Hi Mario,

Yes, I also have some MIDI cover songs. They work well enough in some cases.
Everything has gotten better in midi.

Some instrumentation is less problematic to make very good sound VSTs. Guitar VSTs are better than they use to be but...close but no cigar...lol

The custom Gary Moore track I downloaded from https://www.karaoke-version.com/custombackingtrack/ has about ten stems. Some were good and some were not good at all. It did give me everything I needed that I can not play well. I can play the guitar solo pretty much note for note. I have a very hard time to arpeggiate the chords used. It is not the chord progression. That is easy enough and has been around in other songs for a long time.

I can not play the Rhodes keyboard part. That was in the download and usable.

At the end of the day, I think the final product I need will come from several sources.

There are one or two songs I like well enough to pay the price to get the professional stems I want. A radio-ready song from a Nashville studio cost between $500 and $1500 dollars with the vocals. As I will have my own vocalist, that will take $200 to $400 off the cost to produce a top-quality track.

In many ways, this is a new world for me. I have never had any real interest in playing cover songs. And yes, our band played a good many but we were really mostly involved in playing our own stuff. Even the cover songs we played we very different arrangements from the originals. That was not my idea, but my lead players, both guitar and keyboard were monster players and there is no way to hold those types of musicians down...lol Nor would I want to.

Now I want a duo, me and some nice-looking woman who can sing in many styles, play keyboards, and understands the value of how to dress and act, and understands the value of the theatrical aspect of performing and interacting with people.

I am not some cute young kid and I can assure you I will be dressed in whatever type of Hollywood style makeup and motif I think may work.

The music is only one part of what I have in mind to do. I am in the process of designing and building cost-effective robotic theatrical props to enhance the visual effect of the performance. I am creating animated avatars and animation videos of this production for sales and marketing purposes.

I am way over my head in the deep end of the pool...lol I have no way to predict the actual outcome. Only the public will tell me that. For me, this is not really about success or failure. The creative process is super fun. I am not taking a dime with me when I die so I don't care what it cost to the extent I have the resources to support the concept.

And I am damn tired of musicians I have worked with in the past telling all this theatrical stuff is a load of crap. Go ask Lady Gaga what she thinks and how successful she has been at doing more or less the same sort of thing I want to do. Check out what ABBA is doing.

For sure I do not have a huge budget to try all this but if it works on a small scale I will be able to get any amount of money I need. There is a lot more money in the world than there are good ideas.

Personally, I don't care much about money, it is just a tool. If someone gave me ten million dollars in the morning it would have little effect on the way I live.

Wow...what a rant...lol

Billy

New location, new environment, new music coming soon

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