2nd Place: Herbert Binder - Very Cherry

"The little piece was arranged in Ableton Live 8, using the CoreBass Cherry libraries, particularly fingered and slapped, processed in Guitar Rig 3. By understandable reasons, the EQing is a little bassy. The other instruments are mostly from the Kontakt 3 library and from Ableton Suite 8." - Herbert Binder

Download "Very Cherry" MP3

"Very Cherry" is unquestionably high up on my list of songs with infectious grooves. It's traditional reggae beat is spiced up with effects as well as some cool cross-rhythms as fills, to give the groove forward motion. It has everything you'd expect from a good reggae beat--the staccato hits on 2 & 4 from the guitar and a heavy kick drum accent on beat 3 as well as occasional hits on the "and" of 4. The secret ingredient to the catchy groove is the fast, syncopated 2 on 3 polyrhythm heard mostly by the cross-stick in the drums and in occasional fills. Although there are a lot of rhythmic details, the main pulse is strong enough to maintain a laid-back feel.

The arrangement is very characteristic of Ableton Live: it's composed of sections where instruments drop out and new parts are added. A second section, introduced a quarter through the song provides a nice contrast from the repetitive harmonic progression. Throughout the form of the song, a variety of instruments and solos are featured, from a catchy brass melody, slap bass solo (provided by CoreBass Cherry Slapped), and a talkbox solo.

This is a fun, relaxed piece, and the groove and melody are guaranteed to get stuck in your head!

Greg Schlaepfer,
Orange Tree Samples

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Herbert J. Binder is originally from Vienna, Austria, but now lives in Switzerland, working in the audiology field. He is a multi-instrumentalist and has worked with MIDI sequencing for over 20 years, mostly on a non-commercial basis.

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