Nord User Forum

Berretje wrote:Wow! Sounds very cool! I like the sound of a bigband anyway. And applause for the video editing / mixing. Must be a pain in the a** to get everything synced up!
But well done!

Definitely have to give credit to the guy creating the videos. I do not have the eye or imagination for that!

If you notice on Makin’ Whoopee, he actually did mirror images on some of the parts so that it appeared everyone is looking in toward the soloist. A little odd at first (left-handed trumpets?), but overall a very cool effect.

Another recent production to share.

This is a jazz standard called Autumn Nocturne. I’ve always thought this was just a beautiful song. The tenor sax is my friend Marty. The rest of it is me with the help of technology.

The drums and bass are generated by Band-In-A-Box. The drums are pure audio, while the bass isr MIDI data where I then used an acoustic bass sample from Kontakt. For this song, I wanted to learn more about Kontakt. The string section is also from Kontakt, which gave me the chance to also learn a little bit about arranging strings.

The piano is the Nord White Grand. I really like its sweeter tone compared to other pianos which are heavy in the overtones. It reminds me of the jazz recordings of the 50’s and 60’s. I was shooting for an intimate vibe, reminiscent of that era but with a slightly more contemporary touch. Recorded straight )no EQ or reverb), with a touch of post production tweaking.

I hope you enjoy it. It's time to move on to more uptempo stuff, as I've been spending a lot of time with jazz ballads lately.

It's a cold, misty night Greenwich village in 1963. A miracle......a parking place appears and I ease my Studebaker Hawk into the space. There's a jazz club across the street. I walk into the low light club atmosphere with my Dame, a Carol Baker look a like, on my arm, Smoke from the Chesterfields and Pall Malls...unfiltered of course, waft in the air. Mike is sitting at the house piano, fedora on his head, leading his quartet through some jazz ballads. A waiter approaches..... "Sir, would you and your lady like a cocktail?" "Make it 2 Manhattans, Joe"

Nice work Mike, don't lose the ballads

JayDee wrote:It's a cold, misty night Greenwich village in 1963. A miracle......a parking place appears and I ease my Studebaker Hawk into the space. There's a jazz club across the street. I walk into the low light club atmosphere with my Dame, a Carol Baker look a like, on my arm, Smoke from the Chesterfields and Pall Malls...unfiltered of course, waft in the air. Mike is sitting at the house piano, fedora on his head, leading his quartet through some jazz ballads. A waiter approaches..... "Sir, would you and your lady like a cocktail?" "Make it 2 Manhattans, Joe"

I completely missed this post first time around. Great big band mixes, and I love your tenor player's tone. Perfect home office soundtrack, but I'd rather be listening in Jaydee's scene.

JayDee I love your visualization. That's exactly the kind of thing I had in mind!

Really appreciate it.

I have another one posted on SoundCloud.

This was a quickie. A friend asked me to do a rendition of Moonlight in Vermont. My big band does a bossa nova arrangement behind our singer, and it sounds nice, but there is something about "bossa nova" and "Vermont" that just don't click with me. I decided instead to think about a snowy evening nestled near the fireplace.

This is a simple one with only three instruments (and no Nords this time). The bass comes courtesy of the great Ron Carter and Band-In-A-Box. The piano is The Gentleman from the Kontakt collection, and the organ is the B3-V2 from Arturia. I tried using the Mellow Upright, but the Gentleman had just that little bit of extra sparkle that I think hits the mark. I also wanted to experiment with the B3-V, using my Electro 6D as a controller.

I know this is a mellow one again, and am now working on something a bit more upbeat to share soon.

Gorgeous Mike. Really enjoyed that.

Got another one here. Pretty far out of my normal zone. I try to always learn new things with these projects.

This is a 5/4 time rendition of Greensleeves, the traditional waltz. It started mostly as an exercise in meter. I wanted to see if the tune could be adapted to 5/4 time, and experimented with some small polyrhythm phrases. There are examples of 4 over 5, 6 over 5 and 8 over 5 throughout.

I had two sources of inspiration. The first is a recording of Take Five by Acoustic Alchemy, which has this reggae type groove that I really liked. Some of the sound profile such as the synth comping were based on that recording. The other element was Brubeck's Blue Rondo a la Turk, a song I've like since first hearing Al Jarreau's rendition in the early 80's.

As I started to work through the arrangement, it took on a life of its own (no surprise there). The instrumentation is largely comprised of stock and custom-programmed patches from Arturia's V-Collection, using the Synclavier, Matrix 12, SQ-80 and Casio CZ engines. Drums are a combination of battery from Ujam's DEEP and cymbals/percussion from Steinberg Groove Agent. There's a Roland SA ePiano patch from my RD-800 buried in there as well. This track uses effects to a greater extent than anything I've done previously.

Nord spotting: The acoustic piano is the Silver Grand, run through Arturia's Mello-Fi effect. My first attempt at adding lo-fi stuff.

Unlike my past ventures, the bass and drum parts are largely original. The drums are based on the groove I mentioned above with the embellishments courtesy of Groove Agent. I started with a Band In A Box baseline, but ended up crafting my own to fit the groove.

Not sure I'm done polishing it yet, but I wanted to share. I feel the first pass at mastering took a little life out of it and want to try to get something back.