Rayzoon Technologies LLC

[MPDmike]

I am trying to recreate something like the rhythm on Santana's version of Afro Blue. It starts at about 1 minute into this track:

https://soundcloud.com/moustafa-samir-wagdy/santana-john-mclaughlin-afro

It is in 6/8 and seems to be based on an Abakua sort of rhythm.

Do you think Jamstix/Jamcussion can produce something like this?

[Ragabhava_]

I have no clue wether Jamstix can do it (still figuring it out) but I do know Mongo's Afro blue a bit.

Yes, its from the Abakua tradition, but this is not really relevant unless you want to improvise in his style on this piece (I think of his version with Cal Tjader, not Santana's version), by this I mean all his variations and line of thinking. We're talking months of serious study to get the basics down of Abakua (not that I am in that position, but I'm a bit familiar with it). As with all things afrocuban it gets very deep very quickly.


Here is an aproximation which works quite well over the piece:http://www.mycongaplace.com/cp/instrument/view.php?id_s=1&lang=E#top_rhtmo.

The black notes are open sounds and are the backbone of the groove. I would start by placing kicks & toms there.

Note the rests of the second transcription, these are very important.

The bass player plays an important role for this famous groove with his displaced line, maybe adding another percussionist mimicking this ?

[MPDmike]

Many thanks for your reply Ragabhava_. I haven't seen that conga website before and it seems it could be very useful in creating Afro Cuban rhythms. I am not a percussionist myself and it helps to see how the patterns are played in practice.

My particular problem is that I am trying to lay down a suitable rhythm to produce a backing track that my friend and I can play along to. I know I can do this by programming it into Cubase, but thought it might sound more real if I can use Jamstix 4 to do it. I was also trying to save myself some work, because I would have to do a lot of experiementing to achieve the sort of vibe I hear in the recordings.

[Ragabhava_]

I'm very curious about any results you find satisfying in this regard.

I havent spent much time with the percussion module so far but are very positively impressed by its improvisations (someone who is obviously into djembe playing had a hand in it :=) ).

As a conga player myself I don't hold much hope for any realistic MIDI simulation of this instrument however. The sheer variety of sounds a conga skin produces is so overwhelming that the first years of learning for everyone are mostly spent producing and controlling them. This is even more true when we speak about hide skinned drums (the ol skool Rumba sound), which Mongo uses as opposed to the nylon skinned drums used in modern Salsa bands (which trade volume/stability for expressivity).

Heck, so many subtleties often get lost in recordings (especially the basses) as opposed to the live sound that rendering a rumba conga without audio loops appears to be a very daunting endeavour indeed. And we aren't even touching on the idea of simulating the performance of a conguero!

Soon I will explore the jamcussion part more thouroughly from this perspective, I hope the very positive surprises Jamstix has deliverd so far keep coming !

So, if you don't mind sharing anything you like in an AfroBlue/Jamstix context I would be very interested indeed.