The "money for nothing" Intro

[mash_inc]

X8 User

How would you play/realize/arrange the keyboard part of an Intro like "money for nothing" (Dire straits).

The basic parts of this Intro are:
Part 1) A nice chord which fades in and is hold for about 50 seconds, than fade out

Part 2) After a view second you can hear a looped sequence which make the "DaDamm...DaDamm..."

Part 3) I the meanwhile some other stuff is played

Because our keyboarder has only two hands (like most of you) We need some help on how we can automize part 1 & 2 so that the keyboarder can concentrate on playing Part 3.

How we tried to realize it:
a) We sampled the chord (Part 1) in full lenght so that we can fade in and out. Than we put the sample on Pad1. The sample is very big which is not an advantage but it works.

b) The boarder has now both hands free for playing the Part 3 stuff.

c) Since now we failed building the looped sequence (Part 2) and, by the way, we do not know where to start.

We thougt about creating a "Song" out of it, because there a several tracks with which we can coordinate the chord and the sequence as well,but we don't know if this is the right way.

How would you realize this.

Thanks!

[MIDIguru]

Hi Mash,

My band is covering that song and I will be building up the intro without using samples. Also I am the only keyboard player in my band so I'll have to cover all three parts myself. We should be adding that song to our set in the next 6 months.

Keep bugging me and I'll send you the MIDI file and Fantom song files when I'm done.

For now one of the things you can do is use RPS to trigger patterns. Assign those patterns to the pads. If you record the chord part (part 1) into pattern 1 (for 24 bars) and assign pad 1 to play pattern 1 you can hold the pad for as long as want to play the chord.

Also there is a MIDI file out there on the web somewhere and that's what I'll be using to start.

Good Luck and keep bugging me in 6 months or so...

[mash_inc]

Hi MIDIguru,

to start with a midi file sounds like a realy good idea. Never thought about that.

The bass player found one, so if you don't have it yet, I can send it to you.
The extension is *.mid (not *.smf). Don't know if this is important.

Because we are new to this "high end" technical stuff, it's hard to understand how things work together.

What will be the base of you arrangement, a song, a performance, or .....?

Thanks for your help!

[MIDIguru]

We decided to go without a drummer for now because most drummers don't want to use electronics and have the right sounds triggered. Most 80's music used drum machines so my Fantom-X will be providing the drums. We have a drum kit and a lifesized cardboard Chewbacca (Star Wars) as our "real" drummer.

For most of our songs I will start the sequencer and play all the parts in live that I can handle. I also have to play guitar on some of our songs due to all of the complex layering of guitars recorded in the 80's.

When I get a MIDI file I usually have to gut it out, check that the arrangement is correct, and rebuild all of the sounds. Then I have to strip out the tracks that our guitarist, bassist, and I would play.

Money For Nothing is loaded with small keyboard parts, especially the intro. I plan on splitting different sounds across the keyboard and trying to cover as much as possible without the sequencer's help.

Make sure you guys have a way to stay in sync. I would suggest sending a click track to your drummer using the alt outputs (3 & 4).