your backstory the feeling of menace and mystery comes through in your voice. Excellent video images are a bonus.
All of the elements you added are so effective in supporting the storyline. This is such a well crafted piece. The video completes the total package of a great presentation. Very professional. Enjoyed my listen.
Wow, what a really great song. Love that bass line!
The music supports the lyric perfectly. That Cajun-sounding fiddle was great. All the effects were perfect ... not too much but just enough. Great lyric and production. As always, your voice is magnificent. Anne-Marie's video was great! Everything about this is top shel.
I (Alan) also do not have a close relationship with most of my family. Makes me sad sometimes. Wishing you both the very best,
Alan & Di
I agree!! Very, very well done!! I love Embertone-I have the cello which is amazing. I wish I were a better programmer. Great job on this!! Take care. Greg
Rob/Anne-Marie, everything about this is professional! The song, performance and production demands appreciation and respect! You always do very good work and this is another example! I wish that I had half the skill with video production that you do. Thanks, Torrey.
Wow! That is a fascinating production. The way those RT's work together would never be assumed from just reading the list. Amazing. Your vocal and the vocal effects are right in the pocket working so well with the lyric and melody. And, as anticipated the video is another of your examples as to how an audio production can be enhanced via video.
You two have such a wide breadth of talent and it all shines with this.
Very cool song! Super production. The Embertone Arcane Kontakt plugin is very nice. It makes a really great contribution to bring out the atmosphere to the song. Your vocal is very great as usual. The melody has an old C&W feel a little bit, The guitar chords at the Intro. (Abm6 - Eb7b9) are very effective. Enjoyed my listen a lot.
Al, Sorry to hear that you don't have much relations left with your family either. In some families that's just how it goes. Apparently it doesn't matter whether you were close when you were very young (we were us kids) or not. My brothers and sisters still have contact with one another. However all of this is not a problem for me in any way. I've always been the exception/black sheep/not really understood etc. kind of person in our family. Oh I know, this must sound like a terrible cliché but in fact it is true.
Also, you don't get to pick your family in a way you choose your friends. I found out years ago that a good partner and good friends (there don't have to be many) are the only things that really count for me.
Rob
We are Rob Meulman and Anne-Marie Bovenkamp from The Netherlands.
There are over 30 new features to RealBand 2024, including 256 available tracks, 32 VSTi/DXi synth instances, modern color scheme for some windows, Playable RealDrums support, new arrow buttons to change the current time, chord symbols to display in the Track window, 48 tracks to display in the Mixer, the ability to hide any extra masters or auxes in the Mixer, improved handling of VU levels in the Track window, better VU levels display when recording to mono tracks, song preview in the StylePicker, the ability to initiate track generation from the StylePicker, and much more!
RealBand 2024 is included with all Band-in-a-Box 2024 for Windows orders - and our 2024 upgrades are ON SALE until December 31st! Until then, save up to 50% - upgrade for as little as $49!
Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows is here with over 50 new features and an amazing collection of new content, including 222 RealTracks, new RealStyles, MIDI SuperTracks, Instrumental Studies, “Songs with Vocals” Artist Performance Sets, Playable RealTracks Set 3, Playable RealDrums Set 2, two new sets of “RealDrums Stems,” XPro Styles PAK 6, Xtra Styles PAK 17, and more!
We're having a SALE on Band-in-a-Box® 2024 Upgrade purchases until December 31, 2023 - save up to 50% when you purchase your Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows Upgrade!
We've packed our Free Bonus PAK & 49-PAK with some incredible Add-ons! The Free Bonus PAK is automatically included with most Band-in-a-Box® for Windows 2024 packages, but for more even more Add-ons (including 50 Unreleased RealTracks!) upgrade it to the 2024 49-PAK for only $49. You can see the full lists of items in each package, and listen to demos here.
Band-in-a-Box® 2023 for Mac is macOS Sonoma Compatible!
We're over the moon to announce that the latest Band-in-a-Box® 2023 for Mac Build 707 is compatible with macOS Sonoma!
Refresh your Band-in-a-Box® 2023 for Mac today with this free update to resolve visibility of notation in the Notation Window, apply smoother use of notation features, update to the Drums VU meter, and add the newest version of the DAW Plugin (5.5.13).
Revisit: Eyes on Success featuring PG Music Inc., Band-in-a-Box®, and the Updated JAWS Script
In the past, Eyes on Success featured an episode that discussed our company history and Band-in-a-Box® program with Tobin, our chief development officer, including how Band-in-a-Box® is even more accessible with the help of their JAWS screen reader scripts!
Later on this month, Eyes on Success will be releasing an episode that features Gudrun Brunot talking about her new tutorials about how to use Band-in-a-Box® with JAWS.
It's a great idea to pair the two episodes together!
Eyes on Success is a weekly radio show / podcast geared to the visually impaired called "Eyes On Success" and that can be found at www.EyesOnSuccess.net.
Find out more about the show and get links to past episodes at www.EyesOnSuccess.net
User Tip: How to add drum fills without changing any other tracks
MarioD has shared some great advice when it comes to adding drum fills without changing any other tracks in your song:
There have been a number of questions asking how to add drum fills without changing any other tracks in a song. This is especially important if one is holding a chord for a few measures and wants to add a drum fill prior to the next chord. The following is how to accomplish that:
1-get the instruments/tracks to play like you want but don't worry about the drums for now.
2-generate the song.
3-freeze all tracks
4-unfreeze the drum track
5-add your fills where you want them
6-generated the song again - note this will only generate the drum track and not the frozen tracks
7- when you get the drums like you want them freeze the track
Review - Band-in-a-Box® 2023 for Windows is Overflowing with Features!
Dennis posted his very thorough Band-in-a-Box® review recently, where he dives into some of the new features added with version 2023: Sound-Guy's Band-in-a-Box Review
Read his thoughts on the Download & Install Manager, partial track regeneration, Playable RealTracks, Audio Editing, the addition of SynthMaster, the VST DAW Plugin, and more!
"Band-in-a-Box continues to be an expansive musical tool-set for both novice and experienced musicians to compose, arrange and mix songs, as well as an extensive educational resource. It is, without negative connotation, a monster of a program. Yet, so is any DAW that I have used. No DAW can do some of the things BIAB does, while BIAB can do a lot that DAWs do."
Band-in-a-Box® Tutorials for Low-vision and Blind Program Users
Our friends at EyesFree_Tutorials have just released their Band-in-a-Box Tutorials, Bundle 2!
Created for low-vision and blind program users, this collection of Band-in-a-Box for Windows tutorials includes 31 audio instruction files and 19 music files for practice, plus help documents. Specific topics include "ABACA, let's make a song form," "Recording melody and lead-in," "Playing and editing: part markers; the handy clipboard. The play function. Search and replace," and more!
Learn more about their new tutorials, and connect with Roy & Gudrun to order the Band-in-a-Box Tutorials, Bundle 2 here.
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but in fact it is true. 
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