Orange Tree / Django Jazz Guitar

[Piet De Ridder]

"Evolution Django Jazz was recorded using a recreation of Django's own Selmer 503 acoustic guitar. Constructed by a master luthier, the replica includes details like the zero fret, omitted bottom brace, and other intricacies of Django's original guitar that contribute to his unique tone.
Evolution Django Jazz is outfitted with our Evolution guitar engine which provides you with a strumming pattern editor, automatic chord detection, and a comprehensive collection of built-in effects. The library includes ready-to-use factory presets, including specialized strumming patterns for jazz rhythm guitar."

- Over 14,000 samples totaling 12.3 GB of uncompressed samples.
- Articulations such as sustains, palm mutes, mutes, natural harmonics, plus special effects like string slaps, muted strums, and others.
- Legato samples for slides, hammer-ons, and pull-offs.
- Built-in pattern editor for strumming and picking.
- Adjustable pick position using our proprietary physical modeling technology.

Price: $179. There is an introductory price of $139 until February 15th, 2022.
Can be loaded in the free Kontakt Player.



https://www.orangetreesamples.com/audio ... rThere.mp3
https://www.orangetreesamples.com/audio/ValseDeJean.mp3

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[wst3]

oh my!!!

I do love gypsy jazz - I've spent more than a few minutes trying to play in that style but somehow I just can't pull it off.

Maybe now???

[playz123]

Would love to hear Craig Sharmat’s opinion on this, since he can play this style as well as almost anyone I’ve heard. Sounds ‘good’ to my ears, but not quite what I need. More on this later.

[Jack Weaver]

Would love to hear Craig Sharmat’s opinion on this, since he can play this style as well as almost anyone I’ve heard.

+1

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[Scoredog]

I was afraid I was going to be asked to comment on this...

I'll start with the good...recordings are really nice and clean...

Now I am not going to make a friend but in the spirit of helping composers I'll let it fly. The recordings sound like they were not made by a Gypsy Jazz player, just someone who has a Gypsy Jazz guitar. There is no signature vibrato at the end of notes (if the library has that I have not heard it). The La Pompe (rhythm style) is not correct, just chords placed on 2 and 4 and the signature rhythm feel is just not there. La Pompe is deceptively complicated to pull off, most players getting into Gypsy Jazz think they will get it within days, it does not happen. If Orange Tree did hire a real Gypsy Jazz player then they did not program the nuances correctly.

Andrew Aversa with Impact Soundworks did the right thing in getting a guy who understands Gypsy Jazz to help with his library. The La Pompe is correct and there is personality in the notes. Where it falls short as with Orange Tree is in transition of notes on runs where you often get a machine gun effect on attacks. Still if I had to use one Gypsy Jazz library it would be hands down Impact Soundworks and I applaud them for trying and mostly succeeding in doing it the right way.

Oddly the best sounding Gypsy Jazz library is in the Band in the Box Gypsy Jazz extension which has Gonzalo Bergara and John Jorgenson playing leads and Simone Planting on bass. That said you can't write your own solos and the solos in BnB can be a bit Frankenstein though the lines can sound great.

[Lawrence]

whew (I bought the Impact Soundworks)

[playz123]

Excellent ‘review’ Craig. Thanks so much for your input. I’d probably only make a big mess of trying to reproduce this technique, even with this library, so perhaps I’ll give it a pass, and leave it for the experts to try.

[Ashermusic]

Great review, Craig.

[FriFlo]

@scoredog: This reminds of something I always wanted to know from some Guitar player and composer with actual Gipsy Jazz roots. 10 years back I wrote a small album for a children's game which was influenced by Django Reinhardt. Of course I am aware that this is not something that even comes close to what purists will expect from that style. I just studied with my limited guitar knowledge what kinds of chords, rhythms and melodies Reinhardt played and the rest is just me carrying it to what the game needed and my personal preference. The violinist and the guitarist both play Jazz, but none of them in that particular style. These are two of the tracks:





Above all, today I am very dissatisfied with the production, which I could do so much better today with my acoustically improved studio and my grown production skills. And I hate that these recordings were done to click with both musicians separately recorded, the violinist needing lots of Melodyne adjustments the virtual instruments used, etc ....

But besides those obvious defects: what is it that gives away that this is not a authentic for the Genre? I would be genuinely interested from somebody with good experience in that exact area and I have never met one till this day, but I just love that style!

[Scoredog]

Hi FriFlo, what you did sounds perfect for what you are trying to do, it does not have to be exact, just have the flavor. One of my most successful Gipsy Jazz projects I did was before I knew what I was doing, I just wrote and it worked out well., cuts are still being used 12 yrs later and it is still out working my more recent stuff where I am a better guitarist, the tune is always the most important thing...That said your emphasis of beats to 2 and 4 are pushed in almost a country 2 beat fashion where most Gypsy Jazz players are a little more even in volume. There are a number of ways to emphasize Gypsy jazz rhythm and what you did is fine, if it sounds good it is good but there are numerous other ways to go about La Pompe, super tight, cymbal type swish upbeat, modern tight style or traditional....etc

even though this is a faster tempo listen to how even this rhythm is for my tune Sado Manouche here, this is a modern GJ rhythm...Btw I have changed my technique since this video 5 yrs ago.



Here is one with a fairly tight but a bit more traditional feel...



the predominant stroke when soloing is a down rest stroke!...pushing across the strings landing on the next string in case you are interested. It creates power by playing this way and is important for getting a proper gypsy jazz tone. The right hand for almost all Gypsy Jazz players is floating not resting on the guitar though I have heard a few guitarists pull off a decent GJ sound with wrist anchored on the guitar, it is by far the exception.

here is your tunes chords with a bit more even rhythm (quick iPhone take)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tbc10trdel6wu ... m.m4a?dl=0

[FriFlo]

Thanks, Craig! I can absolutely see what you mean with the stroke pattern. The country vibe may also have to do with the brush loop I mixed in. That might have been a country music one. It just fitted the rhythm of the track the best and was probably the only choice I got out of some loops. I didn't have any playable brush drums at that time. But I can imagine the track sounding better with your hint of a more even, less slappy la Pompe. There is more technique behind such a seemingly easy technique than one might think ...

[Markus K]

IMO forget about even thinking of ever being able to mock up a convincing Django style guitar solo. There are so many things going on from very guitar specific arpeggiated licks to a typical phrasing and vibrato which differs from note to note and is totally dependent on context that I doubt this can be done convincingly with a computer. Let alone if you cannot play the guitar to a certain advanced degree which then leads only to the conclusion it's not doable. The least important thing is the type of the guitar and the recorded sound.
I don't mean you cannot use a sampled guitar for this or that occasion but don't expect it to get even close to what a good player can accomplish. As this might be true more or less for every sampled instrument I think the guitar especially in this styles is the one that is the hardest to mock up.

[Jack Weaver]

BTW, Craig is so good...

.

[lofi]

Great playing all, nice work!

When I was in school, this is late eighties/early nighties, we had an all guitar orchestra.
We performed at lot of Romani music and music from the Balkans along with Swedish folk and “music from the classical period”.
I never forget when we performed in one of those cultural exchange festivals.
We thought we were good
That was until the Romani players started warming up, hahahhaaa
They had chops that we’d never heard of, as did the South Indian players, the guys from Türkiye so on.

In retrospect I think our strength was that we could sit in in all these different cultures without prejudice and have fun performing with them.

We also learnt that Romani musicians like to be called… Romani musicians and that some take offence when white/pink-ish people call them other names. This was way before everything you say or write gets infected and people starts shouting P.C!!!
So we just said, sorry we didn’t know hope you accept our apologies and continued playing never calling them anything other than Romani.

I really cherish those meetings and concerts we did.
We sucked as a orchestra but has so much fun as a group.

Best,
/Anders

[Scoredog]

Markus, I agree 100% with all what you said, especially the guitar being the least important component. In gypsy camps in older days when a Selmac guitar was not available (now a days there are tons of Selmac guitar makers) they would toss around anything acoustic and it would sound right, it is the player and technique. Even though I don't have it I think Andrew did pretty close as good as one can do creating a GJ lib. There are a few articulations I would have added to help his lib if I was creating one but again good job.

Anders, I could write pages on this. Being I am a guy who is pretty well studied theory wise I am fascinated with the Gypsy approach, both Romani (French) Sinti (Dutch) or Germans. The Gypsy families teach their kids to play rhythm first and are not allowed to solo (at least in public) for 5 years or at least that this is what I have been told. Many blazing soloists do not know the names of the notes on guitar or how to spell out chords but if you show them they go, "oh that one". They know theory but only from a kinetic basis, not from an intellectual one. This is not all gypsys but most. Some kids start playing by age 3. I have taken some lessons from gypsy players and it is always "do this" with no explanation, this is how they learned and their fathers learned and their grandfathers. Many players have moved well beyond Django and are quite advanced harmonically (though Django can be advanced too) but the basic sound and feel always returns to Django roots.

As far as calling music "Gypsy Jazz" it pretty much is easier than calling it Sinti or Romani jazz and has been accepted within the communities. The different approaches of each tribe have intersected a lot at this point so it just simpler to call it Gypsy Jazz. They all preform individually and together and also play happily with Gadjo (non Gypsies).