Gray
Hey Alan, Andrew, Rene, Sepheritoh and Gareth
Would you guys mind going through your compositions for the GFSA theme song, like run us through the equipment used, keys, effects etc..
I think it would be of great help to alot of the less experienced players here and im quite interested in how you guys managed to achieve some of the sounds that were produced. ?
sepheritoh
Gray
Nice idea. I'm at work now, but I will go through my song and post something tonight.
Gray
That would be great Sepheritoh, much apprieciated.
AlanRatcliffe
I played guitar (badly), turned some knobs (lots of 'em) and pushed "record" (repeatedly) ?
...but I suppose you wanted more info than that? Damn - now I'll have to try remember or figure out what I did. :-[ I'm not a copious note taker when it comes to music, as prefer to just get into the creative flow and enjoy myself. Fortunately I can figure out what I did to recreate it later. Give me a little time and I'll post something here.
AlanRatcliffe
It was a quick throw together, so drums are straightforward - two different sections with a completely different sound. Both constructed from stereo loops without any individual hits, although various parts of the second loop are cut and pasted to lengthen it. The first loop is very low-fi of a kit with congas thrown in, the second is a rock beat of sorts.
Bass is my usual over compressed and crunchy rock bass sound, but only a single track instead of two. All tonal variation is from right hand position and how hard I play.
Guitars - hoo boy! 15 of them (I restrained myself ?). In the intro section there is a piezo arpeggio (Am - Aadd9 - G), very thin and bright backed by a muted guitar which plays a single A note with kind of the "Brick in the Wall Part 1" rhythm. The Lead over the top is "violined" at first - the notes are tapped with the left hand while the right swells each not in using the volume control. As is obligatory for violining, there is a long single-shot delay with the guitar hard panned left and delay hard panned to the right. For the crescendo I just repeat a short descending riff and gradually play it harder. The end of the crecendo is accented by using a big cymbal crash, but reversed (I use that all the time).
The harmony part is basically an electric rhythm with a bit of piezo mixed in more-or-less the same chords. The harmonies are four parts, all the same humbucker guitar and (IIRC) amp just with different pickup settings. The first two harmonies play the root and the 5th and the other two guitars reinforce the root, but with each repetition, first the one, then the other jump to a higher harmony in a vague attempt to get it all to build up.
The next solo is the same rhythm and a guitar noodling over the top with lots of harp harmonics. One harmony guitar doubles the last phrase and as it dies out a reverb drenched Fender Twin type sound pays homage to the gods of surf music.
I'll continue tomorrow...
sepheritoh
Gray
Thanks for the interest. It is always nice if someone cares about these things and I will try to be as specific as I can be. Everything is recorded in Sonar 7 Producer Edition.
I have done the song in a basic song form format.
Verse 1:
All electric guitars are recorded with my American standard '64 stratocaster, Mexican built in 1981/82. The theme is built around the basic chords of A G & F for south Africa Guitar Forum. First solo I layered with 2 tracks. 1st recorded with an Marshall MG15 amp on channel A (no distortion) with a bit of delay effects. This is layered with a track amped with Amplitube 2 the Vai solo preset, only slightly tweaked -> Tube lead amp (modelled on Mesa-Boogie), compressor and Chorus stomps, 4X1`2 Cab and delay, eq (slight boost in mid) and reverb (very light) rack effects. Background contains string pads and harp sounds from Cakewalk dimension Pro synth plus acoustic guitar (Yamaha APX 5A steelstring). Drums enter after 4 bars from fxpansion DR-008. The snares are samples from a Computer mag set of woodsnares. The rest of the kit is a standard DR-008 kit.
Verse 2:
Bass guitar is a sampled fingered bass playing right through to the end. The 2 tracks from verse 1 continued plus this time I layered the guitars further with panned hard left and hard right with amplitube 1. Also entering a piano riff far in the background eq very bright simply to give the track sparkle and not intended to be heard as an instrument on its own.
Verse 3
Just a short "bridge riff". V1 & V2 guitars stop and new tracks layered as follows: I recorded the riff twice, each time I double recorded the guitar. First recording Panned hard left with Izotope Trash with the blues driver pre and oxford 2X10 box model and panned hard right is recorded with the Marshall amp again through channel B (overdrive) with light gain. The second recording I switched the channels, i.e. Trash panned hard right and Marshall panned hard left. Each time the amp settings are tweaked just enough to give the stereo effect.
Verse 4:
The guitar solo is with amplitube 2, with chorus and wha stomps, American tube clean amp (Fender super) and eq plus reverb rack effects. This wha effect has earned me some critism. Some people don't like so much. As they say, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Verse 5:
I repeat the bridge riff but with only 1 guitar (amplitube 1)
Verse 6:
Main theme guitar again doubled 1) recording with the Marshall amped track, 2) with amplitube 2 "early zep" preset (no tweaking required) 3) panned hard left and played an octave lower and fx by izotope trash with tape saturation and "cheap radio" effect and 4) panned hard right also the lower octave recorded with Marshall amp clean. In the last part 3 & 4 repeat the theme while 2 solo on open strings and then climb up to go to the final.
Hope this helps
Renesongs
OK I'm the lazy one that gives musicians a bad rap. ? My piece was a 24 bar blues in Am for a colaberation so it's was easy 6/8 time chords Am x8/Dm x4/Am x4/Em x2/Dm x2/Am/Dm/Am//E7+9. I kind of modelled the feel of SRV's Tin pan Alley.
Step 1. Open blank template in Sonar 6 Set Tempo to 60 BPM, Signiture to 6/8 Key Am.
Step 2. Insert Cakewalk TTS internal synth set up midi track numbers, 1 for Organ, 2 for Fingerd Bass, 10 for drums.
Step 3. Using piano roll write basic drum track, Closed hat on all 6 beats, Bass Drum on 1 side stick on beat 4. Loop for 24 bars.
Step 4. Use piano roll to write long sustained organ chord sequence as described above.
Step 5. Use piano roll to type in bas sequence, go back and Listen to Tin Pan Alley's bass line, try to change it little bit, yes I know it sounds better on the origional but that would be plagerism.
Step 6. Arm a track for recording. Plug your guitar and gear into the armed track, Press record and play your ass off.
Step 7. Repeat step 6 until you are happy with your break.
Step 8. Save your work!!! Mix it down to an MP3 file and post it to the GFSA 8)
Guitar gear: Guitar = Fender Strat Neck Pickup. Gear = Boss GT6 emulating a Fender Tweed with a bit of studio Reverb added.
sepheritoh
Renesongs wrote:
OK I'm the lazy one that gives musicians a bad rap.
Rene. Music is about the performance, not the studio tricks. Your track is great, and most important your guitar playing was great.
Renesongs
Thanks Seph. Reading this forum I reckon I am nothing more than a dabbler as far as sound engineering goes- I just happen to know how to operate this guitar do-hicky thang somewhat ?
AlanRatcliffe
Sounds familiar... "I'm just a composer who happens to be able to operate a guitar" ?
Renesongs
Although uncle Frank new how to operate a lot more that a guitar ?
Gray
Wow some intense work.
I never knew the amount of effort that goes into such compositions, the different approaches you all took and the slight similarities in between. Im truely fascinated by the subtle sounds that my untrained ear cant pick up and the techniques used to create them, there are millions of questions popping into my head but dont worry I wont tax you with all of them instead I plan on taking the info here and disecting it to find common relations in other guitar related work. This has opened a new path in my discovery of this godly instrument and for me the end result which you all captured with this tool of the heavens. Even though to most of you this is like a walk in the park (composing, playing, creating) this form of art encompasses all aspects of the guitar for me. I thank all of you for your insperation and the effort you put in to create this art. ?
AlanRatcliffe
OK. The next section is five guitars. Rhythm is Am G C. The three harmony guitars each play one harmonic - I do this so each shows up in a different place in stereo without having to resort to an automated pan on one track. This is part of the fun in multitracking, being able to do things like that. The melody guitar has a tremolo on it to make it wobble convincingly.
The rhythm solo is back to the same backing used for the harmony and solo parts earlier. Relatively simple with just two guitars: rhythm and rhythm solo. Neck pickup on the guitar I built into an AC30. First half is just me flailing my left hand about and hoping for the best, the second half uses the open A string as a drone while playing a variety if intervals on the D and G strings.
The Maidenish bit at the end is just that - two guitars doing an interlocking early '80s type neoclassical thing. Kind of silly, but fun to do. I'll do a slowed down version of it with the guitars clearly separated L + R so you can pan and hear one at a time if you want to.
Gray
I'll do a slowed down version of it with the guitars clearly separated L + R so you can pan and hear one at a time if you want to.
Yes please.
Gray
404 Page not found. ?
AlanRatcliffe
Helps if I upload it too :-[
Fixed
NorioDS
Thanks for that, Alan! Love Iron Maiden and love what you did for this track!
AlanRatcliffe
De nada. I was a big fan up to and including the Powerslave album.
andrewjbryson
Hi Guys....
Here's my 2 cents worth....
Although I do hack a lot of my solo's im starting to learn that the best way to record (as far as getting
it to sound "tight" / "phat" / "big" / "smooth" / "clean" )
is to make sure you can play the riff or solo (even if its a simple 3 note thing) repeatedly, and as close as possible to the original or first take...
even if it takes a few takes to get right,
Try to build up your guitars... like you would build a house,
layers, whether you are layering with guitars, synth pads, piano's etc....
Record the same riff twice, make sure they are pretty similair sounding, then you PAN hard LEFT / RIGHT
i always add a delay or reverb on the one.... this way you create a bit of depth in the mix (or width)
The idea here is to make the riff or solo stand out.... Reverb, Delay, Chorus, Chopper, Compression , EQ
these are all the tools that you can use to do that....
And finally, if it sounds cool , it is cool
EXPERIMENT EXPERIMENT EXPERIMENT!
?
did i spell "experiment" correctly?
