MultitrackStudio User Forum

As mentioned here: http://www.multitrackstudio.com/forum/v ... f=1&t=2483 I found a cassette tape from 1998 with my first attempts at writing. The album was entitled "Mysterious Worlds". Back then, it was an Atari ST, a Yamaha DX11, Yamaha RX17 Rhythm programmer and a Roland D110 Module and some MIDI software that eludes me. All mixed down to cassette tape. I have decided from now to eschew a lot of software and stick with MTS only, and redo the tracks again, trying not to stray far from the originals. I did not get good MIDI file data (on floppies) from the 10 tracks so started from scratch again listening to the tape.

This track is called CASBAH.

The original on tape: http://www.brickell.biz/music2018/casbah1998.m4a (slightly enhanced to make it audible)

The new MTS 2018 version: http://www.brickell.biz/music2018/casbah2018.m4a


Nick B

Finally found time to record the rest of the tracks....weird looking back into the distance technological past to see one's first efforts. Thanks heavens and Giel for Multitrackstudio.

http://www.brickell.info

Some fine stuff there Nick. I revisit old stuff from time to time too, and although the timing, sound quality, and mixing generally improves, the initial vibe sometimes suffers.
I felt that in some of your works too, the old version on some of them had more "charm" if that's the right word.
Nice comparison though.

Cheers
Chris

Thanks Chris.

"Charm".......You are totally right. I was reluctant to redo these pieces. Back then I was learning to play synthesisers and composition was never in my mind, so learning I could do it was a surprise. I'm not sure you can recapture the magic of the early days of discovery and perhaps it is too easy todayI think the Atari ST had 2mb of memory and a floppy disc drive. Strangely MTS has the feel of the Breakthrough Plus MIDI software I used then, both easy and great for efficiency composition.

Hey Chris, do you have any examples of earlier works compared to today......I dare say not 20 ,year old ones

Nick B

I have only completed revising one tune.
This one was inspired by a Telecaster I borrowed from my neighbour. I was completely acoustic up till then https://www.soundclick.com/html5/v3/pla ... i&newref=1
I revamped it later using Realband from Band in a Box and it turned out like this: https://www.soundclick.com/html5/v3/pla ... i&newref=1
Then I went mad and turned up the tempo with this version: https://www.soundclick.com/html5/v3/pla ... i&newref=1

The rest of the original stuff is here http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default ... tent=music
I am in the process of revising 2Agels to include cello and strings. I'll post that when it's finished.

I almost forgot this one - original https://www.soundclick.com/html5/v3/pla ... i&newref=1

Revised with Band in a Box https://www.soundclick.com/html5/v3/pla ... i&newref=1

Thanks Chris

I shall listen to them tonight when I'm near a decent sound system and not on a cheapo mobile phone. It is interesting though that up to now I could not find a musical colleague who is prepared to play their early works.....it's all lost tapes, erased disc, etc

Nick B

That's progrees LOL

Some of these musical types can be sensitive souls.....although saying that, for a couple of months before getting the Atari and MIDI software I did some recordings bouncing signals between 2 cassette recorders....I cannot find those tapes yet

Hi Chris,

That was an interesting time spent listening to your work, some classy guitar work and some nice sounding guitars. Is the some Steel Slide Guitar in there? I especially liked "Autumn Wind" and "2Angels", look forward to any reworkings. I think I waver on the side of the original version of "Let Me Know". What was the recording mechanism? tape? DAW?

I was reflecting on reworking some pieces. A friend on mine Ronnie, who passed away a couple of years ago, gave me a couple of tunes, one original, one cover version, to see if they could be enhanced. I don't think there is anything that matches MTS for this type of work. Had to add some depth of the basic guitar, he was a self-proclaimed poor guitarist, a bit of vocal processing, removing some heavy "p" pronounciations, add some harmonies (using the MTS Pitch Shift functions), add some synths and disquise some bum notes.

Original 1 : http://www.brickell.info/msw2018/stayyoungoriginal.m4a Enhanced 1: http://www.brickell.info/msw2018/stayyoung.m4a

Original 2: http://www.brickell.info/msw2018/takeachildoriginal.m4a Enhanced 2: http://www.brickell.info/msw2018/takeachild.m4a

The steel slide guitar is a Realtrack generated by Band in a Box. It is generated from samples based on the chord progression and the style selected. The original "Let me know" was recorded in direct mts.

Those tracks from Ronnie are nice. I like simple guitar accompaniment, and that comes across nicely. I wouldn't have classed him as a poor guitarist at all. Which one is the cover version?
Did you have separate tracks for the guitar and vocals or were you working with just one track? Some nice work on the reworking, did you try parallel bus technique
( https://www.recordingrevolution.com/the ... mix-trick/) It can be done with a Parallel Effect in MTS.

Chris

I have Band-In-A-Box 2017 but never got around to study it much. I think guitarists are much adept with this software, my experience is they understand chords better, personally not sure keyboard people as so well versed. I will try to use BIAB soon, which seems to offer a lot.....

"Stay Young" is by Gallagher and Lyle. "Take A Child" was a Ronnie Best composition. The original tracks we used were separate voice and guitar. His acoustic guitar had a mic output, we used a Shure SM58 for the vocals, Ronnie could only sing whilst playing the guitar so all recordings had to be done live. The mic also picked up the guitar a bit with the vocals, but I edited out a lot using MTS and Melodyne.

Stay Young Guitar: http://www.brickell.info/msw2018/GuitarStay.m4a
Stay Young Vocal: http://www.brickell.info/msw2018/VoiceStay.m4a

Take A Child Guitar: http://www.brickell.info/msw2018/GuitarTake.m4a
Take A Child Vocal: http://www.brickell.info/msw2018/VoiceTake.m4a

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HizxKcqM718 There is this YouTube clip of Ronnie Best singing some songs at a St Ives Arts Club in Cornwall, England. A truly great bloke, much missed by many, many people. The second track "Who's Loving You" by Ronnie was another one we did, which was played at his funeral. He was so popular, two people flew in from Japan to be there at a few days notice

Great, you don't mind if I fool around with them a bit, see what I can come up with. I like the live vibe on these tracks and I would try to keep that as much as possible.
2Angels was played at my brother in law's, funeral who passed away just weeks after my sister. It fitted quite well.

Hi Chris,

Feel free to see what you can do, I actually think that would be great to see. The problem I always had with singers is, they don't seem to have any MIDI sockets built in

I posted WAV versions at: http://www.brickell.computer/ronnie

Personally I found doing the music for Ronnie's funeral was a real honour, but also a big responsibility, something you had to get just right. Strangely, it was unplanned. Two days before the event his daughter and sister came to my house, their computer had broken down and they could not upload photos, music to the funeral director's website. I said I think I had some recordings they were unaware of, and when heard them compared to other versions they would use them. I found six tracks that none of the family knew about, so it was great to be able to give them CD's with them all on. I even put the original rough versions on there with all the mistakes and bad language

Nick B

I've been trying to get a natural live vibe with Take a Child while polishing it. I hope I haven't lost the sparkle.
Take a listen

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ap66sklpfcho0 ... M.wav?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9zhqwm4zbvlvl ... M.mp3?dl=0

Hi Chris,

Sounds great to me much more of a natural, live feel. Pretty clever to add some live sparkle to a live recording. Another good version of Ronnie's song. I shall pass it on to a few of his family....

ThanX