@studmissile I think you are being waayyy to kind here, but I'll take what I can get

I found it a tough challenge as well, I hit a bunch of dead ends and only came up with the final idea around a week before the deadline. I spent a bit more time on the production on this one than on my previous entries (there is at least some stereo stuff going on), and I think/hope it was worth it, it needs a lot more work before it's as polished as the others though.

I also found it a tough challenge to vote for, definitely the closest one in a while I think. My thoughts on the others:

Daveo1997 & ScottyDogg: This is such a slick track, and so well made. I think if I had a Within Temptation or Epica CD on and yours snuck inbetween I really wouldn't be able to tell. You guys definitely have your production on point and I'm jealous of the tight rhythm guitar playing on here. Really love the strings-only section at 1:43, a very nice touch.

@Yeti I love this track so much, I think easily your best songwriting to date (at least from what I've heard). The bend at 33s and the major lift at 1:44 stand out. I also like the lead playing from 1:52-2:10 ---- if I ever came up with such a tasty lead line I wouldn't've sung over it, but the way you arranged it kinda makes a statement: "Look, I can come up with these sick licks all day long, even during the singing, so deal with it". I voted for this even if it wasn't as contrasty as @guidothepimmp's.

@guidothepimmp To my ears this is definitely the most contrasty of the bunch. You managed to produce one of the heaviest guitar sounds I've ever heard and the laser blasts contrast well with it. I'm trying to imagine what this could be the soundtrack for and I figured a Rob Zombie / Star Wars mashup would be a great place to go. Lets get House of 1000 Siths made! The only reason this didn't get my vote was because it feels like it needs a chorus of some kind.

Thanks guys, I appreciate the comments. This was one of those songs for me that just sort of wrote itself. Started with a riff I’d been playing with for months, figured out it worked over a descending chord sequence and the rest just came together piece by piece… even the lyrics were more or less ad-libbed (no great surprise there ).
I’m pretty pleased with it all things considered (although perhaps I should have dropped the key by a tone or two).

I’ll add my voice to the throng and say this was a difficult one to call. Really enjoyed all entries.

Daveo1977 & ScottyDogg
There are some very interesting ideas and contrasts in here. I’ve found it’s one that I like more and more with each subsequent listen and even found myself humming bits of it to myself. I did find that it got a little repetitive in places… possibly could do with a vocal line in places… but all in all very cool.

klaasvakie
Loved your idea of the contrast slider… I think this is what ultimately won my vote. I particularly like the rhythm you chose over the clean guitar in the beginning and love that tap, it’s awesome to see how much progress you’re making. If I have a complaint it’s that there is too much of a jump up to the tap section and it’s difficult to reconcile it with the original theme… I’d have liked another step before it that bridged the gap a little.

guidothepimmp
Maaaan, that tone is huge! I love the sound and feel of the piece and the playing is on point as always. Just found that it all sounded a little too at home with itself for the challenge (same as mine I guess), I’d have liked to see you push the trance stuff a little harder to bring out the contrast more.

Great feedback fellers.. ta! For this challenge, i really struggled to come up with an idea.

Daveo and Scotty. I followed the evolution and thought it sounded great. The mixing.. timing and production were all on point. The really fast beat caught me by surprise, the guitar balanced it out nicely though.

Yeti. What a catchy riff. I immediately grabbed a fiddle to work it out. The ease that you churn out tunes never ceases to amaze me. Great tone, great phasing.

Klaasvakie. Where did those chops come from? Damn.. i thought the contrast slider idea was great.. and was bamboozled by how you actually did it. I voted for yours based on the clever idea, great playing, and slick composition.

On my tune,
I had been toying with these electronic sounds since i got my midi controller.. so thought.. lemme give it a bash.
Yeh i agree with the feedback points raised. I hope to re-do the tune with exactly the points raised.. bring out the electronic/trance sounds more.. i purposely hid them.. largely based on the feedback from my mrs.. and my discomfort with the sounds really.. but i quite enjoyed playing around with it. So its the remix and re do of the electronic stuff.. and to build the song properly with some bridges and choruses.. and perhaps a lead and outro bit.. i do have some vocals for it.. but i couldnt get the sound i was looking for. Think Ministry and NiN. I find myself foot tapping to it lol.. so now i need to finish it and try do it justice.

All in.. enjoyed getting away from my tried and trusted comfort zone.

Yeti I particularly like the rhythm you chose over the clean guitar in the beginning

Alas, I can't take credit for that, its me trying to get close to James Bay's drums using Powerdrummer. The heavy drums are a bunch of cut and pastes from a youtube drum track called "southern metal drum track at 135bpm"

Yeti If I have a complaint it’s that there is too much of a jump up to the tap section and it’s difficult to reconcile it with the original theme… I’d have liked another step before it that bridged the gap a little.

You and me both man, agree with this 100%. I really struggled with two of the transitions, minor clean to minor tapping at 43s, and then the minor to major transition at 1:26. I did put down a couple of takes of something at a Bryan Adams level of heavy to try and bridge the gap on the way going heavier, but by then I was already in the minor key and I couldn't come up with something that worked well. If you have any ideas I'm all ears.

For the minor to major tapping bit I resorted to a super cheesy pick scrape which kinda worked to bridge the key change a bit. This begs the question, for how many measures are you allowed a pick scrape before all the guitarists in the audience groan audibly? I decided to play at safe and keep it short

guidothepimmp Where did those chops come from?

Been learning a bunch of Gojira stuff That's actually how I stumbled on the idea, I have my LP in D-standard for Gojira and then James Bay popped up on Yousician and it's also played with the guitar in D-standard. So had a go at James Bay but still had the Gojira patch loaded.

I'm gonna be dead honest here, I'll have to put in a bunch of practice before I can do a play-through of the tapping bits live. I recorded the minor tapping bit, the minor refrain and the major tapping bit as separate tracks in reaper. No way I'm getting a quiet and clean take of the whole bang-shoot, I probably blew about 40 takes between those 3 sections.

I'm not that happy with the tone on my rhythm guitar, went for a modeled mesa boogie, hoping for a hetfieldish sound, but I think it could be better. If you have any ideas I'm all ears.

hell's bells, i'll say it again these are bangin' choons. schweet y'all!

Well done @klaasvakie! Thought it might be a bit closer, but you are the clear winner this month - hattip to all the entrants, thought the production level was fantastic this month.

...So onto the debatable 'prize;' ...what's the next topic?

Thanks for running this as always @V8... and thanks to everyone who voted and commented. This was a fun one.

V8 Well done @klaasvakie! Thought it might be a bit closer, but you are the clear winner this month - hattip to all the entrants, thought the production level was fantastic this month.

Thanks guys, what an honour . Was a real fun one.

W.r.t. to the next one, what do you guys think of a "In the style of ....." challenge. So I'm thinking either compose something in the style of another band/artist or take an existing song and transform it into the style of another band/artist.

Let me know what you think.

klaasvakie what do you guys think of a "In the style of ....." challenge. So I'm thinking either compose something in the style of another band/artist or take an existing song and transform it into the style of another band/artist.

Heh...right up my alley! I;'ve got rioffage up my sleeves - it's also a great way to learn new tunes, if only to hack them apart later!

Thank you again to the GuitarTalk community for getting the creative juices flowing! This month's contrast challenge was a fun one, and all the entries refreshingly different. I really enjoyed your vocals, Yeti and the song reminded me of a Marillion disc from the 90's called "Marillion and The Positive Light: Tales from the Engine Room". Before this album, I'd only heard "Radiation", and the dance music elements represented quite a departure from their prog rock style.

James Bay was a lekker choice, Klaasvakie, and you brought something unique to it. Props for negotiating all those changes and a well-deserved win! And Guidothepimp, I agree with V8 about those crushing tones! Do you know a band called Clutch? I think you might enjoy their album, "Earth Rocker". There's a song on there called "D.C. Sound Attack!" that I'm very fond of.

As for me, I was so stoked when ScottyDogg agreed to collaborate. It's proof that two heads are better than one, and when one of them can actually play guitar, well... I also learnt about the power of midi. I had originally programmed the drums in Ableton, and when ScottyDogg did drum replacement all he needed was a midi file of that track. @ScottyDogg You came up with some excellent riffs there, and I was wondering how you worked out those guitar melodies?

My 2c if I may regarding restrictions. I am not against them, but... one of the main reasons i started doing these challenges was to learn how to use a daw.. and get some traction ito recording my own stuff.

With each challenge i learn something new on the daw, i guess what i am saying is.. hopefully whatever restrictions are applied, dont stifle the learning curve.
Maybe there is scope for 2 categories of voting?
Or perhaps an option for tunes to be submitted but not subjected to the vote if they exceed the restrictions. If anything.. for the constructive crit.. which by all accounts certainly helps in improving things.

Nice one Klaas ! Well done

daveo1977 haha the chords were a real biatch - spent days trying to figure those out. The melody leads were probably like 2 hours or so of noodling with octave chords - I like those cause they limit the number of frets to fiddle with (₂₀ frets on the 5th string) and sound nice and full. There's a lot of rhythm you can add when using them with rests and extra hits etc.

Regarding the midi - yeah, so I just took the midi, moved notes a bit (Getgood Drums Modern and Massive uses different mapping to General Midi), played around with the velocities (drummers obviously can't hit blast beats as hard as normal hits plus you don't want all hits to be the same velocity throughout cause then it sounds super robotic), and edited the beats slightly (not sure what the theory is behind it but the timings are so weird in the quieter/chuggy part - sounds 4/4 but every new bar starts on the second beat of the bar?)

I would really like to give you a remixed version though - I'd like your orchestral parts a lot more prominent that how it turned out

You really nailed the violins etc. though - the parts you've written are fantastic

@guidothepimmp how'd you record yours? The drums and guitars sound like it's all down the middle (like it's not a wide mix at all) - I can give you some pointers if you'd like?

Pretty sweet compositionally though

ScottyDogg The drums were MIDI from Groove agent. Put together a few parts and dumped into the DAW. Done some fancy dissolve thing that splits it into individual tracks (which I learnt from you by the way some 3 challenges back). The guitar was a couple of takes through my 11R using a Splawn Nitro SIM.
The dance/ trance stuff was done using my Akai midi controller and basically playing around with the different samples in Halion Sonic and MPC.
Chose what I thought worked and basically went an octave lower and higher with the different bits.

REgarding the "down the middle".. spot on.. it is probably all down the middle. I have no idea how to mix/ change that.

I would love some pointers please. I am a complete noob with this sort of thing and whilst I dabble with some of the stuff, truth is I am not sure what I am doing. But what I can tell you, most of the drums are on "C" on the mixer table, which is probably what you refer to..

I have also seen some setting to stereo pan.. but I have no clue how to use it.

guidothepimmp respek. i would rather go for the two category thang; that way everyone gets a shot; kinda like the beginner, intermediate & advanced categories we used to have in these things.

My 2c, although take with a pinch since I'll be sitting the next couple out.
I'd rather not see too many technical restrictions on the challenge unless they are part of the challenge themselves (like the previous one track challenge).
I think our little community is pretty good at judging the entries according to the theme of the challenge without getting too bogged down with the production level and keeping it open allows people to experiment and push themselves, which I feel is part of the point.

There definitely is an argument that if the standard is too high then it will discourage newcomers from joining, if this is a problem then we could look at adding a rookie category or something similar. My first challenge just over a year ago had exactly that and I'd say it did the job for me.