Thanks Charlie…appreciated.
frankly i think pg needs to do a series of vids showing how to do modern songs and different modern beats and styles using rb. (and bb )...and why certain features are unique....so young musos get cranked up doing modern songs useing rb and see its advantages.
(remembering of course a rb user has all the great rt's
and rd's and loops and supertracks at his/her disposal also....ie spoilt for choice plus 256 tracks.)
One issue of course is what one muso might consider as modern, another might not. for example one young muso might be into modern jazz etc but another might not and be cranked up by edm or rap instead. Thus it's a bit of conundrum what pg vids should focus on.
also 'the scene' and 'what's hot' can vary over time depending on what famous artists young musos follow.
if i remember from my exchanges with the talented Jeff…the developer working on rb…
he uses rb for edm songs ?
for anyone reading this...much as i have loved a very very popular well known daw over the years and in fact
was a very early adopter when it came out and feature requestor...i cant do certain things in it i can do in rb.
rb has many unique features that can help you create songs....(as does bb.)
2..more fun with FTWDP.
(fill track with drum pattern….i call FT.)
before i start let me say ive heard it all from people younger than myself....viz…'ive heard pg products are for you old dudes'...'I can't lay down some cool modern beats with rb ive heard '...'You old dudes just use bb/rb to do elevator music'...etc etc and so it goes….lol.
So someone goes off and spends serious money on other music apps they could have put into their kids college fund without realising pg products are very capable of doing 'modern songs'.
remember this old guy was young once. your hair would prolly stand on end if i ever related what we used to get up to in various music groups i sang in over the years…
(aah fun memories…lmao.)....i was a crazee wild rocker in a previous life...lol.
if you're into modern music styles like edm /hip hop/trap/rap/world beats…whatever before going out and getting various hardware gear like 808's or beatboxes or hardware synths costing thousands…save the money…you can do all these modern styles in rb.
at first glance the FT feature seems like its just for quick midi drum beats…but like lots of pg product features if one takes one's time to delve a bit and be creative it will in fact do sooooo much more ... .just some things to think about…
….Ive seen on various songwriter forums over the years ' I'm dry for song ideas'.
not myself..i have TOO MANY song ideas and not enough time often once i fire up pg products…like rb and start even with just the FT for example driving an instrument plugin like synthmaster or another vsti.
Here's some fun things FT can be used for…instead of thinking of FT as just a simple midi drum track guide generator.
..for song ideas..randomly generate dp patterns on tracks from the FT dialog..then instead of selecting drum patches in the plugin like synthmaster (or any other plugin)...select non drum sounds…eg synths or flutes or spacey sounds and modern sounds…whatever patch takes your fancy... I guarantee youll get a ton of song ideas from this including modern rhythmic (non drum) textures, film special fx …and yes if you're into 'old guy stuff'..even that…lmao.
if..like me you cant afford fancy synth hardware costing thousands due to other family responsibilities…really dig into using the FT feature in conjunction with the synth plugins provided free by pg. crikey just using synthmaster alone with FT i get sooo many interesting sounds and song ideas it boggles my mind. It is a cornucopia of song possibilities.
..'laying down slamming modern beats'...remember…midi is just note and control data etc etc…
It's the plug in that converts this computer data to actual sound.
In conclusion, rb isnt producing the sound…it's the plugin that's gotta provide those 'modern sounds.'
SOOO…if you want 'slamming beats'...use plugin patches that get you that.
Remember you can also use free sample player plugins which will play loaded modern sound samples whether you got them free from a magazine like computer music mag.uk…or you made your own…or you got free off the net or paid modern sound sample packs.
In addition pg content includes a zillion sounds spread out in the various styles/rt's/midi supertracks/rd's etc etc you can generate and then isolate and slice and dice and change pitch up or down once isolated.
for example i once created a rain thunder effect by taking a sample I isolated from a rt and then lowered the pitch of ... .all this can be triggered by FT or rb midi generated tracks driving plugins. it's a cornucopia of possibilities.
you could also load your own vocal samples to be driven by FT….
eg let's say you want a modern vocal sample saying something like 'layin down beats'...just record such, and load into a sample player plugin driven by FT at an appropriate tempo.
The skys the limit. …(and this is before we get into some advanced things you can do later on i will detail in this treatise.)
FOR EXAMPLE the other day i was just mucking around with sforzando timewarp patch being driven by a FT created afrobeat at a slow tempo..and it was as modern as all get out.
finally let me say ive just scratched the surface so far of what rb can do.
it all comes down to HOW you USE the tool..in this case rb.
i dont want to irk anyone but i suspect some people that dismiss rb easily after a cursory look might not be aware of the many things one can do with rb and its extensive midi features.
if you're not aware of the many things midi can do for you…spend some time on the net and via your local library books to learn all the many facets of midi.
eg…for midi learning start here …
https://midi.org/AND/OR google (midi tutorial)....
and a slew of midi tutorial links on the net and you tube will pop up.
(let me say i dont consider myself a midi uber pro…but i do ponder sometimes if a user new to rb and midi who makes negative comments about rb…might in fact be lacking midi knowledge rather than the problem being some failing of rb…)
rb is choc full of features….and is perfectly able to create songs in any song genre including various 'modern song genres'. like any song creation app on the market ya just gotta experiment with midi data driving plugin patches.
remember you have the flexibility of up to 256 tracks in rb ... .as much as i love bb on complex songs needing more tracks than bb i'll turn to rb.
(if i forget…remind me to detail later on how to get fancy drum solos in rb like we used to do live whereby the drummer would start a song with a hip groove/solo/scat or in the middle of a song.)
more to come.
happiness....and now go experiment with RB fill track feature triggering a plugin to generate interesting modern sounding tracks.
om