On this project we used BIAB style "C_Shania - Contemporary Country Ballad" from SD #15 at 60 BPM in an attempt to create a feel similar to Shania's "Home Ain't Where His Heart Is Anymore" (which has an outrageous electric slide guitar break, BTW!) Since this style has no RealTracks or RealDrums associated with it, we exported it as a MIDI file into CUBASE 4 and ran the instrument tracks through a Yamaha DSP Factory, the DS2416 mixing card (...a PCI bus card encompassing all the technology of the Yamaha O2R digital mixing console) connected to a Yamaha SW1000XG sound card, and the separate drum tracks through the CUBASE DM4 VST drum plugin, utilizing real WAV files. If all this seems rather convoluted, it's the way we used to convert BIAB MIDI files in the pre-RT/RD era. But we really liked the feel of this particular style, and rather than look for another similar RT/RD style we just went with this one. The final piano track is so authentic sounding, a fellow musician, piano-music major asked who did the keyboard work. Really hated to tell him how we did it. That kind of says it all for BIAB's musicianship.

There are two distinct guitars and styles used in this song. The initial twin guitar intro and the guitar break utilize a Fender Subsonic Telecaster through a POD, with a definite "Twin Peaks" TV series vibe. (Check out "Twin Peaks intro" on YouTube to hear this haunting guitar sound.) The final guitar outro, utilizes a bluesy Allman Brothers vibe with overdriven twin Fender Power Telecasters run through a Johnson J Station set on "crunchy style" and then directly into the board, a Yamaha AW4416 lightpiped to the DAW.

Vocals harmonies are created via a TC Helicon Voice Prism (outboard gear) controlled by the BIAB bass MIDI track....so cool!

SONG LINK: Summertown

Enjoy,

Bob Buford, Producer
Summertown Recording Studios
Fort Collins, Colorado