No, hostilities haven't broken out between us! Just wanted to up something a little jazzy, originally a War tune, covered by George Benson later on.

The track is a heavily edited mutitrack audio file, and the jazz guitar, sax, Rhodes and scatting are all me, live on the gig! The scatting is a combination of my voice, the Roland scat patch and the SuperNatural jazz guitar.

I hope you enjoy... I certainly did!

This is fantastic. I have loved that song since I got Benson's Breezin album back in the 70s. And you do an absolutely convincing guitar performance. Great treatment all round. Now I intend to listen to it again, it is that good.

Really enjoyed this arrangement..had a great "live" feel..kudos!

So NICE!

Benson is DA BOMB! He has a new live album...first in 30 years.

Good stuff (BOTH you and George)

R.

That was great! I would have commented sooner but I couldn't down load on my phone so I had to wait until I got a moment on my PC.

Anyways, the guitar sounded like the "real deal " to me too. May I ask how you did the two vocals? Overdubs? Vocal effect unit? Eitherway , very enjoyable smooth jazz sound.

Thanks everyone. Glad you enjoyed it..!

To clarify, as I said in my OP, the backing is a multitrack audio backing from one of the karaoke companies, so the backing vocals are real singers. In fact, due to me being a bass baritone, the upper part during the second half of the verse is the lead voice and I sing a lower part, but try to turn it into the dominant line. Pop music is pretty cruel for baritones! Unfortunately you can only pitch transpose down a tone or so before most audio tracks sound a bit off, whereas going up can be done almost a fourth without things getting horrible (depending on sound). It was either use the track’s vocal in spots or not do the tune. I feel as long as I don’t merely mime, I’m good to go!

But vocals aside, the reason I do the song is the joy I get from using the Roland’s SuperNatural jazz guitar sound. I hate to brag on Roland, especially after they have left the field of play, but the way they have set up the articulations on the SN guitar sounds is the best I have ever used... There’s no velocity triggered articulation (dictating when they occur whether you want them or not), it’s all simply legato/detached articulation and the ability to discern single line work from chords. So, it does an amazing job of interpreting your playing and substituting the correct articulations.

I sent this one recently to a guitarist I had played years with, and he asked me who I’m playing with these days! That felt good, I can tell you!

Diki, I feel your baritone pain.
I am constantly transposing original keys down a minor third, at least, or with Queen songs, a sixth. Obviously, things need revoicing at those extremes. Even doing an eight-week singing course (reasonably dedicated) did not really help me increase my range much. Maybe, added some strength in the upper reaches.
But ultimately, it's the performance that carries the audience, so I am sure they are not fussed what key it's in, as long as it sounds good.

Thanks! The seventies weren’t too bad for baritones, but the eighties had almost none!

One trick I have if I need to drop an audio backing over a third is to transpose the bass part down the third AND up the sixth. Then I can cut and paste between the two if parts of the bassline drops well bellow the bottom E string. This can sometimes save a track, other times you just have to roll up your sleeves and record a new bassline that sits in the standard range!

I’ve also rescued guitar parts that get muddy if you take them down a third or more by mixing together the down pitched part with one transposed up the sixth. Just EQ out the low end of the up-transposed track and mix it in quietly just to put a bit of sparkle and transient clarity back in.

Transposing audio down can be tricky if you need major third or more!

Thanks for the tips, Diki.
I shall definitely give them a go.
Totally agree on the audio side of things.
Amazing that the BK7m is happy to do MP3s up and down on the fly. Great saver on occasions.

I seldom ask the BK to do on the fly transposition of more than a half step... Compared to offline computer transposition, the quality is VERY low, and a whole step sounds much worse than doing it in advance.

Plus, I do my audio backing tracks using multitrack recordings, mostly from Karaoke-version.com, who have some really excellent tracks. The advantage to this is that I can transpose the pitched tracks, but leave the drums and percussion untouched, which makes a massive difference in quality compared to transposing everything!

Unfortunately, when using the on the fly BK transposition, of course the whole thing gets transposed, and it’s the drum transients that suffer the most. What I tend to do on songs that really push my range is to prepare two versions in advance, one a half step lower than I normally need. Because the drums stay untransposed, the lower one sounds MUCH better than using the BK to shift it down.

Most of the time I won’t need it, but if I do it is there, ready to go!