Sing Sing

H3nry

Genre: Swing

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Description

Tonight's exercise is to do a '30s swing band in GarageBand and see how it turns out. Well, I'm grinnin' and foot tappin'...
I got to play with the amp designer to try to model my Dad's Gibson tenor guitar with acoustic pickup and 1937 SilverTone amp. Note that guitar and banjo in swing bands are part of the rhythm section and don't solo, they just chug away on the back beat. Switched to banjo to drive the last chorus home.
Now you know why I haven't been online commenting tonight - I've been playing. Picture - Django Reinhardt

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Song Stats

Hits: 1151
Comments: 15
Fans: 6
Plays: 58
Downloads: 36
Votes: 0
Uploaded: Dec 22, 2010 - 01:45:35 AM
Last Updated: Dec 22, 2010 - 01:45:35 AM Last Played: Mar 09, 2013 - 07:06:50 AM

Song License

Creative Commons License:
Attribution-ShareAlike

Song Actions

Keywords:

Swing (61), Jazz (819), 1930s (1), Big Band (24)

Hardware:

Mac Mini

Software:

GarageBand, Vision

Comments

curtithird	curtithird said 886 days ago (December 22nd, 2010)
	OMG I COULD NEVER GET THIS GOOD AT SOUNDING REALISTIC ON GARAGEBAND! GOOD JOB! Check out my latest song called Zenith Symphony (Mutatur Nobis)

H3nry	H3nry said 885 days ago (December 22nd, 2010)
	Gettin' the hang of it GB'11 has potential. It makes you jump through some hoops, but results can be pretty good. This began with a wooden MIDI file off the 'net which sounded completely mechanical and unbalanced. By replacing tracks or sometimes just a small part of a track, it started coming together. Check out my latest song called Mic check

michaeljayklein

michaeljayklein said 886 days ago (December 22nd, 2010)

Wazzat Gene Krupa on drums dere?!
I think you probably know by now that I am a big band/swing freak and have heard the famous Benny Goodman recording many, many, MANY times. With that in mind, when I say you did a fabulous job with here, you better believe it!! I was truly amazed by this--and listening at work where I couldn't tap my toes, but I'll get to that later at home. THANK YOU HENRY!!

Check out my latest song called Old Man Mose is Dead

H3nry

H3nry said 885 days ago (December 22nd, 2010)

Ah! Drums!
I just about gave up on drums and was going to ask for help from a REAL drummer. I can't do these drum breaks on the piano keyboard. BUT!!! I can get close by tapping on the QWERTY keyboard like a drum machine. Drums and clarinet were the hard parts that really made me sweat.

BTW, if a real drummer wants to replace my track, that'd be great!

Check out my latest song called Mic check

Corporal Beef	Corporal Beef said 885 days ago (December 22nd, 2010)
	Outta Sight! and you even threw in a little drum solo as well. Awesome. I loved your arrangement; you kept it fresh, but still held true the genre. Nice job, and thanks for posting. Check out my latest song called 12.31.12

H3nry	H3nry said 885 days ago (December 22nd, 2010)
	Drum solo the QWERTY keyboard isn't velocity sensitive, of course, so you have to go back and edit the velocity of each hit. Explains why it's a bit simple, definitely not up to Krupa's blaze of sound. Check out my latest song called Mic check

PaulaMunk	PaulaMunk said 885 days ago (December 22nd, 2010)
	You achieved your goal. Sounds exceptionally good. Love it. Thanks. Check out my latest song called Alone at Christmas

kevmikwa

kevmikwa said 885 days ago (December 22nd, 2010)

Nearly 100% believable
If I close my eyes, it's almost believable that this was a live setup. This is a confluence of a lot of sounds, so it's not easy to pick and pan, but here's my honest evaluation ...

Hits: mid-brass (low trumpets, trombones), solo clarinet. Misses: drums (they sound a bit machine-gun when playing the same velocity note over and over, i.e. in the solo at 3:05+, and they lack a certain presence), the range of the piano comping in the left channel early on, the bari sax (1:37+ ... a little too exactly the same as the note before).

Another production tip: try to lengthen the end of the render so the decay of the final note is not cut-off. I'm not sure how you do it in Garageband (boy, it wasn't *that* long ago that I was a Garagebander), but there's got to be a way. In Logic, you just set the end of the cycle region a little later in time when you bounce the MP3.

With all of this said, it is INCREDIBLE that you got these results from Garageband. A very limited set of samples to draw from. With a couple of expansion packs or third party software, you'll have this joint jumping in no time!

Thanks for sharing this one.

Check out my latest song called Carol of the Bells (Xmas Challenge w/ jdholliday)

H3nry

H3nry said 885 days ago (December 22nd, 2010)

Drums give it away
If there's a way to randomize velocity or expression in GB, I haven't found it. So yeah, it has that machine-played sound, even after hand-tweaking the parts where it is in the foreground. I'm not sure why the MP3 version got cut a bit short, but I ran out of time to tinker.

I can't help but notice you play drums. Wanna do a proper percussion track? And thanks for taking time to critique.

Check out my latest song called Mic check

Mosaica	Mosaica said 885 days ago (December 22nd, 2010)
	Swinging This is hot! Love the solo drum riffs. My toes are tapping. Check out my latest song called Stride La Vampa

H3nry	H3nry said 885 days ago (December 22nd, 2010)
	A- Hemm! Yeah, the solo drums are a challenge. One that ALMOST came off. Drums and guitars are real hard for someone who sorta plays keyboard. Glad your toes got the rhythm anyhow. Check out my latest song called Mic check

jdholliday	jdholliday said 885 days ago (December 22nd, 2010)
	hah!! wow sir very impressive! really energetic memorable swing groove! Amazing that you did this all in gb! wow! Check out my latest song called Please Help, Pride of NYC needs tracks!

crissew	crissew said 885 days ago (December 23rd, 2010)
	Love this song One of my all time favorite swing pieces. Very well played! Check out my latest song called Devil's Argument!!!

neilh79	neilh79 said 884 days ago (December 23rd, 2010)
	Like this!! Nice bit of swinging dude! Django Reinhardt legend. Well played and nice layers! Check out my latest song called Resurrection of Life Final Mix! (w/ Loob, Rok41, Symphony101, Gadzooks)

tonestones	tonestones said 881 days ago (December 27th, 2010)
	Great fun Quite an accomplishment for GB. Sounds great. You captured the right spirit here. I always loved Django Reinhardt. Check out my latest song called In Some Other World

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Artist Info

Name: Henry Spragens
Location: Pflugerville TX United States

Engineer, electronic design. Tubes to chips.... [see more]

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Genre Info

Swing music, also known as swing jazz, is a form of jazz music that developed during the 1920s and solidified as a distinctive style during the 1930s in the United States. Swing is distinguished primarily by a strong rhythm section, usually including

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