This month’s Libre Music Challenge was to write something inspired by Muzak - This is my submission. I enjoyed this one because I was able to dust off the archtop and play some jazz.
Here’s a link to the challenge:
https://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=21999
I think the voice speaking along the song adds irony, which is intended, but to me the composition stands pretty much for itself. Very well arranged. And I’d say it’s more bossa-nova than anything, a style very familiar to me.
P.S: I didn’t knew this kind of guitar had this name (archtop) 
Thanks for the comment! Glad you enjoyed it. I love jazz standards and bossa nova… So this project was a lot of fun for me 
Yeah archtops are mainly hollowbody electrics, but some semi-hollow body electrics are also arched on the front and back and so fall into the category of archtop too. Mine is an Epiphone ES-175.
This guitar has as a great smooth sound, no doubt. It’s very noticeable in the octave solo part, Wes Montgomery-style.
You did the percussion yourself or used some beat sample? I had some samba/bossa/jazz songs too and I wonder how could I make a good beat for them.
Here’s one example (this one has no beat yet):
I really loved that song. It is very relaxing and well played. You have a really great acoustic sound. It doesn’t necessarily need drums, but a latin groove would definitely fit.
I did the drums in a different way than I usually do them… I met Rob van den Berg. on Unfa’s Rocket Chat server and he actually sent me a midi output from a bossa groove that was a default beat from his Yamaha keyboard. Then I grabbed a really nice General Midi soundfont from here:
https://member.keymusician.com/Member/FluidR3_GM/index.html
I think I used Calf fluidsynth to load the soundfont.
I used that soundfont with the midi groove and it worked pretty well overall. I had to tweak some of the velocities of the notes and trimmed the groove a bit to fit my song better.
If you want the Midi Loop, I have it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Iqi0q6VHaQe9Eacsoh1t20-LOmZt8JKs/view?usp=sharing As long as you have a general midi library with drums on channel 10 it should work.
Hi,
I’m glad you liked it! This one was made entirely with my nylon-string acoustic. I recorded it two years ago, and I didn’t use Ardour back then. Hadn’t barely any production knowledge either. Nonetheless, I think it’s a great song and worthy of a “refactoring”, so to speak.
One idea is to use percussion this time, so that’s why I asked you. I’ll check these links out, thanks a lot for sharing! So much to learn…
Hi! Great job!!
Great commentary on our times, and super tasteful playing and arranging! Great tone on that archtop!
Thanks GMaq! I am really glad you enjoyed it. I had some trepidation about doing a jazz tune because I have never written in that style before… but I was pleasantly surprised as I worked on the tune.
This is both hilarious and extremely well produced. I love the guitar licks starting halfway through - very Wes Montgomery esque. What delay did you use for that lead?
Thanks! I am definitely a fan of Wes Montgomery. On the lead I used Calf Vintage Delay and Calf Reverb.