The MP3 starts at zero and is at a tempo of 137bpm and in F Minor
If there is anyone out there that can make a drum and or bass track it would be much appreciated and you would get full credit for your work if the track is selected.
My immediate impression of this song was acoustic bass, and percussion = congas, bongos and a soft felt-batted kick drum to give gentle at the bottom. I’m learning percussion, which motivated my thinking in this direction, however I am not good enough to provide better than amateurish. However, I decided to, at least, mention the idea and give my reasoning.
As I think of a kick/snare/hihat based kit, I’m thinking it could be harder to ‘glue it’ into what there already is. Why? The vocal is incredibly dense: melodically, tonally and rhythmically as well as lyrically, it is putting important meaning in all the places that sharp sounds would interfere. I notice how the guitar seems treble cut until the very last chord. I thought it was a nylon strung until then - though I might be showing my general ignorance of acoustic guitars. The ‘comfortable pops and bums’ of congas would sit with that guitar and allow that voice the space it needs. Bongos could add a little salt an pepper in big gaps, or where voice leaves a lot of space for something to counterpoint. In my mind’s ear, I had a quick listen to a snare drum with brushes. Didn’t seem to work as badly as snare with sticks.
In order that you get a sense of where I am standing as I wrote the above:
1: I was envisaging a final product in which those two tracks you shared [voice and acoustic guitar] will be pretty much unaltered in the final version, and that Only bass and drums is to be added.
2: I got strong and immediate resonances with Joni Mitchell and Joan Armatrading. Both of them wrap tone, melody, timing and lyrics into a dense-weave cat’s cradle. It is an acrobatic gravitas, a complexity without confusion or gimmikyness which, within 5 seconds of his starting to sing, filled me with an appreciation of and trust in your vocalist.
I am having a real problem with drum and bass for the very points you so eliquently pointed out. There is not a lot of room for manouvre and anything i add seems to clutter the mix that bit more.
I agree that the main vocal and guitar are working well and all that is needed is a drum and bass. you also hit on conga type sounds which i have not considered as i have no skill in that area.
I appreciate your comparisons with Joni Mitchell and Joan Armatrading. I have a lot of time for natty as i do feel he is a natural talent,I hope someone somewhere can add to this track to enable me to finish it to a commercial level.
Pleas feel free to have a bash at it, i am sure your talent surpasses mine by a long shot. I liked your Melodic Blue and Motherless child. Very good bassline in motherless child, somthing on those lines only faster would be cool. You have a very good feel for bass IMHO.
I worked on this a bit last night, but I need to tighten things up a bit. Yes, I did use an upright acoustic bass. Might be able to finish tonight (CST)
Okay I’m done but I’m new to dropbox. I installed the app, and placed my folder into the public directory. But it’s not updating anything… and when I right-click the folder, I don’t get the “share public link” option. When I look at the folder that’ been saved to the website, all I see are the 2 cpr’s I saved (one with and one without the MIDI files) but no audio files at all
Doug … I like this. That snaredrum has got oodles of personality in all the places that the voice is NOT. It has avoided the pitfalls about which I had bee worried - it is more ‘spring’ than pop or thwack. I’ll confess to a hankering to hearing Tom’s new Bass Drum … but that’s not a taste things. Yours is sounding great to my ears. I’m just a bit stoked that his is dang BIG and New ) I cold see Natty doing well-appreciated live gigs with that band you’ve created for him.
