I almost always use real instruments for recording, including acoustic drums, but for kicks the other day I decided to write a song using no real instruments.

Being a drummer I decided to take it one more level and try using the drag-n-drop functionality of Superior Drummer to create the drums, so I didn't play the drums on this one, but simply arranged the drums from midi clips.

The song consists of nothing but one instance of Superior Drummer and one instance of Kontakt with 13 of the Factory Library sounds dialed up.

The song is titled "Nothing Real" because not one instrument on it is real.

https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=13706459

I like the stuff you have supporting the leads. Very thoughtful arranging of little pads and horn parts underneath, they do a good job of supporting the action. I think that's the toughest stuff to write, and you did a great job here on those.
 
Don't get me wrong, the lead stuff shows your talent as well, but as you say it's fresh from the can. You made it sound cohesive.
 
I listened to a few others on your soundclick site, and you really do have some writing and playing chops! Kind of prog jazz rock? Way cool!
 
cheers,
-Tom

emeraldsoul
I like the stuff you have supporting the leads. Very thoughtful arranging of little pads and horn parts underneath, they do a good job of supporting the action. I think that's the toughest stuff to write, and you did a great job here on those.
 
Don't get me wrong, the lead stuff shows your talent as well, but as you say it's fresh from the can. You made it sound cohesive.
 
I listened to a few others on your soundclick site, and you really do have some writing and playing chops! Kind of prog jazz rock? Way cool!

 
Thanks Tom.  Now that I've had the full version of Kontakt for a few months and gotten to know some of the sounds from the Factory Library, I decided to see what I could do using them almost exclusively.  I'm not that impressed with any of the drum sounds that come with Kontakt, but some of the other sounds I used in this song are really usable.

Well I thought it was very good, especially considering how it was put together. You're as good a writer as you are a musician Glen. Your songs always move and go places. I like doing that too.

Wayfarer
Well I thought it was very good, especially considering how it was put together. You're as good a writer as you are a musician Glen. Your songs always move and go places. I like doing that too.

Thanks Wayfarer.  The only real cut-n-paste stuff was the drums, but everything else was played and then heavily edited. It was kind of an experiment to see how much I could do using only sampled sound, and an approach that was very shoot from the hip and fix it later.
 
What I learned from all this is that I'll continue to use real acoustic drums, real bass, and real guitars, but some sampled things like strings, brass, or a virtual Jean-Luc-Ponty might be possible to add to the lineup of players.   :-)

Send virtual Jean over to my place when you're done. Enigmatic Ocean is one of my favorite albums of all-time.

Wayfarer
Send virtual Jean over to my place when you're done. Enigmatic Ocean is one of my favorite albums of all-time.

I got to meet him and had him sign a CD for me. A musician friend of mine got backstage passes that included a meet-n-greet after the concert. I ask him if he liked playing with Zappa or John McLaughlin better. He gushed about getting to play with Zappa and said working with John McLaughlin was a lot of work, but still had fond memories from it.

As good as he is though, I like Steven Goodman and Allan Sloan both better. Speaking of Sloan, have you ever seen the video of the Dixie Dregs live at Montreux (1978)? Just incredible:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6aGUgoN-Ik

Wayfarer
As good as he is though, I like Steven Goodman and Allan Sloan both better. Speaking of Sloan, have you ever seen the video of the Dixie Dregs live at Montreux (1978)? Just incredible:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6aGUgoN-Ik

I hadn't seen that video. Great performance!
 
I got to meet all those guys too after the theater they were playing cleared out.  Once everybody else had gone, Rod Morgenstein got back on his drums and wouldn't stop playing but for a moment at a time to answer questions. The rest of the band were real friendly and came out to talk to me an my musician friends who stuck around after the concert.
 
The best unplanned band meet up was when I got to go in Gentle Giant's touring vehicle and sit on the couch at the back between Derek Shulman and Kerry Minnear. The bass player who was with me was pissed off that I got to hang with them, but it was only because of my lack of fear to go bang on the door of their vehicle. When Ray Shulman opened the door and ask "WHAT DO YOU WANT?", I said I want to come in and hang out with you guys. He said OK and let me in.  :-)

I've never met any of those guys, but I've always heard that just about everyone in the Dregs was very down to Earth. (Don't know anything about the guys in Gentle Giant.) Actually, I think the vast majority of jazz players in particular are very nice, smart, and well-mannered people, so your stories don't surprise me at all. Neat that you got to meet them!