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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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TL;DR: Can anyone out in the community help me identify which Melodist I used to create this song?

Funny Thing Is (rough demo)

Now for the backstory: last February I was experimenting with Melodist and came up with this song. It sounded to me like something out of the 50s, and a set of lyrics sprang immediately to mind, so I put this scratch track together. This was right in the middle of February Album Writing Month, so I set the whole project aside and moved on to other songs.

Fast forward to 2022, and I decided to work on the song a little more and clean up the vocals. I opened up the project folder and discovered to my surprise and dismay that the BIAB file in that folder was actually a shortcut pointing to a file in my Mac's Trash, and not only had I emptied the Trash multiple times over the last year and change, I had replaced my boot disk at the beginning of the year, so the original file is long gone. All I have is the MP3.

By running the song through BIAB's Audio Chord Wizard I was able to work out that this song is in the key of F and 90 BPM, and I have a basic set of chords, although I know the actual chords are jazzier than the ones the Wizard worked out. For example I'm pretty sure the song leads off with an Fmaj7 chord, which the Wizard interpreted as simply F. It sounds like there's a drum set, guitar, bass, piano and strings behind the vocal, which should help identify the style if not the Melodist.

I feel like an idiot for tossing out that song file and would very much like to rebuild this song as close to the original as possible, so any help you can give me in identifying its Melodist would be a good start. Thanks in advance.


Creede Lambard
Computer Nerd, Bon Vivant and Filker at Large
MacBook Pro/Monterey, BIAB 2022 UltraPAK
Logic Pro X, Audacity, lots of tools & toys
and a banjo named Tuneslayer
Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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You know.... I've done similar things. Or sometimes the song files simply got corrupted and wouldn't load. Either way, I was faced with a similar problem.

At this juncture, the best and least stressful option would be to simply recreate the song from scratch. When I have had to do that, the end result was always better than the one I couldn't get back from the digital graveyard.

Use the chords and info the ACW was able to extract and start from there. It's really not that hard. I used to use the Melodist in my earlier days with BB. I did quite a few jazz things as a result. The only issue I remember is that it will never do the same thing twice. Even from one session to the next, it would regenerate all the tracks and change things. More than once I started a second session and bam.... that cool lick was gone. SO..... when you get something you like... freeze the tracks or freeze the song as a whole.

Lessons learned.

As a tip: When you start a new song.... create a folder for the song. Save ALL files related to the song in BB in that folder. On my computer, I have a work folder for the current year (and all past years as well). When I work on an idea I save it to that folder. When I start to gel the idea into a song, I then create a new folder in that big folder for the song. Periodically, I simply copy and paste the big folder to a duplicate in a storage drive.... save as... overwrite.... and I have a slightly more secure duplicate of the songs. So then, I can go back to my storage drive and retrieve any song or idea and load it to work on it again.

Hope that was helpful.


You can find my music at:
www.herbhartley.com
Add nothing that adds nothing to the music.
You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.

The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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Thank you for your reply @guitarhacker . . . I actually keep a Projects folder, and a separate folder inside of it for each song I work on. How I managed to create a shortcut to the BIAB file, trash the original and end up with the shortcut, well, let's just say it's not the most disastrous thing I've ever done.

I am sure you're right, I'll just have to start over with the chords ACW gave me. The main reason I wanted to identify the Melodist is, I like the sound of the arrangement and wanted to use that particular Style. Figuring out which Melodist I used just seem to be the fastest way to do that. Any lush jazz chords I ended up with would just be a bonus.


Creede Lambard
Computer Nerd, Bon Vivant and Filker at Large
MacBook Pro/Monterey, BIAB 2022 UltraPAK
Logic Pro X, Audacity, lots of tools & toys
and a banjo named Tuneslayer
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