A little back story. I’ve had a love/hate relationship with this song since it was released. Loved it… until it became the #1 song requested of me when I gigged at coffee houses on campus in ‘71. Every frickin night. But lately, it’s grown on me again, especially after watching the new documentary on the tune (Paramount+).
Over the past year or two, I’ve been contemplating a move from Windows back to the Mac world, abandoning Reaper and moving to Logic Pro X. When my wife bought her new M2 Mac Air, I inherited her old 2017 Mac Air. So… I started using this tune as my learning project in LPX.
I’ve seen quite a few midi files on this tune and they all have a few things in common. Either they completely leave out the piano only intro and outro, or, if they include it, they don’t even attempt the many tempo changes that occur in those sections….
Thanks to alot of help and encouragement from Persist, I tackled the tune as my first LPX project, tempo changes, piano intro/outro and all. 3 weeks on and off, it’s done.
A few suggestions…if you don’t know the recording very well, you might have trouble with those sections, so listen to it a few times. Since there isn’t and bass or percussion, you need to be aware if the piano part and it’s assorted tempos. Pay close attention to the transitions from the intro to main and the main to the outro. Also remember… the last verse and chorus are acoustic only…so don’t think the song is incomplete on the Beat Buddy… it’s not.
Song uses STAX 4 Octave Piano and Strings (thanx to Phil Flood) because I think the samples in this kit are as close to “real” piano as possible for this tune.
Good luck… let me know what you think and if you find mistakes, let me know. Sorry for being long winded on this.
american pie.zip (154.7 KB)