First post from a new member

[Jazzmammal]

Hi Kara, I see some familiar faces in here from the PG forums and I remembered you had posted there some months ago and offered to let people link songs from here.  That's very cool  so here's my first one.  Power Tracks has a midi demo called Jays Blues that is a solo piano and what I did is just using that one midi, made it into a 4 piece band using the new Real Drums and a guitar track that was created by Band in a Box.
Using Power Tracks piano roll editor, I split the piano part into the right hand solo and the left hand bass, then copied the bass to a separate track and set it up with an acoustic bass patch.  Then I applied a little EQ, reverb and mixed it.  One of the guys over there did something similar and I thought I would create my take on it.  I did two versions, one using the Forte DXi plug in and the other using Sample Tank.  Hmmm, I just tried to attach both versions, it seems like we can post only one attachment per message?  Not a big deal, here is the Forte one.

Bob

[kara]

Hi Bob

Great to see you here ! 
That forte demo sounds pretty well, actually it sounds way better then I tought it would
A couple of tips :
in the first 25 seconds you could make the last notes of that bass a litle longer , this way they will fade out as a real bass would do.
and I would eq out a bit the high range of that piano a bit, it seems to me that it 'rings' a bit in the high freq's ...

And of course a BIG welcome here 

[Jazzmammal]

Kara, yes there's a lot that still can be done if I wanted to make this a really polished piece.  I just wanted to show what it can sound like by keeping the piano part unchanged from the original midi so I didn't go into the bass and start editing things like you mentioned.  The only changes I made were raising the gain on the solo bass part on the intro and deleting a few notes that were part of the original piano chord.  Otherwise a little EQ and reverb and yes the piano is a little bright but that depends on whether you like the mellow Steinway sound or a brighter Yamaha/Kawai sound.  The biggest thing I would do to polish it up would be to insert some hi hat chokes and snare hits on those punches.  The Real Drums have the ability to do shots and pushes but in this particular style the shot is just a wimpy little bass drum hit and at first I thought it wasn't even working because it was so subtle.  Here's the Sample Tank version, I think it's a little bit clearer with more separation than the Forte, see what you think.

Bob

[rharv]

Very nice job on the Forte version- I can tell by where the splits happen you did a bit more than just put the left hand onto the bass track. Very nice placement on what you left in the piano track for left hand.  I think it sounds very good for just using all Forte. I bought that thing, keep it updated, but rarely use it. Guess I better change that habit!
 Thanks for sharing this- it was impressive in more ways than one.

STank version (love the abbreviation!)-
 It sounds just as good, maybe a bit better to me. Couple reasons for that. Drums have a certain life to them in the second version due to processing. Bass too, however admittedly STank has a bigger selection of sounds, doesn't it? (unless you've modified your Forte list)  This piano has a 'woodier' sound to it. I like both the piano sounds.  The difference in reverbs between the two sticks out most. The reverb in the STank version is filling out the space and sound a lot more.
 It's a nice arrangement they threw in with PT, isn't it?

[Oren]

Nice to see you here, Bob!

The track is cool, but what I'd like to witness is a third version where you keep the synthetic bass and percussion parts, but tinkle the ivories yourself 

Feelin' frisky?

Oren.

[Jazzmammal]

Sorry got busy and forgot to check in here.  Life happened and this project took a little hiatus.  Thanks for the comments.  I've already extended the tune by 2 choruses and was all set up to play some organ using the B4 plug when my brand new Evolution controller seems to have stopped working.  It's like I somehow turned off the midi transmit, it's not showing any midi activity on anything while my old Roland controller is fine except it has a couple of bad keys, that's why I bought the new one.  If I can't get the controller to work, I get to haul my 60 pound 88 key Kurzweil into the bedroom and use that.  Great sound but very inconvienient.  This plus some outside distractions and this thing came to a screeching halt. 
Oren, believe it or not I still have your emails from last year and keep telling myself I have to do something with tune you sent me.  Miles Black is such a killer player I'm not going to try to redo the piano part but I think I can add some decent B3 stuff plus I found a good biab guitar solo to plug in.  So that means the horns are next, right?   Rharv, yes the Forte is not bad but I eq'd out some midlows from that version because it was getting muddy while the ST version is much clearer and ST has many more choices I could have used for piano and bass.  I also have the Garritan JABB that I've not installed yet so I want to try that one too.  I'll get back to it fairly soon I hope.

Bob

[Laguna Rising]

Nice rendition Jazzmammal, and welcome to the music auditorium.

This is rather good but I think it could be interesting to work out a more daring version with more variations on the theme, it could be fun for you to make it. 

Cheers

[rharv]

On the Roland controller- do the keys appear to function correctly? If so I've taken a couple of Rolands apart and cleaned the sensor pad under the keys and they worked fine again.. for years! Be careful and remember where everything was!  The older ones are easier.The newer ones seem much more difficult to disassemble/reassemble.  Newer ones use snaps and clips where older ones used screws.

[Jazzmammal]

Thanks for the suggestion Bob.  I may try that but I really would like to figure out what I did to my new Evolution controller.  It was working fine then suddenly nada.  I doubt it just went bad, I probably did something but of course now I'm already into a new project mixing down a live gig I recorded yesterday.  I just posted a rough mix in the commercial/jazz forum here and all the guys want to know when will I have the rest of it done.  Who knows when I'll get back to Jays Blues.  Yeah, I know if I'm so busy stop accepting new stuff to do but well, you know.

Bob