PG Music Home Forums General Discussion User Showcase Re-Generation Blues

Hi,
Lots of work to get BB to play out what I want to hear. Some of this I cut and pasted in Sonar.There are many things I don't like that could have been changed with many hours of effort.

https://soundcloud.com/planobillydfw/re-generation-blues

****** Song Summary *************
Title: Re-Generation Blues in C 60 BPM
File:Re-Generation Blues in C 60 BPM.SGU
Key=C , Tempo 60, Length (m:s)=5:52
No intro. 12 bar chorus, from bar 1 to bar 12. Repeat x7 choruses
Melody has 1268 notes, Melody harmony is < no harmony >(0)
No Soloist track.
Song is saved with Volume, Pan, Reverb, Chorus, Bank0,
Style is _TBLZSLR.STY (TexasBluesRock12-8 Rhythm [60RS])

RealTracks in style: 1922:Bass, Electric, TexasBluesRockSlow12-8 Sw 060
RealTracks in song: 1928:Piano, Acoustic, Soloist TexasBluesRockSlow12-8John Sw 060
RealTracks in style: 1924:Guitar, Electric, Rhythm TexasBluesRockSlow12-8Sol Sw 060
RealTracks in style: 1923:Guitar, Electric, Rhythm TexasBluesRockSlow12-8Brent Sw 060
RealTracks in song: 1925:Guitar, Electric, Soloist TexasBluesRockSlow12-8Brent Sw 060
RealTracks in song: ~675:Organ, B3, Background Blues Monday Sw 065
RealDrums in style: BluesRock128^6-a:Snare, HiHat Loose , b:Snare, Ride
*******************
Words
I’m sitting here on my back porch
Singing to the moon, cause BB done told me
I can’t play no cover tunes
Can’t play no Stormy Monday, Can’t play no Albert King
Setting here on the back porch, Thinking what can I sing
You got me posted out, There’s nothing I can use
Now I got the Re-Generation Blues

My door knob keeps on turning
Police must be at my door, They gona lock me up
If I do this any more
I ain’t got no lead in my pencil
My fountain pen is running dry
Can’t write nothing original
No matter how hard I try
You got me posted out, There’s nothing I can use
Now I got the Re-Generation Blues
They got trade marks on every color
Done copyrighted every line
And if you ask to use it
They will surely decline
They got lawyers guns and money
And many G men too
So if you want to stay out of trouble
You better watch just what you do
You got me posted out, There’s nothing I can use
Just why I got the Re-Generation Blues

My opinion is neither copyrighted nor trademarked, and it's price competitive. If you like, I'll trade for one of yours...lol

Billy

That was a fun listen. Pretty clever, and nicely done.

That was fun, Billy. Clever.

I know that Band! HA!

Your piano guy is a little trill-happy...

Keep 'em coming...

floyd

Haha, great words and the band sounds almost live and with a few beers inside, perfect for blues!

that got my foot tapping, I love playing and listening to the blues

Alyn

Hi Billy,

what fun lyrics! And well performed.
I enjoyed this a lot.

Guenter

Hi Floyd,

Yep, the piano guy or girl, was more than a little trill happy...lol and was not paying any attention to Mr. Mason's guitar solo..lol

And, herein one discovers the real issue with BB. All the artist are playing with "the band down the street" and are not listening to each other.

From a timing prospective there are in general only three places a note could be placed; behind the beat, on the beat, or ahead of the beat.

Within the limits of what I know how to change electronically, I have no control over Real Drums for example, I could move or replace every note in the bass line or piano line using software like Melodyne and others.

In something simple like this there are four or five hundred measures or more to adjust. That kinda looks like too much work for too little gain.

Band In A Box is a wonderful product to develop ideas quickly, plus several other things that it does very well.

One quickly reaches the limit of re-generation and then is forced to go to other ways of making changes.

Cheers,

Billy

Thanks to all of you, David, Alyn, and Guenter for your kind comments.

People showing up and saying stuff is what makes this site very cool.

Thanks again.

Cheers,


Billy

This simplest thing to do, once you've got the tracks in your DAW, is to adjust the tracks so there's only one instrument playing lead at a time.

To help with that, I'll generally try to have three tracks each for the guitar and piano:

• Fills
• Simple playing
• Held chords

That way, I can bring in an alternate track if I don't want the instrument to drop out entirely, but want it to play more simply so it's out of the way.

What's often most effective is to drop out the other instrument entirely at that point, but it's nice to have options.

Hi David,

Really good ideas you have there. I want to give the "three track thing" a try.

Also in the mean time I fired the vocalist, the piano player, and poor Brent...lol

Just played a little "no cliche guitar licks allowed"...lol

https://soundcloud.com/planobillydfw/de-generation-bluesa-short-clip

Billy

Hi Billy,

That sounds like a lot of work.
But well, overall this sounds like a band performing late at night in a smoky bar.
And we do like the piano soloist

Rob and Anne-Marie

"I’m sitting here on my back porch
Singing to the moon, cause BB done told me
I can’t play no cover tunes
Can’t play no Stormy Monday, Can’t play no Albert King
Setting here on the back porch, Thinking what can I sing
You got me posted out, There’s nothing I can use
Now I got the Re-Generation Blues'

HAHAHA

Very cool production. And, yes, we are blues fans big time.

FWIW, we regen many RT's just to find the "right" few notes
to paste in for a fill or transition. Our arrangements are sparse
and this approach seems to work along with a lot of volume
shaping.

Regarding your comments about the drums and FWIW...each
drum sound is available at the end of the the wav file for each RD.
They are in the respective folders. Forcing rolls and doubling up some of
the drum kit components gives you some control over them.
Thanks to fj and Tom for helping me with this!

Again, cool song and a clever write. We like it and look forward
to more listens via our SC fav playlist!

J&B

Nice tune and for me, the amount of work you have invested so far has been worth it to my ears.

Enjoyed this one.


Charlie

Thanks to everyone for putting up with the learning curve I am going through with BB.

Rob and Anne-Marie, I guess I have spent my share of late nights in smoky bars…lol…thanks for listening

Charlie, Thank you for commenting, you are a really nice guy who always has something good to say.

Janice & Bud, Thank you guys for the helpful instructions about Real Drums, I just have not learned enough to deal with the drum issue yet, perhaps soon I hope. It is evident in you songs that you guys have developed significant skills both as musicians and users of BB software. Janice, your vocals remind me why I love music.

Band In A Box has been part of a transition from the live world of music to the internet world of music. Putting all the software issues aside, just learning how to communicate and collaborate on line has been daunting. There are no visual cues, no body language, no engineer to lean on, plus the fact that many of my new on line friends speak many other languages, most of which I don’t speak very well, including standard notation…lol

To make matters worse, I have never been “the poster boy for political correctness” I googled it once and became even more confused…lol

This is some of the thinking process I went through trying to get BB to play out something I was looking for.
This was a very standard 12 bar blues progression.
|C|F|C9 Db9|C7|F9|F9|C|C7|G9|F7|C F9|C G7|

The style said Style is _TBLZSLR.STY (TexasBluesRock12-8 Rhythm [60RS]) but the drum line was in 4/4…I assume I could have found a 12/8 drum line somewhere…don’t know

The chords could be almost written but not exactly. To put in what I wanted would require BB to recognize chords in at least eight notes which I understand is something many have been asking for.

The B-3 distortion bugged me enough I did a frequency sweep, found the offending frequency range and pulled it out with EQ, and yes that reduced the dynamic range so it was a tradeoff.

I could have changed the piano line to most anything in Melodyne and a zillion piano riffs exist in BB in any event.

The Brent Mason solo had some T-Bone Walker signature licks, but well….too much rock and not enough blues, changing that would have required jumping through some real hoops…lol

The rhythm guitar parts were actually not too far off what I would have asked of a studio musician.

The vocalist needed to be twenty years younger, classically trained, and quit smoking fifty years ago…lol

All in all, the experiment was a little over my head for the current level of understanding I have of the software, but being a sailor, I never had much fear of jumping into the “deep in of the pool” lollol
Cheers,

Billy

Hello Billy,

great blues. You're the real guitar king.
I enjoyed the listen.

Hello.
Sergio.

It's all been said so all that I can add is this is a keeper!

Billy,

I bet you sang what many of us have thought sometimes. I love cover songs because they give something to compare against and ... I don't have much original material.

I admire your full speed ahead and modest attitude. You're very talented and have a good ear and both are apparent in this tune.

Dan, excellent workflow suggestion I've not seen before. Perhaps you should repost in the Tips and Tricks section.

Hi Jim,

Thank you for your kind words.

As for covers, every artist should be able to have control over their property.

On the other hand, it would be nice if there was some cost effective way for them to get compensated if I play a cover on the internet. I can go play a cover in a club tonight because the club owner paid a fee so I could do that.

In a lot of ways, the internet has become the "new club".

The answer to all this had to reasonable in terms of money.

Would I pay a dollar to be able to play a cover on some internet site? Yes. Would I pay ten dollars....no

There are huge amounts of money involved in the outcome to all these questions about the internet and copyright issues.

I don't think it will get sorted out anytime soon.

Cheers,


Billy

BTW, I am trying out Dan's ideas ATM.

Nice Blues tune Billy. Fun lyrics too. Very well put together.

Mike B.

Billy,

Very entertaining... Your vocal is very good, but I thought it could be just a touch more upfront at times.

Great job!

I'm glad I stopped in for a listen. Fun lyrics!

I haven't reach my limit in discovering what I can do with BIAB yet and the ride has been thrilling!