Johnbee58

Hi Bjorn😀

Please excuse me for not commenting on the content because it goes against my personal faith, but I do like the music and how you presented it.

🙂John B

On 6/7/2023 at 5:52 PM, markno999 said:

Very solid pop song, sounds to me like a little of Bread meets Steely Dan.   Very cool arrangement and instrumentation.

Regards

@markno999Bread meets Steely Dan.  That would be an interesting combination. 

Thanks for taking the time to listen and comment.

😀John B

On 6/7/2023 at 1:08 AM, Larry T. said:

Great music there. Your vox are a bit more restrained for this one which does give it a bit more accessibility. Your songs are full of great turns and ideas. It's a bit long for me and the words are truly sad but, they describe emotions most all of us have experienced in one form or another🎶🎶🎶🎶

@Larry T.Thanks for listening and your feedback, Larry!

😀John B

Nice brush and bass work.

🙂John B

Sometimes when I listen to your music I think I'm hearing Bob Dylan being backed up by Frank Zappa.  But this one is especially bizarre.🤪

Sounds like you got a lot of different cultures in there.

🙂John B

Wow!  I really enjoy this.  The vocalist is incredible and your arrangement and production are top drawer.

🙂John B

On 6/1/2023 at 9:07 AM, Ross Smithe said:

Nice track John, strong songwriting, and musicianship. Vocals are good, only thing you might consider is they seem like they could sit in the mix better. Kind of loud and on top of things, which is no doubt crowding your headroom and preventing the instrumental mix from being brought up more.  Overall, great job!

@Ross SmitheThanks, Ross for listening and your feedback.  I took your's and Phonobrainer's advise and lowered the lead vox track a bit.  Take a re listen if you can.

😀John B

14 hours ago, PhonoBrainer said:

The arrangement is strong and the tones you've got for the bass and drums work nicely together. But the lyrics are stealing the show.

I would also add to a slight lowering of the lead vocal volume, and maybe just a bit more reverb on them, they really are on top of the mix.

Your cool tune reminds me that it's better to be creative than to slavishly adhere to the rules. Nice one!

cheers,

-Tom

@PhonoBrainerThanks for listening and your feedback, Tom.  As I told Ross, I did a remix to lower the lead vocals a bit as per your suggestions.  Please have another listen if you have time.

😀John B

11 hours ago, Ross Smithe said:

Nice track John, strong songwriting, and musicianship. Vocals are good, only thing you might consider is they seem like they could sit in the mix better. Kind of loud and on top of things, which is no doubt crowding your headroom and preventing the instrumental mix from being brought up more.  Overall, great job!

Thanks, Ross.  I agree with you on the vox level.

🙂John B

4 minutes ago, kitekrazy said:

Nope

 That's when they can stick this industry where the sun don't shine as far as I'm concerned. 😠

Besides, At almost 70 I'm getting too old for this anyway.

🙂John B

I updated from 7 to 12 last year and paid $200.00.  It's an amazing program but I only use it for the Rack Plugin.  The Record portion doesn't have Auto Punch and I use that quite a bit.  If I would've remembered that fact I would not have upgraded. When I put that on the Reason talk forum I started a small war because there's one guy who insisted that auto punch is over rated and those of us who need it are flawed in some way and there was another guy (not me) who was adamant that he was wrong and condescending, not in what he said but how he said it.  Just for kicks I went back in this year and brought the subject up again and those two guys started battling it out again. Some things will never change. 😆

🙂John B

On 5/28/2023 at 1:50 AM, bjornpdx said:

Hi John, I don't think I'll ever warm up to the genre you do but I certainly respect the musicianship and esp your lyric writing ability.  

Love that flute!
-Bjorn

@bjornpdxThanks! I appreciate your listening and feedback.

😀John B

On 5/28/2023 at 5:31 AM, Supa Reels said:

Almost sounds like part of an Andrew Lloyd Webber story. There's a lot going on in this work and having listened to your stuff over the years you have achieved a near perfect vibe for that work.

I think the flute plus verb sounds great ... Me wants it !

Thanks for the post John and well done

Take care

Steve ( SRM )

@Supa ReelsThanks so much, Steve!

🙂John B

On 5/28/2023 at 8:34 AM, whoisp said:

Beautifully written, this is a song for woman with a big range.  Adele did this it be number one  

@whoispThank you for your feedback.  I appreciate it.

😀John B

On 5/29/2023 at 2:44 PM, Makke said:

Sounds great. Well done pop-song. 

@MakkeThank you so much, Makke!

😀John B

Sounds GREAT!  Are you using Session Horns Pro?

😀John B

They should hire you to score the next Star Wars movie.  Intense!

😀John B

A variety of different sounds and moods here.

One of your best, Jack

😀John B

On 5/25/2023 at 6:49 PM, jack c. said:

nicely done.jack c

@jack c.Thanks so much, Jack.

🙂

14 hours ago, Bajan Blue said:

Good track, enjoyed it - i thought the bass was excellent - could do with bringing up a bit i thought, apart from that, mix good

cool

Nigel

 

@Bajan BlueThank you, Nigel.

😀John B

7 hours ago, KSband said:

Cool track John.

@KSbandThank you KSB

😀

6 hours ago, DeeringAmps said:

There is that, exorcising some pain here John?
The flute is very good, is the verb on that native to the VSTi?
Good bass lines, as usual John; 👍's.

t

 

@DeeringAmpsHypothetical pain.  I like writing songs like that. 😉

Verb on flute is actually from the Reason Rack plugin.  Their stock half rack reverb

Thanks, Tommy.😀

24 minutes ago, Lynn Wilson said:

Fantastic song, John!  The arrangement is very sophisticated, and your vocal was right there on the money.  Yes, your bass track is way cool, though I wonder if some of your lines could be an octave lower for great frequency range.  It might ruin the vibe, but I'm just curious.  Anyway, chalk another hit up.

@Lynn WilsonThanks for your kind words, Lynn.  You're always so encouraging.

Also thanks @mark skinner for checking this out.

Thanks all!

😀John B

This is of the quality of the Windham Hill label.  Very professional.  Relaxing and contemplative.

🙂John B

1 hour ago, Promidi said:

Could you not set up your one instance of Kontakt, so the routing of multiple MIDI channels and then save as a Track Template?

@PromidiYeah, there's an idea. 🙂😉

😀JB

A very amusing outlook from the point of view of the "critters".  It's not hard to imagine they are probably thinking these thoughts.

Well produced.  Great work by all involved.

😀John B

Great instrumental tune.

🙂John B

Warm and quaint.  Very moving.

🙂John B

Very effective.  They should've used it.

🙂John B

3 hours ago, John Vere said:

My DAW has 10 GB of Memory. I never have to do what you are doing, I've never had to freeze tracks etc.  and I think we write the same sort of songs. Only thing I have never used is Kontakt. 

Kontakt Player is a huge memory hog, especially if you have multiple instances open in it.  I could do it with one instance open routing multiple MIDI channels but that takes too much time and I get tired of having to look up how to do that every time I want to so I just open each instrument in its own KP.

😀John B

2 hours ago, DeeringAmps said:

Just this one project is troublesome?

My “old” StudioCat is 16 gigs and I’ve never “swamped” the memory, but mostly EZD (or SD3) EZK, and Trilian, (or EZB or ModoBass) are the main VSTi’s (IK’s Hammond as well) my workflow dictates that I do some freezing to keep latency to a minimum. Freezing, bouncing a two track mix (then archive the raw tracks), were common practice before I got the first Cat. 
 

If this is the only project with issues I would rebuild it from scratch and see what happens (save a backup copy to the external drive) If it continues to be “problematic” or later becomes problematic work the external project (from the external drive) to see if it’s specific to the SSD. 
In the meantime, get some diagnostics from Dell and check the m.2 for errors. Drives do “die”. 
How full is the internal SSD?

t

Sorry.  You asked that before

  SDD is approx 1/3 full.

34 minutes ago, DeeringAmps said:

What VST’s are in that session?

Bypass all VST (keystroke “e”) then turn Trilian back on (e should bypass VSTi as well) can you save safely then?

Its just this one project that is problematic?

I’ve never had a corrupt project, but it happens. 
 

Less than 16 gigs?

t

16 gigs exactly but with all of the Kontackt players and Trilians etc. opened up it sometimes gets above 85% and things go south from there quickly.  But this particular session was only at about 50% memory use at the time.

Also, I should clarify that this anomaly happens intermittently.  It doesn't happen most of the time.  I have been able to complete the session but after the errors started I began to cautiously save more frequently.  It never ever happened before the other day and that's what puzzles me.

😀JB

10 hours ago, DeeringAmps said:

Sounds like an m.2 SSD. Type of drive is irrelevant. What we need to know is if the drive itself is “healthy”. Save the current project to your external drive (rename it “project-ext”) Run both at the same time. Do a few edits, then save. Do the same on the external drive; save. Repeat until you get a crash. If both can cause a crash the problem is the project, or more likely a VST. Like Dave, I’d be surprised if Trilian is the root cause. 
I would want to test the SSD just as John suggested. In my opinion (experience) “best practice” requires three drives. OS, Project, and Samples. I have a laptop I can run CbB on (it’s a single drive) but it’s pitiful and I rarely have the patience to use it. I realize that your Dell is likely 100 times the machine that laptop is, but a single drive? No, three drives minimum in a modern DAW; sorry but anything less, 🤷‍♂️. 
Last question: how full is the drive?

t

I don't think Trilian is the cause either.  Their techy said all the diagnostics were correct.  He wants me to send him some system data (Memory, etc).  Now that I have the project in question backed up to an external HDD I can try what you suggest.

 So far, this only has happened on what I call the bass session.  My workflow is that I divide my projects into separate instances of Cakewalk to save memory (which I don't have much of).  IOW, the first instance I'll do drums and keys.  Then I'll do vocals over them and when I get down to the "heavier" memory intensive parts (like bass and Kontakt player things like strings or horns) I'll make a session just for those eliminating everything else but drums and keys.  Then, when everything is completed I transfer everything from MIDI to audio waves for the final mix.  This anomaly happened only on the bass "session".  After I completed that session I started a new session for strings (about 5 channels of Kontakt Player) and there were no problems on that.

Maybe the bass session is just corrupted?

Thanks for your help

😀John B