Having done ‘duo’ versions of Ramble for my RPM 2020 project, with banjos and then bouzouki and mandolin, I had a go at playing all four tracks together. With a bit of additional panning, it sounded quite good; having had to work out new chord shapes for the bouzouki and going for a melodic approach on the mandolin meant they fitted rather than clashing.

All I needed was something to glue it together and that came in the form of my double bass. As with the other acoustic instruments, I recorded it straight into Logic using my Zoom H1 as a USB microphone. Here is the result:

One observation was how much easier this was than laying down the other tracks. I did one bit of overdubbing at the end, when I forgot the structure, but my instincts are so much better on bass, which I’ve been playing for over 30 years in various forms, rather than the other instruments, with which I am a mere dabbler. I even deliberately re-used one of the ‘mistakes’ (going to an F# when the chord I had in mind was A/D) as a neat variation to leave the end a little different to the beginning.

I think I’m probably done with this tune for this project but it has definitely evolved through the process of returning to it. When I posted Ramble on resonator guitar to this blog, I mused whether it would be cheating to return to it with different instruments. Having seen what I have learned and how it has developed through that exercise, I am now convinced that it was a thoroughly valid and worthwhile idea.