The GuitarTalk "In the Style of..." Challenge

V8 · 2020-03-01T08:50:37+00:00

Thanks to @klaasvakie for our next challenge topic. This month we're going to do "In the style of..." W.r.t. to the next one, what do you guys think of...

The GuitarTalk "In the Style of..." Challenge

daveo1977

domhatch I think an acoustic version of "A Question of Time" would be excellent, don't you? I watched a rig rundown some time ago where his tech brought out all his Gretches. He's been in love with those guitars for a long time now 🙂 Yup, there are few that would beat Martin as a songwriter. There's a fun colab he did with Vince Clark called VCMG. Are you familiar with it?

domhatch

daveo1977 There's a fun colab he did with Vince Clark called VCMG. Are you familiar with it?

i wasn't, but i am now! yeah, vince clarke is also a man after me own heart. teaming up with the likes of alison moyet and then andy bell (who was really just an alison moyet replacement, don't you think?) that man can seriously lay down a pop line, eh?
dh|

studmissile

4 chords and about a girl? In the style of Motown.

guidothepimmp

Here is my entry

It is a song called Charlie Big Potato by Skunk Anansie that I transformed into an acoustic jam in the style of MTV Unplugged.

So bit of a back story.. when I started recording this, my acoustic preamp is stuffed, I had the mic's all setup for recording the guitars. One of those highveld thunderstorms came through which is why there is rain noise in the beginning and end of the tune.. but given the feel of the tune, I quite liked it and left it there rather than try re-record everything. at some point you may also hear my excitable 6yr old in the background mumbling something.

Lyrics credits: DEBORAH ANN DYER, MARK RICHARDSON, MARTIN KENT, RICHARD LEWIS

Meticus

As wished by @V8 I created an instrumental German bagpipe cover of Rammstein's 'Du Hast' (he likes bagpipes very much).
Is it possible to upload to YouTube? I have no SoundCloud account. Or do I have to register there for the challenge? (I'm not familiar with SoundCloud so far.)

V8

Meticus Is it possible to upload to YouTube?

You could - but it' far easier to use soundcloud, we'd all prefer it please!

On SC, You can set the track to downloadable and we can add it to a playlist for everyone to listen through easily. . Soundcloud is super easy to use (waaaay simpler than YT)

studmissile

Meticus I think you can sign up with soundcloud using a google/youtube/facebook profile?

Meticus

V8 You could

For now I published it on YouTube to be in time for the challenge, since tomorrow is deadline and I cannot run into the risk of being too late with my 'Du Hast' because of any technical or other problems 😀

V8 it' far easier to use soundcloud, we'd all prefer it please!

I'll have a look at SoundCloud tomorrow and add the audio asap.

So here is my interpretation of Rammstein's 'Du Hast' in style of medieval/folk music 😀
I think I should warn you beforehand to not expect too much xD. I'm learning to play the German bagpipe for about 2 months (and it just sounds like that), but I was told the challenge is for people of all skill levels 😃 The DAW was installed a view days ago, at the beginning of the week I didn't even know the difference between wave editors like Audacity and DAWs. So see it as an experiment and the motivation to respond to the challenge. Ok, enough excuses, here's the link:

NorioDS

Meticus I enjoyed that quite a lot! Needs more guitar though 😆

I'd be keen to collaborate in future if you're keen 🤘

Meticus

studmissile I think you can sign up with soundcloud using a google/youtube/facebook profile

Thanks for the clue. It worked quite easy with Google.
Here the SC link:

klaasvakie

Here we go:

This is a collaboration between me and @Yeti, he is the one that came up with all the beautiful vocal harmonies.

This song is Offspring's Gone Away

In the style of Son of Town Hall

Yeti

Here's my contribution. House of The Rising Sun in the style of the Guitar Talk Garage Days. It's inspired by a jam we had at one of our first sessions and features solos by some of the regulars: @klaasvakie, @guidothepimmp and @NorioDS (bonus points for telling which is which).

guidothepimmp

Yeti well... i know which one GTP was 😂😎

I will throw in my guess once everyone else has had their guess so i dont give anyhing away 😉

klaasvakie

Yeti bonus points for telling which is which

I think I know who's who, but mine is one of them so it's easier. That was a fun one, I really liked the groove you gave the backing track @Yeti, it was easy to noodle over.

RCVN

I've finally entered something again..

Weird combo xD

domhatch

RCVN this is marvellous. 😀

Meticus

NorioDS I enjoyed that quite a lot! Needs more guitar though

Thanks :-) Ok, next time more guitar 😆

NorioDS I'd be keen to collaborate in future if you're keen

It would be an honour for me :-) But keep in mind that I just started learning to play the pipes and my skills are still beginner level 😀

Yeti

Been through these a few times now and I really love them all. There isn’t a weak entry here and I had a lot of trouble selecting my winner.
Interesting that everyone went for cleaner, less rock/metal tracks this time. I expected to see a few metal versions of pop songs coming through.

Anyway, here are my 2c on the tracks.

Daveo
Very nice, chilled track. I really enjoy the simplicity. Vocal performance is spot on and really in style.

Stud Missile
Another really fantastic track as always. Whatever you did with your vocals this time really worked, they’re coming through a lot better (although they could possibly go even further!). I particularly enjoyed the arrangement on this. My only problem is that I didn’t really get the motown vibe from it but aside from that it is awesome.

GTP
Oh man, Skunk Anansie. They were the first live gig I attended a meeelion years ago, back before SA had figured out how people wanted to watch these shows and the standing tickets in the front were the cheap seats.
This has fantastic feel to it, I really enjoyed the interpretation. It’s got a very similar vibe to that Alice in Chains Down in a Hole Unplugged. Also really enjoyed your vocals, they suit the song well.
There seem to be some slight sync issues between the guitar and drums in places and I feel the drums could be a touch louder but beyond that, it’s a killer track.

Meticus
Love it! Fantastic to have some real variety here. I particularly enjoyed the way you’ve enhanced the tune from the original as well… and as you know I have a soft spot for those pipes!
My favourite part is probably when the drums enter and it goes into the bridge.

Klassvakie
I think this sounds fantastic… and not just because I had a hand in it (although I think ‘collaboration’ is too strong a word for my involvement). Guitar arrangement is excellent (particularly enjoy the stereo solo) and I think your vocals are on point… you and GTP are definitely going to need to take a song or two at the next garage days.

Yeti
Thanks again for the contributions gents, I had fun putting this together.
(not sure why I’m getting clipping on the sound cloud track… just checked and it’s not there on the mp3)

RCVN
DUUUUUDE, this fantastic. Love that 6 string work and the vocals are perfect. Sparse drums and bass bring it together nicely. Also enjoyed the sound staging. 
It was a close run thing, but this got my vote.

Meticus

Yeti I had a lot of trouble selecting my winner

Absolutely!
At first I thought of covering my eyes with my hands and avoiding the poll. But there would be no winner if everyone did 😆
Then I thought of throwing a coin, but not enough sides.
Finally I listend to all of them again, shortly considered the avoidance and coin options again, but then picked one track with a heavy heart 😄 (at least I could exclude my own creation for that would have been a little ill-bred xD, but still 6 great tracks left ^^).

klaasvakie

OK, I did the vote, tough one. After a bunch of listens on each, my thoughts if you care:

@daveo1977
At the start I had to do a double take, thought it was @Yeti singing, your voices sound quite similar. I think you managed to get really close to the MTV Unplugged sound. The stereo guitars sounded good and your vocals were great.

@studmissile
Bonus points for composing your own track. I don't really listen to enough motown to tell how close you got to the sound, but I really like what you did with horns.

@guidothepimmp
Dude, what a insanely hard song choice to turn into an acoustic track! I would've thought it impossible but yet here we are. Are the violins your real violin? I also really liked the way you layered the guitars. Agree with @Yeti, drums could be a bit louder for my taste

@Meticus
Man your interplay between the guitars and pipes is so good! I also like the way the percussion builds between 0:20 and 1:00. What is your recording setup like? Your recording quality sounds good (at least to my not-very-good ears)

@Yeti
Liked the groove on the backing track. A bit biased here since I played on it, but I think the result is good. I had fun coming up with my bit. My guitar teacher was telling me to play more deliberate and clean, so that's what I was trying to do here. My last bar has a bit of slop on it, but I'm fairly happy with the rest.

@RCVN
Glad to see you putting that LP to work. Very well executed and as with @studmissile, bonus points for an original composition.

As for my own:
I think @Yeti saved the day here. I spent a bunch of time trying to come up with a vocal harmony that works, but I didn't really find too much that I was happy with. I don't have anything to record vocals and acoustic with so it's all from my phone. I used n-track DAW for android. While recording the guitar I had a click going into headphones, but for some reason it bled through to the actual recording, and it is especially prominent towards the end of the track. Not sure if it was leaking out the headphones themselves or if there is some crosstalk issue inside the phone's audio circuitry itself. You can also hear my kid watching Paw Patrol in the background. I recorded the vocals in my car after seeing @NorioDS's post. I think it worked well, pity I couldn't fit the guitar in the car as well.

The last week before lockdown ended up being a bit of a nightmare for me at work so I didn't have time to record real stereo guitars ---- I ended up using @morph's double and shift by 15ms trick. The solo has real stereo guitars though.

Thanks for the feedback guys, this was a fun one.

Meticus

klaasvakie Man your interplay between the guitars and pipes is so good!

Thank you :-)

klaasvakie What is your recording setup like?

I think not very special. I have absolutely no experience with recording. I downloaded the latest version of Cakewalk by BandLab (the free standard variant without any special add ons). And I orderd the Trust Emita USB microphone from Amazon.

Then I recorded the instrument tracks, acoustic guitar about 30 cm distance from the micro, bagpipe ca. 1,5 m distance to not disrupt the poor thing. Afterwards I put all together and aimlessly pressed some buttons for several hours until finally a wave file dropped out 😄

guidothepimmp

klaasvakie

haha, i wish it was a real violin.. alas no, it was midi and I used a midi controller