Wow Rob, super impressive. It sounds so real, although just enough not real to balance out the real. Creating sounds of familiarity but yet unique as well....nice
I love the new sounds-have had no trouble with downloads the whole time I've had moodunits!-and look forward to mak8ng some magic with them! This U2 cover you've done here turned out rather well! How do you go about doing something like that, if you'll pardon my asking? Are you working from sheet music or what?
Many thanks and great to hear the downloads are AOK. So... I have a slightly convoluted approach, but it kinda works for me. Confession time... Most of it happens in Logic on my MacBook - I just find it easier to do piano roll tweaking on desktop which is more than a little embarrassing for an iOS developer! This one was pretty easy to get going and I started with the descending D Major arpeggio (Brian Eno's contribution, among other things) and the bass line. I'm mostly working from ear as I'm not a good reader at all. Next, I added the slightly motorik drum pattern. All those parts are 1 or 2 bars looped, and I added some extra hi-hat to the drum part towards the end. I also have a version of the original recording to refer to. At this point, I'm in Logic, so I use fairly generic GM type sounds. Another confession - Then I go looking for MIDI I can steal! There are various sites intended for Karaoke type stuff and you can download MIDI files from there. To be honest, the quality varies a lot and they're typically in one massive GM clump, and... I don't think my ears are too bad, and sometimes the parts just sound wrong. But... If you're struggling to work a specific part out, they can be useful and sometimes you get lucky - the Halloween theme I did for example, I was struggling with the chord voicing of the string synth part and I managed to find a good version. The U2 melody, I played in myself then quantised as I'm a terrible keyboard player. Also, I think you need to change the melody sometimes for instrumental versions - usually less notes as you're no longer having to carry the lyrics. I found a MIDI file for this song, but I was pretty much there already - I think I used a bit of the pad part, then ended up editing out some notes. The hardest bit to nail was the repeating "guitar" riff towards the end - classic Edge. Initially I tried to get the timing thing with delay, but that didn't work. So... Once I'm generally happy with the basic parts, I Air Drop each one as a MIDI file to my iPad, then import them to a GarageBand project. So then in GarageBand, I'm purely working on an arrangement, deciding on which sounds to use, tweaking the odd parameter and the overall mix. I might tweak the odd note here and there as I did with the E-bow part which was overly busy at some points. Then, I guess you know how it goes, I keep listening to it, and tweaking till I'm "happy" with it. And finally, to get it on here, I just take a screen recording of it playing in GarageBand. So there you go - that's the low down, including all my cheating :-)
@@robjacksonmusic Thank you very much for explaining all that! Most illuminating! I'd never have thought of looking for MIDI treatments of the original track-that's genius! And yes, I know all about “make a change, listen back; repeat”. ;) I really appreciate your taking the time here. :)
Good stuff Rob! E-Bow you say.. That’s one guitar gadget I wish I had now with all these amazing toys to manipulate on the iPad.. look forward to using these.. 👍
I get emotional when I hear this song particularly the ebow part and you nailed it.
Hello,
Bravo for this nice sharing and the beautiful interpretation all in smoothness.
Good week. My musical regards. Danielle
Wow Rob, super impressive. It sounds so real, although just enough not real to balance out the real.
Creating sounds of familiarity but yet unique as well....nice
Wow. Nice!
Cool stuff Rob
I love the new sounds-have had no trouble with downloads the whole time I've had moodunits!-and look forward to mak8ng some magic with them!
This U2 cover you've done here turned out rather well! How do you go about doing something like that, if you'll pardon my asking? Are you working from sheet music or what?
Many thanks and great to hear the downloads are AOK. So... I have a slightly convoluted approach, but it kinda works for me. Confession time... Most of it happens in Logic on my MacBook - I just find it easier to do piano roll tweaking on desktop which is more than a little embarrassing for an iOS developer! This one was pretty easy to get going and I started with the descending D Major arpeggio (Brian Eno's contribution, among other things) and the bass line. I'm mostly working from ear as I'm not a good reader at all. Next, I added the slightly motorik drum pattern. All those parts are 1 or 2 bars looped, and I added some extra hi-hat to the drum part towards the end. I also have a version of the original recording to refer to. At this point, I'm in Logic, so I use fairly generic GM type sounds. Another confession - Then I go looking for MIDI I can steal! There are various sites intended for Karaoke type stuff and you can download MIDI files from there. To be honest, the quality varies a lot and they're typically in one massive GM clump, and... I don't think my ears are too bad, and sometimes the parts just sound wrong. But... If you're struggling to work a specific part out, they can be useful and sometimes you get lucky - the Halloween theme I did for example, I was struggling with the chord voicing of the string synth part and I managed to find a good version. The U2 melody, I played in myself then quantised as I'm a terrible keyboard player. Also, I think you need to change the melody sometimes for instrumental versions - usually less notes as you're no longer having to carry the lyrics. I found a MIDI file for this song, but I was pretty much there already - I think I used a bit of the pad part, then ended up editing out some notes. The hardest bit to nail was the repeating "guitar" riff towards the end - classic Edge. Initially I tried to get the timing thing with delay, but that didn't work. So... Once I'm generally happy with the basic parts, I Air Drop each one as a MIDI file to my iPad, then import them to a GarageBand project. So then in GarageBand, I'm purely working on an arrangement, deciding on which sounds to use, tweaking the odd parameter and the overall mix. I might tweak the odd note here and there as I did with the E-bow part which was overly busy at some points. Then, I guess you know how it goes, I keep listening to it, and tweaking till I'm "happy" with it. And finally, to get it on here, I just take a screen recording of it playing in GarageBand. So there you go - that's the low down, including all my cheating :-)
@@robjacksonmusic Thank you very much for explaining all that! Most illuminating! I'd never have thought of looking for MIDI treatments of the original track-that's genius! And yes, I know all about “make a change, listen back; repeat”. ;) I really appreciate your taking the time here. :)
Excellent! Love it! Great version!
Good stuff Rob! E-Bow you say.. That’s one guitar gadget I wish I had now with all these amazing toys to manipulate on the iPad.. look forward to using these.. 👍
Thanks Rob 😎