The Guitar Talk - "Sample Something" Challenge!

V8 · 2019-06-19T09:34:43+00:00

Thanks to @klaasvakie svakie winning the super challenge, we've our fourth challenge of 2019...and well done to klaasvakie for being real quick on getting...

The Guitar Talk - "Sample Something" Challenge!

V8

daveo1977 Let's ask @NorioDS - Norio, any chance of hosting locally as we did way back?

If not, we could always use box.com as we did before we hosted locally.

NorioDS

V8 sorry guys I'm stuck in hospital again. Can't help with the hosting. Will have to be Box or something like that.

guidothepimmp

NorioDS in hospital? Hope everything is ok

daveo1977

NorioDS I'm sorry to hear that you are in hospital. I wish you a speedy recovery!

NorioDS

Thanks gents ☺ I'm sure I'll be fine soon enough ?

V8

So I'll think we'll got with soundcloud as plan A for entries and box.com as plan B if you hink you'll have issues with soundcloud?

Box probably won't embed nicely as SC does - but it's one click and it'll play on box - well that's how it used to work!

daveo1977

V8 Great, signing up for Box to submit my entry.

daveo1977

https://app.box.com/s/43ds9fwpctko6loz8tc5deux45352eyd

guidothepimmp

daveo1977

Not sure if there is a problem. I cannot seem to open anything with that link. Jusy a fyi. Maybe it works for others

V8

daveo1977 Nicely, I can view without having to login (but I did anyways to dbl check, non-box users get the same file).

Do you have any blurb (inspiration/motivation) to share (purely optional!)

guidothepimmp

guidothepimmp dont mind me. Created an account and now i can access it. Nicely done bud!

V8

guidothepimmp . I cannot seem to open anything with that link. Jusy a fyi. Maybe it works for others

I've tried from my desktop with chrome and firefox - both worked for me - does take a little while to buffer the file, but plays fine.

daveo1977

V8 I forgot!! This one's called "You want this party started, right?" It was inspired by those radio DJ intros you sometimes hear. There's a bit of 90's nostalgia in there – C+C Music Factory, EMF, Beastie Boys & System Of A Down. Put together in Ableton. I made album artwork, please excuse the big pic:

daveo1977

guidothepimmp Thank you kindly!!

guidothepimmp

and here is my humble submission.

Struggled with the sample bits but basically stuck it in as a preamble to a song my old band from 10-13yrs back used to do.I am sure you can figure out the sample.. it is rather obvious. The band tune oddly I cannot remember the name of.. i changed out the rhythm guitars and bass to make them a bit more aggressive, and also to fill space. listening back to the recordings of our practices it sounded a bit empty now. funny how that happens. I wrote some words but as I cannot sing, so attempted to voice over rather than actually sing. my throat was killing me after 2 takes.

V8

One from the archives (5yrs ago, originally for the GFSA 'Action' challenge). More than a little bit of old skool gaming nostalgia with every Duke Nukem sample I could find, some car samples and a couple DJ vox samples.

Although it's a previous entry :-0 I did make some changes for this one - the intro 45s is similar but mixed with far more delay tails and glitchy bits, middle bit never made the entered edit and the last 1m is pretty much the same, but a bit louder.

RCVN

My first attempt at using MIDI - More specifically, my Korg Nano Key.
Also had some fun with a drum app - Cant use my bongo for everything...

Vox was a debate but ended up using it, i really need to get a proper recording setup.

Iconic throwback songs in a bit of a mashup.

Enjoy ?

klaasvakie

Trashed the first idea, this is the second.

RCVN

I've remembered quite the interesting video on the making of "drunk" - Sungazer.

In the video they explain their use of samples throughout the song in quite an awesome way.

klaasvakie

So here's how I came up with my entry:
I knew I wanted to to do something with Mortal Kombat and I wanted to try to do something easterny sounding (kung fu-ish) maybe with some interspersed "eee-ya" fighting sounds or the like.
I came up with a easterny sounding riff which went like so:

I liked it and then decided to toughen it up a bit so I added a driving rhythm guitar which sounded like so:

But then when I tried to play my easterny sounding melody over the baseline, it just ended up sounding blues-rocky and very pentatonic:

I spent some time trying different things to keep the easterny feel, but failed miserably, so I switched gears to some more metal-y sounds.
The only metal song I've learnt recently is South of Heaven by Slayer, I slapped most of the main riffs into this little track:

Playing with the intro riff, I came up with the main riff of the metal combat entry:

And then the main rhythm riff was changed a bit as well. This track has the Slayer riff first, and my modification second:

So then it was just a question of turning the various bits into a song. I was hoping for the BPM to be a bit faster, around 150bpm or so, but I realised I can't reliably tremelo-pick 16ths above 120bpm, so 120bpm it was. Youtube for "120bpm metal drum track" yielded the drum track (the fourth or fifth hit has a good double-kick that I liked), and then Youtube for "Mortal Kombat Sounds" yielded the samples to lay on top.

I wanted to put in a part with two guitars in harmony --- the timing is bad and it doesn't sound great, but I left it in just because I must've blown 30+ takes on it and I didn't want to bin it.

I played the bass using an electric guitar with an octaver. The bass is super-boring, I would like some tips from the djentmeisters amongst you.

So that's the story! I hope it's useful for at least some of you, I quite enjoyed mapping out my thought process.

RCVN

klaasvakie

Sounds Awesome. I think the bass line fits the bill perfectly imo. Simple yet effective. You could maybe add a slide in there. There's always room for a slide xD

V8

klaasvakie The bass is super-boring, I would like some tips from the djentmeisters amongst you.

I think the bass works just fine in the final track - If anything, I'd have hit a open E and let it ring out for one or two bits, but otherwise I'd have done much the same as you did.

Metal bass (Unless you are Fieldy in Korn ?) tends to support the guitars & drums and make them sound fatter and meaner. At least that was my excuse for keeping it simple in the the last band (prog djent).

If you do want to djentrify (heh) the track, you'd want to start by de-tuning at least to a low B or lower. That just takes the sound into a realm that a std tuned guitar can't match. We had Julian on a 8 stringer (octave below std tuning) and that thing sounded beastly warbling away on the open low E string.

Here's Julian doing a playthrough for the instrumental track "Doggo Mlerm" - whats cool is you can hear & see him laying into that low e string. Part of the djent sound (imho) is that the open strings really get a chance to warble as you're hitting them HARD and letting them ring out and then muting aggressively. Try South of Heaven (fav riff of mine too) de-tuned a step or three and let the open e string that you start the riff off with warble while you play the rest of the riff - deeply satisfying ?