Not that it matters, the “La’s” are actually "Li’s (or Lye, Lie) as in Too-ra-loo-ra-li Don’t know why he chose it instead of La…kinda like Paul Simon’s “The Boxer”…when looking for a deeper meaning, I had no clue what he was trying to say. Apparently, nothing…just gibberish, like scatting. 
But La’s will do just as well. 
1 Like
Torsten…your full mixes are really good as they are! Who is singing? The vocal on Heros was excellent. Really nailed it! I understand what you are doing with this, but you guys really set the bar high. Would love to hear some of your other covers.
1 Like
(-blushing-) that’s actually yours truly! All three rehearsal tracks are pretty much myself in my man-cave - with my wife doing the backings on The Rising. Drums and bass mostly MIDI (either commercial tracks or just me clicking the drums and playing the bass on keys), everything else I play.
For rehearsal tracks, I try to reduce the arrangement down to what we can actually play between the five of us in Cränk! - requires some tough decisions on what is essential, and some creativity to still deliver along the intention of the original song. Heroes was a tough one - Bowie never played it with less than 8 excellent musicians on stage (unless you count the acoustic version with just an acoustic guitar), so I had to really juggle, but in the end I can actually play the keyboard part with just my 2 hands (and I have to cover the ebow guitar sound as well, so there’s a lot of jumping between zones…)
If you want to hear some of our stuff (played by all of us, not just me) - here are some songs we recorded in 2019 when we still could. Production quality is not the same as the current stuff (I’ve learned quite a bit since from musician on a misssion), but you get the impression…
Appreciate the compliments on the mixes - but the idea here isn’t really to compete with my “basement tracks”, but to build something cool with the members of this forum. Having a decent basis and “minus-one” tracks to start with is better than just laying down a click or drum beat and trying to build from scratch. It definitely makes it more fun . And as a forum collaboration, we’re not restricted to my 5-musicians-regime - we can layer as much as we want 
I hope the end result with all the forum contributions sounds very different from what I started out with - sometimes when building arrangements, you just stir your same old ideas around, which gets stale. Just the slide track you made for The Rising already takes it into a different direction…
1 Like
Agree - and the "Li"s actually make it a better sound to sing - gives it more of an upward drift than boring "laaaa"s. We can use “Lies” for our version - or maybe some of us sing “Li” and some sing “La”?
1 Like
I think E-Street does that anyway.
Very impressed.
Thanks for the link. 
Nils Lofgren does it “live”, but it is only noticeable on the higher parts. I didn’t want it to clash with everything, so I only played in the important parts.
Organ will be coming soon.
Hey Torsten; that is really nice classic rock you do with Cränk.
I remember playing “Road To Hell” in a rock band in the 80s. The chords are still in my head but the band was known for its singer that had a good Joe Cocker like voice.
1 Like
This is sooo tempting, but as I haven’t picked my bass up for well south of 3 years, I think I would spend more time bleeding on the strings as opposed to producing anything of value! lol
1 Like
We should do “while my bass lies bleeding in my arms” then 
Ha ha - brill.
All right - we have some strings, clean guitar, slide guitar, hammond, and sax for “The Rising” now - sounds cool so far!
Now where are our drummers, bassists, guitarists? We still need a nice guitar solo part, plus some nice crunch guitar wouldn’t hurt either. And it would be great to replace my MIDI drums and bass parts with something “real” from the forum.
And: we need VOCALS - anyone wanting to sing a verse (or more) or just join the choir for the chorus?
1 Like
I could do bass. What do I need from you to get started?
Great! You have a PM with all relevant access data 
1 Like
OK, the Bass track for the The Rising is uploaded. Let me know if anything needs to be adjusted. I still have the levels all set the same on the interfaces, etc. and can do some punches or whatever is needed.
I do play guitar and sing, also, so if you get stuck on needing anything else, just let me know. It would be better if others would pitch in some tracks to get some cool synergy going. Here is a sample - I am playing all the guitars (plus bass) and singing the lead and background parts: https://www.reverbnation.com/randallstaudt/song/31196809-you-are-randall-staudt-2019
OK, looks like no more contributions coming in, so I’ve knocked together a first mix and put a visualization behind it. Here you go:
Current co-conspirators:
- @Corky: trem guitar, slide guitar, hammond, strings
- @TorstenH: sax
- @rstaudt: bass
- Erika (my wife, no forum ID ): backing vox
Still too much “me” in there, so I hope there are some singers or guitarists (maybe a drummer?) here in the forum who feel they could add to this song (and replace my “guide” vocals, drums and guitars tracks) - let’s hear you! 
Cheers,
Torsten
4 Likes
Sounds good! I don’t have access to a real kit so all I could do would be replace those drums with a different set of programmed drums
I’m still hoping I can make you sing
That would be a major step down from what you got 
1 Like
I could do my Bruce impression though. Or even better, I could sing it like Neil Young.
2 Likes
YESSS, please!
2 Likes
