The Weight (The Band)

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 :wink: 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.

Hi, thank you for that song that I discovered with the playing for change vidéo. Would it be possible for you to complete it with the bass part and make it an OPB ?

That would be great !

Search FOLDERS and download the T-Z folder; it has The Weight (OPB).

Hi Persist, I must be dumb, don’t see anything. If I search FOLDERS there are hundreds of results and I don’t see anything titled T-Z…

You’re not dumb, I didn’t use the complete title for the search. Should have said MY FOLDERS. You can find it here: MY FOLDERS

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Ok, I managed to find and import the t-z folder but I have no idea on how to extract the song from it…

Are you using the BBMO or the BBM?

If you are using the BBM, go to the BBM File menu and select export song and put it on your desktop. You can then use the same process from the BBM file menu: select the folder you want the song in, import song, go to the desktop and select the song and press OK or open and it should end up in the folder you chose.

I’m using bbmo only.

If you haven’t read the user manual for the BBMO yet, you might want to give it a try as it is very helpful.

Select the song and click on the stacked dots and a menu will open. Select Export and place it on your desktop. Click on the folder where you want The Weight and you can then import the song.

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Got it thanks, I had just missed the fact that in “import song” there is the possibility to import a folder :frowning:

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