Fantastic turnout for this challenge - well done everyone! ? ? ?

Not only a bunch of entries, but they're all really good! Sadly I can only setup the p[oll with one vote each, The entries are so good this month, it'd be cool to be able to vote more than once

Stoffeltoo -0 Wonderful Tonite

Morph - Time in a bottle

I've always wanted to play all the guitar parts in this song, so to me it was my gargantuan hurdle to overcome. Forgive the vocals. No deviation on the original - sorry

Studmissile - Rules just don't apply when loving you

Super pop and super ambitious, I worked my butt off on this one. Please excuse the free trumpet plugin, but hopefully you get the idea.

guidothepimmp - Gimme Cheese

Hokay, here it is.. my first ever attempt at using DAW.. and at singing (bleh)..
I got my Mrs and my boy to do some cameo appearances ? . Trust me to have my first entry when there are so many good entries lol.
*Edit... in case youre wondering where the cheesy lyrics are from.. I misinterpreted the super cheesy requirement and thought we needed some improv

Yeti - The show must go on

I recorded the vocals around two and a half years ago, when I performed it on stage in a pantomime but never did anything with it because the backing track I used was down 3 semis (I'm no Freddy) and got a little bubbly. So when the Ambitious challenge came up I thought it was the perfect opportunity to dust it off and build something to support them. I've tried to keep elements of the original while giving it a distinct flavour of my own.

RCVN - St James Infirmary

This song was covered by about every blues artist since it was made popular by - The Legend - Louis Armstrong.
So I decided it was my turn to butcher it.

Klaasvakie - No Limits for Nothing

I really wanted to play every instrument, but in the end I ran out of time and sampled the original track.

wow. what a turn out, and what class. well done to everyone, all great entries.

????????

That was a really tough choice, so many great entries. ? thanks everyone, this one has been fun.
And thanks for organising @V8 as always.

Every Entry is so good! We need more votes

As per wern's request, adding the process for my track here:

I used an online youtube to mp3 converter and then imported the mp3 into reaper. I had to pitch the no limits track down 3 semitones to get to where money is played. Money relies on some open strings, so I didn't want to try and play it higher up the neck.

Then it was a question of finding the right bpm on the no limits track and syncing the click track on reaper with the doef doef.
After that I could just play guitar against the click track and copy and past whole bars from the no limits track to where I wanted them.

I also played the base and drums using a virtual midi keyboard and the instrument patches chris found, but I could never quite get the sound right. I thing the no limits synth has a bunch of synths layered, and is quite a hard sound to get, so I spent waay to much time trying to get it right. In the end I gave up and used the original track

Squonk I know! But I couldn't get the poll to give us more than one each...boo! But don't let that stop ya from commenting on the ones you especially liked!

While not cheesy. I'm quite digging @morph's - playing and tone are grrreat and the vocals really suit the laid back nature of the tune.

Though, I havn't voted yet, still gotta listen through all the entries properly.

To jump on the band wagon, here’s the process I followed for this track:

I recorded my track in Garage Band on a MacBook.
I started with the vocal tracks that I had recorded previously (I had performed it on stage as part of a show, hence it’s quite dramatic) and had the original backing track in as a reference.

My initial thought was to work through the various parts of the original and swap them out with something new one by one. I started with the synths that run through the song and recorded my equivalent on guitar and bass. In the original the main movement is the top note, I switched that around so that was in the bass and played palm muted power chords on my tele. I also laid down a second bass track beneath everything else to give some depth.

I then selected a drummer from the built-in garage band library and tweaked the generated track until I was happy with the progression.

This more or less established a new ‘backing track’ and I turned to the lead guitar, for which I used the JB on my Brian Moore.
I stared by noodling over the solo verse in the middle and developed something I was happy with over a few takes. I went back to the intro and recorded a simplified version, then went to the outro and recorded an embellished version. I did end up modifying this original seed quite extensively, which was hard because I liked it, but it was good for the track.
I then recorded a version of the original’s lead guitar (excluding solos) over the original backing track and added it with a softer spread chorus and delay effect. I wanted it to be present but not dominant. I also tweaked the bridges slightly.

Finally, I went through a few rounds of balancing and tweaking to get everything sitting together nicely (vocals gave me some trouble) and gave it a sprinkling of master faery dust with compressors, brighteners, etc.
All guitar sounds, etc. are native to garage band with relatively little change.

The result is a little more produced than I really would prefer but this is a natural effect of not having the time (or chops) to learn all the parts properly and having to rely on quantization, etc. to pull it all together.

I have two main criticisms of my own work.
1) Overall the sound lacks a bit of high end punch, which (I think) comes down to the melody instruments and vocals being mids heavy… I suspect this is why most rock and metal guitar solos venture up the neck. It may also be influenced by the fact that the track is down a tone and a half on the original (I’m not Freddy) but I haven’t changed the arrangement that much.
2) The overall sound is pretty homogenous and there isn’t as much movement as I’d like from start to finish. In retrospect, I could have bled the main rhythm sound in more slowly at the beginning and modified it in the last verse or so, but this didn’t really occur to me because I wanted to follow the synth in the original… or maybe I should have just added a rap verse.

If anyone has any feedback (workflow, production or performance), I'd love to hear it ?

Heh... that ended up being a bit of a wall of text. ?

RCVN Nice challenge, it got quite the response.
Cheers. ? It does seems to have raised some interest.

I may as well add my bit
1. I replaced by pickup in my Faith Venus (Shadow) with a LR Baggs Anthem. The shadow started buzzing and Bothners could not get it right. Supurb pickups
2. Thanks to Ultimate Guitar I found a brilliant Guitar Pro tab. I downloaded this and opened it in guitar pro 7. Brilliant tool for learning tabs
3. I recorded the Faith straight into a Focusrite 18i8 using Reaper
4. The left track is Capoed on 5th, the right normal. I added Bass smack in the middle. I used Guitar pro and created the track and added the notes. You can export Guitar Pro to Midi, which is then opened in Reaper
5. I used a simple drum track to give timing while recording, and I also slowed it down a bit to make help with the accuracy and clarity. The drum track was muted for the rendering
6. To give the guitars a depth you duplicate the track, then adjust the one far left and the other far right. You then simply nudge the one track sound item forward in 5ms steps and suddenly at about 10 to 15 ms the track miraculously becomes stereo. It is awesome, give the guitars a wide sound. To keep the two guitars distinct I had one set far left and middle, and the other far right and middle. NOTE Make sure the recording is a single unit, i.e. glue it together first so you can move it in one piece
7. I used a little compression and EQ the Guitars/Bass and voice to give them each their own space in the freq spectrum
8. The voice is recorded using a Rode NT1A Condenser Mic. I built a sound booth using electrical plastic tubing covered in thick duvets/blankets as a sound proof booth. I call it Blanket Studios hehe
9. Voice has slight reverb to give a more lively sound. I manually adjusted the volumes of the phrases to equalise the volume across the recording and to reduce pops,(p's and t's and essss sounds)
10. Final mix has Multi Band compression and and slight reverb. and volumes are boosted up to standard levels using a limiter (cant recall the name at the moment but it is a free vst)

Blanket Studios

morph That's a good plan, I'll try it next time. When recording vocals I've deadening my room by hanging camping mattresses off coat hangers. ?

My process:
I set up BIAB to generate a soloist track and piano in midi file, exported that to Cakewalk and fixed some notes on the piano roll. Took bloody ages and 600 listens...
Once in Cakewalk, i created an instrument track with VST plugin and copied the midi track for the plug to follow the notes. (Then for fixing and effects) only then did I record the guitar track with a Fender acoustic. The intent was not to copy my idol Mr Clapton, but to do something recognisable but different. Once the recording was done I inserted pro channel effects. Doubled the guitar track and used delay and echo on each track respectively. Placed compression on all the tracks and mixed down to final.
VST plugs used:
Cakewalk SI bass
Cakewalk SI piano
Spitfire electric piano
Band in a Box drums

Really enjoyed this challenge in terms of using software and using the DAW instruments and effects. Looking forward to the next one...

morph what a great idea! Thinking PVC cage and redundant army sleeping bags ?

Too true, I can't keep my 7 y/o grandson out of it. The left and right sides are all glued together, the tubes over the top and down the dack interconnecting the two sides are not, so I can take it apart and store it against a wall or in the garage

If you are going to build one, I recommend you use a thicker pvc tube, this is electrical conduit and it is not stable enough with heavy blankets. I would use 40/50mm drain tubing, you will need 8 right angles, 14 T-pieces, there are two bars across the top, two across the back and one across the floor at the back. Keeping it open at the bottom in the front means you can roll a chair in there I guess

morph If you are going to build one

Maybe do a DIY thread? ?

Thanks to all the entrants, voters and commentators! Rocking challenge this month!

Well done @klaasvakie, though I think everyone take a bow this month, all entries were real good.

The next challenge is up, check it out out here