Black Orpheus (Bossa) - More Summer Fest Fun

[jdsnyderii]

One of the few famous (non-Jobim) Bossa Novas ... Black Orpheus (or Carnivale) by Luis Bonfa. I really like this song, and had a mostly completed version sitting around. Frank D's Bossa really inspired me to finish my piece:

Black Orpheus Take 3 (Fixes the bass boominess and balance volumes and reverb levels of instruments. Adds EQ to the Sax).
Black Orpheus (Version 2 of the mix)


The drums are all Garritan with each drum individually tailored through a percussion processor/compressor. AND it features and all star cast from Garritan:

EWI USB Tenor Sax (Tom Hopkins version ... yea Tom)
Steinway Piano (GAS version)
JABB3 Electric mellow guitar and Brush Drum Kit and Chuck Israel's Stand Up Bass.
Instant Orchestra ( gentle orchestration 1 combo)
Nylon Electric (real acoustic instrument--the only non-Garritan instrument. I used the audio stretching in Sonar to deal with tempo changes).

NOTE: To fix the original comments from Frank below I swapped out the EWI sax to the Jazz EWI sax (without the TH version). Essentially, this is a different sax. I will likely post a remix again to fix the items Randy raised in the comments below.

[Frank D]

Oh, WOW, Jim! ... I was on my way to answer some comments left on my Bossa and saw this ... hey, we have an entire Bossa Nova sub-Festival going on in this hot Summer ... fantastic to see you love this stuff to; glad my Bossa inspired you to post yours!

And what a great job; I just love it ... really nice work Jim. Already downloaded for the vacation mix CD!

I found the EWI sounded like a hybrid flugelhorn/trombone (or possibly a valve trombone ... not so much like a tenor sax) in the lower-to-mid register, but then definately a realistic tenor sax in the upper register. Maybe it was the phrasing, but no matter, it sounded great and nice, gentle improvising. We need to all realize Stan Getz really knew what he was doing on all his Bossa solos ... real economy of means seems to be germaine to this genre ... you nailed it. Perfect, soft, lush string pad ... perfecto!

I was puzzled by your heading/title of this being "Italian" ... to best of my knowledge, the song is "Manha de Carnaval" ("Morning of the Carnaval", and in English often refered to as "A Day In The Life Of A Fool"), composed by Brazilian composer-guitarist Luis Bonfa for the 1959 film "Black Orpheus", which was a minor Brazilian-French-Italian co-production shot in Brazil around Carnaval time with a mostly amateur cast (if you have not seen this film, it's a classic!).

Great posting ... have been listening to your arrangement 4-5 times as I've been writing these comments.

Abrigado!

Frank

[jdsnyderii]

Oh, WOW, Jim! ... I was on my way to answer some comments left on my Bossa and saw this ... hey, we have an entire Bossa Nova sub-Festival going on in this hot Summer ... fantastic to see you love this stuff to; glad my Bossa inspired you to post yours!

And what a great job; I just love it ... really nice work Jim. Already downloaded for the vacation mix CD!

I found the EWI sounded like a hybrid flugelhorn/trombone (or possibly a valve trombone ... not so much like a tenor sax) in the lower-to-mid register, but then definately a realistic tenor sax in the upper register. Maybe it was the phrasing, but no matter, it sounded great and nice, gentle improvising. We need to all realize Stan Getz really knew what he was doing on all his Bossa solos ... real economy of means seems to be germaine to this genre ... you nailed it. Perfect, soft, lush string pad ... perfecto!

I was puzzled by your heading/title of this being "Italian" ... to best of my knowledge, the song is "Manha de Carnaval" ("Morning of the Carnaval", and in English often refered to as "A Day In The Life Of A Fool"), composed by Brazilian composer-guitarist Luis Bonfa for the 1959 film "Black Orpheus", which was a minor Brazilian-French-Italian co-production shot in Brazil around Carnaval time with a mostly amateur cast (if you have not seen this film, it's a classic!).

Great posting ... have been listening to your arrangement 4-5 times as I've been writing these comments.

Abrigado!

Frank

You are right about the origin of the song. I got it confused with Estate (which is the Italian piece). This song everyone attributes to Jobim, but he did not write it (which is the point worth making).

On the EWI sound, I was not totally happy with the sound. Since I am waiting for the 1.5 Aria update (EWI usb broken right now). I could not tweak my settings to get the right sounds. I did a piece with the tenor before and it came out great, but you have to calibrate the EWI to a new mouth piece, etc. (Kinda picky like a real instrument...sort of ironic).

Glad you liked it. If I figure out the tenor sound, I will post a new version some time.

[jdsnyderii]

Based on Frank's feedback, I posted a better remix of the Tenor Sax that is not ambiguous with respect to "what instrument is it".

[sd cisco]

Hey Jim!
That was SWEET!!!
You sound totally comfortable playing in this genre - think I need to practice-up on some Bossa stuff my self! What a great, dreamy sound - thanks for posting this, glad I got to hear it!!!

sd cisco

[rbowser-]

Soooo fine! Frank's right - we have a Bossa Nova sub-Festival going on!

But HMmmmmMMmm, is this tasty or what?! Convincing and very satisfying.

I thought I was going a little whack though, because the Sax sounded fantastic to me, and I didn't understand Frank's criticism of the sound. Then I saw this:

Based on Frank's feedback, I posted a better remix of the Tenor Sax that is not ambiguous with respect to "what instrument is it".

OK, great - But what did you do to fix the original mix that I didn't hear? From Frank's post, it was sounding like there's an issue with the samples themselves - so did you just swap out instruments, or whudya do?

Maybe you could edit the thread starter, adding the note that the current link is to a new version in response to Frank's post. A thought anyway, could keep things less confusing.

Hey, I have one technical note, a suggestion. The only thing that concerned me with the recording came up right away as it started. For a second I was wondering what I was hearing - then I realized it was the string bass starting out waaay down there in its bottom octave, and sounding very boomy, rumbling around in the reverb setting. After the opening measures, it became less of a problem, since the Sax is so way in front of everything else, but this sound of the bass remained a slight problem throughout.

The suggestion is that no matter what kind of bass is used, to use much less reverb on it than the other instruments, especially on a stand up bass which has a fuzzy, somewhat boomy sound to it no matter what you do. It's the pop model of mixing, where bass is often bone dry, to make the rhythm as clear as possible. I hardly ever add any reverb to bass because of this problem of reverb emphasizing bass boominess. Even when doing something orchestral, I dial the reverb way back on the bass section.

What's the answer on how you fixed up the original Sax--?

THANKS for the super enjoyable music, Jim.

Randy

[Frank D]

Hi again Jim ...

YEAH!! Now we're talkin' Selmer Mark VI!! Really nice timbre ... definately sounds like a tenor sax now! But understand Jim, I liked the arrangement when the horn sounded like a valve trombone also. I'm actually going to string together a sax-trombone-sax mix for my vacation CD!

And for RANDY:

NOTE: To fix the original comments from Frank below I swapped out the EWI sax to the Jazz EWI sax (without the TH version). Essentially, this is a different sax. I will likely post a remix again to fix the items Randy raised in the comments below.

Thanks for the repost,

Frank

(Ironically, the original Stan Getz-Joao and Astrud Gilberto "Girl From Impanema" had a poorly recorded acoustic bass ... always rattled my pro speakers!)

[jdsnyderii]

Soooo fine! Frank's right - we have a Bossa Nova sub-Festival going on!

...

Hey, I have one technical note, a suggestion. The only thing that concerned me with the recording came up right away as it started. For a second I was wondering what I was hearing - then I realized it was the string bass starting out waaay down there in its bottom octave, and sounding very boomy, rumbling around in the reverb setting. After the opening measures, it became less of a problem, since the Sax is so way in front of everything else, but this sound of the bass remained a slight problem throughout.

The suggestion is that no matter what kind of bass is used, to use much less reverb on it than the other instruments, especially on a stand up bass which has a fuzzy, somewhat boomy sound to it no matter what you do. It's the pop model of mixing, where bass is often bone dry, to make the rhythm as clear as possible. I hardly ever add any reverb to bass because of this problem of reverb emphasizing bass boominess. Even when doing something orchestral, I dial the reverb way back on the bass section.
...

Randy

I took you up on your suggestion Randy and posted a Take 3 leaving the original for comparison. I think this fixes the problem you were hearing (which I agreed with by the way). Thanks for the advice. I have learned a lot here on the forum.

[rbowser-]

I took you up on your suggestion Randy and posted a Take 3 leaving the original for comparison. I think this fixes the problem you were hearing (which I agreed with by the way). Thanks for the advice. I have learned a lot here on the forum.

I think that does sound clearer, Jim. Cool.

Randy