Six choruses, five and a half minutes, deliberately sparse. The backing gets out of the way and stays there — organ pad, root-heavy bass, brushed shuffle. Everything you don't play is the point.
Minor blues, not major blues
This isn't a twelve-bar with minor chords substituted in. The minor blues has its own shape, and the difference lives in bars nine and ten.
Bar 10 is E7, not Em7. That major third — G♯ — is not in A minor. It's borrowed, it's the note the whole form is built to arrive at, and it's the difference between sounding like you know the changes and sounding like you're running a pentatonic over everything. If you play one note deliberately in this whole tune, make it that one.
One scale for eleven bars, one note for the twelfth
A minor pentatonic + blues note — position 1
5th fret. Root on the 6th and 4th strings. The ♭5 is the blue note — pass through it, don't land on it.
The E7 bar — where the G♯ lives
Same position. Two G♯s sit right inside the box you're already in. When bar 10 arrives, aim at green.
A natural minor adds B and F to the pentatonic and works across bars 1 to 9. Over the E7 you want A harmonic minor — which is A natural minor with the G raised to G♯, so it's the same one-note change described above, just applied to a seven-note scale instead of five. Don't learn a new shape for it. Learn the note.
Four tracks, four sounds
The MIDI carries General MIDI program changes, so it'll make sense the moment you drop it in. Below is what to replace them with. Cubase 15 ships HALion Sonic 7 and Groove Agent SE 6 — I'm giving you browser filter paths rather than exact preset names, because the browser filters by Category, Sub Category, Style and Character, and that's a more reliable way to land on the right sound than a preset name I can't verify from here.
| Track | Instrument | Find it by | Aim for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drums ch 10 |
Groove Agent SE 6 | Kit browser → Acoustic / Jazz or Vintage | A dry, close-miked kit with brushes or light sticks. Avoid anything gated or modern-rock — the room is doing the work at this tempo. |
| Bass ch 1 |
HALion Sonic 7 | Category: Bass → Sub: E. Bass → Character: Warm, Soft | Fingered electric, round and short-sustaining. Not a pick bass, not a synth bass. It should sit under everything without defining it. |
| Organ ch 2 |
HALion Sonic 7 | Category: Organ → Sub: Electric Organ → Style: Blues / Rock | Drawbar Hammond with a slow rotary. This is the pad holding the whole thing still — you want it warm and almost featureless, no percussion click, no fast Leslie. |
| Rhodes ch 3 |
HALion Sonic 7 | Category: Piano → Sub: E. Piano → Character: Soft, Warm | Rhodes-style tine piano. Enters on chorus 2. Keep it well down in the mix — it's harmonic definition, not a part. |
Pull the Rhodes and the organ well below where they feel right when you solo them. At this tempo the arrangement's job is to leave a hole for you, and the most common mistake is a backing that's harmonically complete — which leaves nothing for the guitar to add. If it sounds slightly empty on its own, it's correct.
Amp settings and a plan
Use setting A — "Magic 6" from the last message. Badger Power 10, Drive 10, EQ all at 5, Gain 3; Jan Ray at unity with Gain around 11 o'clock. At this tempo you want the pedal's dynamics doing everything, and the amp out of the way. Neck pickup on the Suhr S. Guitar volume on 8 so you've got somewhere to go.
One: don't play. Listen to the whole form once and let it establish. Two: single notes, one idea per bar, lots of space. Three: start using the ♭5 in passing. Four: double stops and sixths from TONELAB 04. Five: guitar volume to 10 and let the Jan Ray break up. Six: come back down and end where you started.
At 52 BPM every note is exposed for a very long time. The temptation is to fill the space with runs; the whole reason to play slow blues is to resist that. If you record yourself and there's something you'd cut, that's the take telling you what it wanted.