Robin Reddocke (16th century lute piece)

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My arrangement of Robin Reddocke, a song from William Ballet’s Lute book (published in the late 16th century). Lute sheet music is available on the IMSLP site (and is in the public domain).

My arrangement is for classical guitar, and adds alto and tenor block flutes (i.e., recorders) and a frame drum.


Robin Reddocke (Dropbox/WAV)

All instruments are real (i.e., no MIDI/digital instruments) and played by me.

Edited to update the SoundCloud recording from a link to an embedded player.

11 Likes
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What a magnificent piece of Renassiance music and what a superb arrangement and performance Jason.
I am super impressed here - just wonderful.
:slight_smile:

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Thank you, Richard. I recorded this back in October of 2020, so a lot of us may have heard it before. Earlier I edited the post to change the link to an embedded player (I like that not only because it’s embedded, but because it includes the image), which had the side-effect of popping it up on the “latest” post listings. It’s not really a new recording, though.

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Amazing piece Jason, sounds and feels really authentic. Do you by any chance visit renaissance/medieval fairs?

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Thank you, Radek.

I have in the past, but I haven’t been to one in years.

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What a delightful piece of music. I love your light touch Jason.

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Very nice! Good music can indeed transport us through space and time.

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That was a real pleasure to listen to Jason. Beautifully played.

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Nice that this topic came up, great played, very nice to listen to.
:sunglasses:
Greetings

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A beautiful arrangement Jason. Well done.

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@batwoman @Beatup6String @SgtColon @roger_holland @sairfingers - Thanks, everyone. I had fun creating this arrangement and recording; the positive response is gratifying.

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Jason

That was lovely, though I can’t work out why I have only just seen it. Been ages since I listened to this style of music but always liked the old Renaissance sound. Very nice with the flutes as well.

Cheers

Toby
:sunglasses:

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Thanks, Toby. Glad it was new for you, and pleased you liked the flute parts. I’m especially happy with those because I composed those parts. :slight_smile: (As opposed to the guitar part, which is the original lute part arranged for guitar.)

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Wonderful, stylish performance!
I have a special admiration for playing real wind instruments, because I can play only midi myself :grin:

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Thank you!

For the record, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with using MIDI; I use MIDI quite a bit on various other songs I’ve recorded. But I also enjoy learning to play physical instruments when I can. It’s a lot of fun and very satisfying. I’ll never be a “master” of many of those instruments, but just knowing the basics can get you surprisingly good results.

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This is absolutely beautiful indeed! :heart_eyes: Thank you for replying, it’s great to know that we can share here in the Community about different genres :slight_smile:

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Thank you, Silvia.

Yes, the community is great and there’s no restriction on genre.

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Well done JW!
Sounded lush and rich on my end. Very nice production I must say. Keep up the good vibes and be well.

LB

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Thanks, LBro, and I’m pleased the production sounded good. I was trying to apply several things I learned when I recorded and mixed this piece.

For anyone interested, here are some notes on the recording/production:

Recording and mixing done using Bitwig Studio.

  • The main guitar is a Cordoba C9 Parlor recorded using a Shure PGA27 mic near the neck/body joint and an Audio-Technica AT-2020 near the bridge. The Shure is panned hard left and the AT-2020 is panned hard right. Each is EQ’d separately. The Shure (L) track is sent to a Reverb panned hard right, and the AT-2020 (R) track is sent to a Reverb panned hard left. Both L and R main guitar tracks also get sent to a master reverb (centered). This was the first instrument that was recorded.
  • There’s a second guitar part (also the Cordoba C9 Parlor) which is just a bass note and single plucked chord for each measure. That is panned about 50% right. It gets it’s own EQ, and is sent to the L-reverb and the master reverb. This guitar part was recorded with a Shure PGA27.
  • The drum is a 14" Roobsebeck goatskin-head frame drum recorded with a Shure PGA27. It’s panned about 25% left. It gets its own EQ and goes through some mild Compression before being sent to the master reverb.
  • The tenor block flute is a Yamaha YRT-304BII recorded with a Shure PGA27. It’s panned about 30% left. It gets its own EQ and Compression and is sent to Reverb-R and the master reverb.
  • The alto block flute is a Yamaha YRA-402B recorded with a Shure PGA27. It’s panned about 30% right. It gets its own EQ and Delay and is sent to Reverb-L and the master reverb.

I think one of the keys to this mix is the use of the reverbs. Tracks panned left or right get sent to the opposite reverb, which helps provide a rich sense of width. Then everything gets sent to a single master reverb which kind of ties all the tracks together into a single space (in this case a “large room” with quite a bit of diffusion). The mix also uses “effect tracks” (or “bus tracks”) for the Reverbs. This lets you “send” variable amounts of each instrument track to the effect. When you do that you can really dial in the overall sound of the mix.

The application of effects (EQ, Compression, Reverbs, Delay) are all relatively gentle and subtle. Nothing too jarring. EQs are 5 band parametric. All effects added in post with the built-in Bitwig software devices.

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Jason, I thought I had responded to this earlier. Nonetheless, what an excellent performance and recording; very pure sounding and so well played. A treat for the ears.

1 Like