My cover of Within You Without You

Today I completed my version of Within You Without You, by George Harrison.

I play all the instruments and sing.  It was quite challenging because the original includes Indian instruments (tabla, tambura, dilruba and sitar) and classical instruments (cellos and violins).

My goal was to recreate the essence of the song and the original arrangement using the instruments I have at hand: electric and acoustic guitars, congas and bongos.  This is how I recreated each instrument:

• tabla: I used congas and bongos - see my previous post Within You Without You - Tabla patterns
• tambura: I used an eBow on acoustic guitar and the Echoplex to create a loop of the drone - see my previous post Within You Without You - recreating the tambura sound
• dilruba: I used a Fender Strat, finger picked (eBow for long sustained notes) - see my previous post 

  Within You Without You - Practicing dilruba solo

• sitar: Fender Strat
• cellos and violins: eBow on Fender Strat for long sustained notes, finger picking for fast runs
• harp: Ovation acoustic guitar

In each case I try to imitate the phrasing of the original instrument, and use some effects (mostly EQ and compression) to enhance the sound.  I am happy with the results for now.  I am planning to work on a real video clip to go along with the music, and may also improve some tracks and the overall mix in the future. But for now you can listen to my cover of Within You Without you here (the video is just a screen capture of my Logic Pro project for the song):

Cheers,
Fabio

Within You Without You - Tabla patterns

I've always loved the sound of the tabla, the Indian percussion instrument.  And it plays a huge role in George Harrison's song Within You Without You, which I am working on to record my cover.

I don't have a tabla set but my friend Jim (percussionist, we are the duo Cabsha here in Ottawa) has a pair of congas and a pair of bongos, so that's what I am using to recreate the rhythm patterns in the song.

Most of the song is in 4/4, except for the instrumental solo in the middle which is 5/4.  In these videos I do my best to play each pattern along with the original recording.

I still miss the sound of the tabla...  But this might work a lot better once Jim is the one playing the patterns :-)
The 5/4 pattern is pretty much the same throughout the solo. But the 4/4 pattern is actually 4 bars long, and the "bass" sound of the tabla is the one that changes across bars, totally disappearing every fourth bar.  We will have to work hard on the percussion tracks.

Within You Without You - recreating the tambura sound

The drone or continuous chord in Within You Without You is produced by a tambura tuned in C (G & C for a "power chord").  The version on Sgt. Pepper was sped up a it so it sounds almost like a C#, but the instrumental version on the Anthology is at the original speed, in C.

The tambura has a wide bridge against which the open strings vibrate in order to produce the characteristic buzz. The long neck and loose strings provide lots of sustain. I recreate this sound by using an eBow for infinite sustain, and every so often touching the string with the eBow to get some buzzing.  I use a looper (the Echoplex Digital Pro) to overlay multiple notes (GCgc).

In this video you can see how I start the looper (pressing RECORD) and after a few seconds I put it in overdub mode (pressing OVERDUB).  Then I overlay each of the four notes adding buzz and changing the sound slightly without any particular rhythm, to create a drone with a rich texture.

For the actual multitrack recording I will add EQ and other effects to approximate the sound a bit better, but this approach seems like a good starting point.

Within You Without You - Practicing dilruba solo

My daughter Jazmin suggested I cover Within You Without You and I took the challenge!  I will record all the parts for a full cover, and I will also arrange it to play live on guitar and loops (to build the drone), with Jim on percussion.
George Harrison recorded this song with Indian musicians.  George plays Sitar and sings, the Indian ensemble includes Dilruba (Indian violin), Tambura (drone), and Tabla (percussion).  George Martin added cellos, violins and harp.  I am slowly working through all the parts.  In this video I am practicing the dilruba solo in 5/4.

It's quite challenging to transcribe the dilruba part for guitar and try to emulate the phrasing and expression.

Will post updates as I make progress with the other parts.