James’ goal to produce a new piece each day has me in awe and I often stop by his site when he tweets that another new tune is up. His Twitter timing is flawless, with delicate pieces so frequently providing a port in the storm of a busy day.

On 30 March, James posted Grey Space, a track which really caught my imagination. I could immediately hear all sorts of instruments – an “unplugged” treatment with acoustic guitars, a french horn or trombone and maybe a fretless bass to accompany the drifting piano.

James’ original allows the timing to float more than my arrangement (constrained somewhat by the drums) but I’ve tried to retain some of his freedom by letting the piano amble along behind the beat. I wanted to capture the apparent spontaneity of the original piano part – as if somebody was tinkering in a music shop.

OK, enough of the introductions. Hope you like it – though as ever this may not be the final mix!

I’ve reverted to the original voice for the melody line, a mellow jazz grand piano from the HALionOne VST instrument set in Cubase. I think this is much warmer than the synth voice from yesterday’s version and contrasts nicely with the overall electronic feel of the piece.

I’ve also added some arpeggios, done a little more work on the arrangement and begun to think about the overall direction. It’s getting closer but still needs some work yet.

This is my first mixdown using Cubase. Created five tracks (drums, percussion, bass, synth and grand piano) and a sixteen bar riff from 8 x 2 bar sequences. It could use a melody I guess! There are no FX channels and you’ll notice that the synth part is a simple copy and paste of the piano sequence with a different preset.

To listen to the whole arrangement, select “Full Mixdown” in the player below. To solo instruments used in each of the two bar sequences, select the instrument and click play.