The Weight.zip (1.1 MB)
Background: I started with this one: Band - The Weight with Bass 2018.03.09 - Band - The Weight with Bass
However the timing isn’t right because there’s 7/4 measure behind the “And and and…you put the load right on me” part, however the OPB version stayed in straight time, so there’s an extra quarter note on that part.
Also, because we only have 2 vocalist and not 3, for us it works best to have that part be 6/4 instead. Either way, I needed to be able to have that odd time measure in place.
So there’s 6 parts included here:
- Intro: 4 count with a roll at the end.
- Part 1: The Turnaround (The Walk Down from C to G, we start off with that riff)
- Part 2: The Verse
- Part 3: The Chorus
- Part 4: 6/4 measure (Also included a 7/4 measure you could swap in)
- Outro: The Turnaround.
I tried putting the 6/4 measure as a transition on the Chorus, but it seems like you can’t switch time signatures for a transition beat? It always seemed to treat it like a 4/4 measure, so I had to resort to putting it as its own song part. Also, we play it at a slower tempo (64 instead of 72), so I’ve included both versions.
Anyway, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. We will be debuting it with drums on Wednesday evening!
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HI Jos - how did this turn out now that you’ve run it a number of times? We’ve played it pretty much every night for years (at 80bpm) using Country 11 with no intro. We have 2 1/2 singers 
when our lead guitarist is on pitch for backups. I hit pause at the time change (and…and…and) then unpause (…on me) which works well.
I’ve gotten used to pause/unpause foot work over the years so I’m not leaning on OP songs unless they really work better. This one seems a bit too heavy on the footwork demands.
On the other extreme I’ve been thinking of using a full audio .wav rendering I just did in REAPER for ‘Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’ since horns in BB aren’t as good as Session Horns and space is limited anyway when deciding to include piano, bass, etc.
We’ve used unRealBook on iPad for years which allows you to drop a ‘transmogrify’ button into a displayed .pdf and link it to audio. I run that audio output from the iPad to the mixer. We’ve done this for years on Pink Floyd and Ozzie’s Crazy Train to insert audio as intros before triggering stock beats so running a full audio backing is realistic. N.B. use judiciously or risk sounding like bad karaoke.
It works nicely! I actually simplified it further. I combine part 1 and 2, and put the Chorus.mid as a transition off the verse.
So now I hit Next Part on beat 1 of the chorus to trigger the Chorus.mid, which then moves to the 6/4 part automatically. Then during the 6/4 measure I trigger the next part to get back to the walk down.
So it’s 2 transitions per Walkdown/Verse/Chorus/Break
Actually I just simplified it further. We run the walk down twice before starting the song, so now it’s
Intro: 4 count with roll → Walkdown
Part 1: Walkdown → Verse → Chorus
Part 2: 6-4 Turnaround
Outro: Walkdown with ending crash
So now I just press in the last measure of the chorus, and during the 6/4 part.
The Weight.zip (1.1 MB)
Nicely done J. Well thought out. Once you get digging in the effort pays off.
We’ve used BB almost since it came out (maybe 2014?). Initially to improve timing at rehearsal but it took over and we use live on almost every song - stock beats mostly but more contrived bass and keys added now.
Its limited memory can’t resolve a more pure horn sound so I’m thinking of using canned audio on some songs where we don’t need to let our lead guitarist run free.
Further simplification: This is now a full 1-press with the 6/4 bar after each chorus.
The_Weight OP.sng (561.2 KB)
Have to look at this. I got a good BB version following the way we do it with built in timing (moved the parts in REAPER to fit) and a custom extended piano and dropped any ambition of using horns. I removed some troublesome notes which as Dr Flood explained to me are unavoidable in some cases since BB is not a hardware synth and therefore lacks ADSR abilities to carve proper sounding note envelopes. Non-percussive notes can sound harsh and/or clicks are heard.