(Log in to disable ads.)

Yeti Always a pleasure, particularly when we're putting out tunes like this month's - inspiring!

    V8 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.

    me likey. that gives pretty much free rein to everyone. but if i may, can we add back some restrictions, as suggested? like maybe 2 minutes/4 tracks, for instance? (vocals not counted, of course...)

    those of us with limited to non-existent skills in mixing and related fields would still like to make half a showing... 😅

    or in my case, a showing of any kind. 😆

      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.

            domhatch i would rather go for the two category thang

            For this specific challenge I agree, there might be some covers which means it could be tricky to get right in limited time and tracks. Depends on how many entries we get of course 🙂

                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.

                Yeti 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.

                I agree, I've done well with a cellphone recording of an acoustic before so I think it's still very possible to take it without stacks of production. But I do think we should make it explicitly clear (as V8 always does) that any type of recording is welcome and can possibly win.

                  guidothepimmp Ok sweet so from a high level, there's some key things to bear in mind:

                  Bass Guitar: Centre (depending on genre it can be nice to have gritty overdrive tone and DI tone tracks)

                  Rhythm Guitars: Ideally you want one track panned hard left and one panned hard right for all rhythm parts (you need two different takes, can't copy/paste, as it's the slight differences in timing and how you hit the notes that give you a nice stereo image - copy pasting will result in tracks sounding mono i.e. down the centre with no width). For meaty parts (you'll hear it at times in Metal - I know Machinehead does it often and sometimes bands like Periphery, you can quad track parts - here you'd have two on the left and two on the right of each rhythm part - this adds some meat but affects clarity a bit)

                  Leads: Solo's you'd want Centre, harmonies I would have a track panned hard left and a double panned hard right (again, two takes for width) and on other leads it's up to you if you want some leads centred or some doubled and hard panned)

                  These tend to be industry best practice.

                  Drums: These are a real doozy. You generally get audience perspective or drummer perspective - I personally prefer drummer perspective but there's arguments each way. for drummers perspective:

                  Kick and Snare: Always down the centre
                  Hi Hat: maybe around 45ish Left
                  Rack Tom 1: around 25-35 left
                  Rack Tom 2: 10-15 Right
                  Floor Tom 1: 30-45 Right (I'd say 30 if you have a second floor tom otherwise 45)
                  Left Crash: 45 left
                  Right Crash 45 right
                  Ride: 35 right
                  Overheads: You should either have a left track and a right track or a stereo track with panning in place - either is acceptable but in the case of a left and a right track, be sure to pan them (just as a side note, when mixing other people's recordings, this is usually how you'd work out whether they mic'ed for audience or drummer perspective)

                  For the drums, these are approximates as I would say there's no absolute - whatever sounds best is right and a mix might call for specific adjusted values for things to fit. Basically, picture yourself behind a drum kit with the snare and kick right in front of you while looking ahead - where do you picture each drum piece in relation to centre?

                  When programming drums, you would either be generating a track per component or the software will be spitting out a stereo drum track. If the former, be sure to pan the multitracks when mixing, if the latter, see if you can set the panning in the software before exporting a stereo drum image (though personally I'd recommend a track per piece)

                  Then for vocals, you want a lead track down the centre and thereafter the sky is the limit really - personally, I like having a Left double and a right double to have nice wide vocals (panning depends on the mix - if a dense mix I'd pan like 80% Left/Right to leave space for the guitars etc. that are 100% either side. Also, harmonies and accent tracks can go down the centre or with doubles you can pan them).

                    ScottyDogg sweet... thanks for the pointers.. i will play around with it.

                    You already hit the nail on the head re the guitar takes. I just duplicated them rather than doing 2 actual takes.

                    Thanks again

                      Yeti 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.

                      i believe you have it. brava. 👏🏼