Here's a little song

Very nice indeed. My alter ego loves a good smooth jazz groove. As others said, the mix is well done. I think you could A/B this with released tunes and find it's quite close.

Maybe the patches could be improved, always my inclination towards presets, but I'd have to listen to some smooth jazz radio to be certain. On first impression, I wouldn't change the reverb; again fitting for the genre. I do think the guitar might be bit forward in the mix, however. Pushing it back might leave too much space, maybe another piano could fill out the arrangement.

As for the XS interpretation, I like that slide guitar a lot, but the track comes out with a much more latin feel and seems to get away from the original direction.

version2, but now in the original key

Hi SH1000,

fine job!! I like your guitar! More than mine! It sounds more smooth than mine, although I think, the slide effect should be used a bit more sparingly (it seems, that on the Yammi the effect activates earlier - at lower key-velocities than on the Roland)

The Pizzicati in your version are more present than in my version. This gives the tune another, more staccato color, but I like this. The drums are imho a bit too "synthetic", you should try to find a more natural, accoustic preset. Give a bit more reverb to the side-stick, this "opens" the sound a bit more, makes it "wider".

The Yamaha seems to have fine effects, I think (and this has been discussed here) better ones than the Fantom. That's the reason, why I played the Roland presets "dry" and used external effects. I prefer the DAW's fx-section because it sounds more natural than Roland's, allthough they are quite "old" (Cubase SX3 - 5 years old), shame on roland.

Hey, and besides the discussion which board blows away the other one: I think, Yammi and Roland could complement one another more than they compete against each other.

Greetings,

Pierre

tastenmann: I'll agree that some features should be "ported" from Yamaha devices to Roland ones, like the multichannel audio through Firewire that the Motif XS has, or the very well programmed presets. Also, I'd add some more respectful attitude towards their customers, like more free sounds and more updates for features that are missing. Both Korg and Yamaha are very good on these aspects, Roland should follow them on that.

Hi Tastenmann

You're right about the slides. I allready removed like 30% of them. In this sound it's activated at volumes >120

Indeed I searched for a present and stacato Pizz to give extra brightness.

I took a standard drumset without changing anything. I don't have a lot of experence in using drums because i rarely record tracks. I'll do some experimenting.

You are right about the effects on the XS. They are really powerfull. More then on the Rolands.

In my stage-setup I use Roland, Korg and Yamaha because they're stil very complementary. Unfortunatly I didn't find a keyboard yet having it all. So I don't have to carry that much.

grz

Hi Tastenmann,

I deleted 80% of the slides. i think that's much better now. Earlier I deleted the bends-down on the Ac. Guitar, since that aint possible it sounds strange.

I don't have much drums experience but I put a more natural sound in it and enhanced the triangle which is quiet typical in your song. i gave it a little effect (now that I heard it again, I should delete most of the chorus)

In the saxophone, I put in a little more rest (breathing points) Otherwise the saxephone player will turn blue.

I like the result up to now but most of all the composition.

MFG
SH1000

Hi SH1000,

it's true, the guitar sounds better now. Great. You're right, I think, I have to remove the bendings too, because they're sounding unnatural.

>> "In the saxophone, I put in a little more rest (breathing points) Otherwise the saxephone player will turn blue.

LOL!!

Hey, you said, you're using a Korg amongst others. Is it a M3? If yes, maybe you could also throw the midi into the Korg, just for the comparison...

A friend of mine will triy to feed his Roland VSynth with the saxophone-track, because this machine has the so called "Articulative Phrase Synthese" which let natural instruments sound even more natural concerning the articulation, a thing where Fantom and Motif can not compete with - maybe. I'm curious about the result.

>> "I like the result up to now but most of all the composition. "

Thanks for your compliment!!

Pierre

This track is really nice, tastenmann..

I love how you're all messing around with it too. Makes me proud to be Roland Clan. )

I might try sticking the MIDI into my Fantom X tonight!

Andy

Hi Andy,

good luck for this. If you have results, maybe you want to post it here?

Greetings,

Pierre

Hey, you said, you're using a Korg amongst others. Is it a M3? If yes, maybe you could also throw the midi into the Korg, just for the comparison...

I don't have a M3 but still have a triton. I'm also curious about the M3 sound. Although my Triton LE has several very strong sounds like leads, pads and organs, other sounds are quiet weak and the sequencer isn't very easy to use.

tastenmann


Could you please give me your project as a zip. I would love to load it into my FG and try modifying it a bit and see the results.

I am newbie so wanna start out this way.

Very nice song indeed! Only in the last version is heard the soprano saxophone was replaced by a tenor saxophone. I liked the soprano better! It was a very nice combination with the acoustic guitar.

@sammycoolster

Could you please give me your project as a zip. I would love to load it into my FG and try modifying it a bit and see the results.

tastenmann posted his project (midi file) at 14:53 GMT - 16 August 2009. There's no need to zip because the file is really small <32kB

I also used this midi-file in order to present my XS-interpretation.

good luck...

First of all I like your sound, but remember when you write a instrument part you have to think like you were playing that instrument. As Keyboard people we sometime forget. I'm a Guitar player and I would be doing penitonic runs (Leave out the 4th and 7th note), and not so many scaler runs. (ABCDEFG) Tight melody works well with things scaler.

Keep up the good work. Dusty