bmarlowe

Thanks much for that Starship - had not thought of that at all.

Steve - Really well-done. Nice mix. Clearly a lot of good sounding pieces went into this. Just curious - how long did this take you from start to finish?

Nigel and JW- thanks much for commenting.

Great production, memorable catchy melody.

Really nice job on the piano part.

Video and music both awesome

Really nice. Well - done on the cello. Is that a real cello?

Thanks much Tom. Steve- Anyway I am (for now) going to just leave the Eb as is. My apologies to Macca and George Martin.

Thank you Glenn

So a summary of my workflow is this: I create a sub-mix of a song on CbB (drums, piano guitar, whatever). I export it to a wav file. I send the wav file to my daughter (singer with musical theater experience) who has a Mac and absolutely no DAW skills. I'll get her a Focusrite 2i2 and and maybe a Rode NT1. She will sing and record audio tracks while listening to the wav file I sent her. I can visit her for initial setup but I mostly won't be there. She will do no audio processing. She will export her audio tracks and send them back to me. I can read them into CbB (time stretch/compress a bit as needed). The bottom line question is what really simple recording software is recommended here for her Mac? Thx for any suggestions.

Hey Steve - thx so very much. The vocal in your version is pretty stunning and the piano dynamics are perfect. I believe I found what you pointed out after a closer listen to the original. The 1 measure sequence played over Bb Ab major chords, 2 beats each as published in the transcription goes: Ab5 Ab5 G5 F5 | Eb5 Ab4 C Eb5 G4 Eb5 This does sound good to me (Eb played over an Ab major chord) and that may be why the transcriber heard it that way. What I think you say is correct is: Ab5 Ab5 G5 F5 D Ab4 C Eb5 G4 Eb5 If I do that I also have to fix the left hand piano part

Thanks equality and Bjorn. Yeah the drums (programmed, not played) are quantized dead on. The piano and horns (synths) are very close to dead on. The audio (guitar and bass guitar) are not perfectly quantized but I do multiple take lanes until I can assemble a track with all timing within 5-8 ms. I know the timing for midi can be randomized to sound more natural - but I have never gotten results I like. I think I hear things that are early or late and I end up trying to fix them. I kind of have OCD about this.

It's been a while, but I have remixed this and fixed an error in the melody line at 00:31 and 02:10. I've replaced my Sound Canvas cello and viola with Spitfire audio Abbey Road 2. Referencing the comment by steve@baselines.com, there is no Cm chord in this song, so I still don't know what he is referring to. Right at the start there is an Eb chord (2 beats) followed by a D chord (2 beats). I play Eb notes over the Eb chord and a D note coincident to when the D chord starts. A bit later (~15 secs) I play an Eb note over an Ab-add-9 chord. I believe this is all correct and sounds right to me.

Take a look at Arturius mk-3

Nice, and thx for all the details.

Nice blend of guitar tones, makes my ears happy.

Just got the AD2 free version, will check out MODO, thx Brian. A quick try of MODO - it sounds great

Thx Mark. That kit does sound quite good and there are useful patterns and the price is right

Thanks Glenn for the free alternatives - will check them out.

I am not too worried about finding drum patterns. Though my "group" consists of me (guitar/bass guitar/engineer), my brother (guitar and vocals), my son (keyboards and vocals) and daughter vocals - yeah no drummer. That said, adequate (at least for me) drum patterns aren't too hard to find. Even SI-Drums has some patterns I can use. I appreciate that a real drummer may not agree, but I am just trying to have fun here. We do mostly covers - so the pattern is often available in transcription form, karaoke sites, or I can just listen to the original recording. I don't mind plunking in the pattern using the Cakewalk piano roll. For the occasional original tune, I try to copy drums from a similar song. So I am leaning towards AD2 mainly because I have heard some drums in the Songs section that I really liked. When I asked, I was told it was AD2. Yes I understand John Marr's bit-width comment, but what I heard sounded really good. Also Creative Sauce has a nice tutorial about setting up drum maps for AD2 on Cakewalk.

So it looks like SD is another alternative to consider. Thx to John M and Glenn for the further details.

Thanks much to Helios, Canopus, Glenn and John Vere for taking the time to help me. I have been using SI Drums, Roland Sound Canvas and TTS-1. Will post at a later time what I have decided to do and how it works out. That may also help someone with a similar question.

Thanks much for the insight John.

I am budget limited and would have to pick one or the other. It would be mainly for basic rock, classic or light rock. Opinions appreciated.