Two years after Neil Andersson and I finished our “Strings” album we have embarked on “Strings Too” or whatever it will be called. The first album two years after completion still gets pretty much daily airplay nationally on Sirius XM’ EZ listening station here in the states. The production of these albums is not the typical let’s go play and have someone mix it and be done. This is under the microscope production to an extent. The guitar playing is pretty basic, lay down a rhythm track, thrown on a midi bass and do a solo or two till you get something you like. Then I arrange midi strings over the whole thing. Bass then gets replaced as do the strings with real players. Drums get added if there are to be any, usually not.
I have a midi mockup of “Laura” below to check out (of course ruff mix) and I’ll post as things move along if anyone is interested.
I now have the final video below of the real players.
Comments
Love how you've forged your own path and incorporated your love of strings and arranging! Congrats, and sounds great Score.
Nice, would love to be a fly on the wall when you're coming up with these strings arrangements.
I usually start at the top and let the music guide me. I go back and improve and edit after the initial pass....here is a screen shot...cellos stacc track is misplaced, the flutes should be together.
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That's a nice insight, thanks.
So here is an update as we prepare to put strings on "Laura"
I am doing some pre-mixing here as the strings will play to a click and I need the rhythm guitar and bass tight so there was editing done. I hired Kim Collins of the The Idiomatiques on bass and Mark Hollingsworth on flutes to help round out the sound of the orchestra. I had Lauri Koivisto do the copy work and if anyone is interested in the string chart I'll post it. I change things a little bit once I have the Sibelius file (the program with the copy work) and it usually is not reflected in the mockup as that is just a place holder.
Here is one more sampling from the album, the song "Stardust". This has the infamous Simon Planting on bass. This also has two rhythm guitars and I have them panned wide to help accentuate the space. Neil Andersson is the first soloist. No live strings yet.
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Here is the pre-mastered version with live orchestra....there will also be a video at some point...
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What a lovely piece of music! Tasteful string arrangement, lovely guitar!!
This sounds great!
Wow!
It's gotta be a cool feeling hearing the arrangement played by the whole orchestra for the first time. It's amazing.