The Challenge 18 - 27/10/2010 - GuitarTalk Community

The Challenge 18 - 27/10/2010

Renesongs

By popular demand this fortnights challenge is...
All Guitar- a competition that is done all on one guitar. Bass, drums, melody, harmony, rhythm, any anything else.

aja

At the same time? ?

What are the track limitations?

AlanRatcliffe

I vote for as many tracks as you need.

guitarboy2828

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: I vote for as many tracks as you need.

+1! Because it is just one guitar, I don't think the number of tracks should matter ?

Renesongs

What are the track limitations?

Try and keep it under 256 tracks otherwise your DAW might give trouble. 8)

Renesongs

For those of you who have midi interfaces on your guitar or synth rigs that can manipulate the guitar signal in to other instruments I think it would be in better spirit to avoid using them and try rather to experiment with the diversity of noises a guitar can make.

AlanRatcliffe

Renesongs wrote: For those of you who have midi interfaces on your guitar or synth rigs that can manipulate the guitar signal in to other instruments I think it would be in better spirit to avoid using them and try rather to experiment with the diversity of noises a guitar can make.

You talkin' to me? ? Wasn't intending to anyway. Too easy...

Renesongs

You talkin' to me? Cheesy Wasn't intending to anyway. Too easy...

I was thinking Guitar Rig has a a patch where you play one note and it turn it in to house or trance music or whatever you call that cacophony and then you and your guitar Midi popped into my head, not that I would consider you to be so devious but just a word of caution to others of lesser integrity, that this sort of approach may be seriously frowned upon by the more puristic members of this esteemed forum.

evolucian

We have purists? ???

Renesongs

Some folk here don't think the words electric and guitar should be used in the same sentence while others would examin an acoustic over and over trying to find the jack input and a few metal heads in search of the secret of fire, so year I guess there are purists here too.

evolucian

oooga... flame!

Bob-Dubery

I don't want to alarm y'all, but I would bet that there are even people who believe that this challenge should be confined to instruments with necks and strings stretched across them. I would think though that frets would be optional, which may let things like violins and cellos in. It's an interesting question - when is a guitar a guitar? I have heard people say that Smoothtalkers are very nice, really well made etc etc but sufficiently far removed from the traditional guitar that they are, in fact, a different instrument.

Rene mentioned trance. There's a school of though that says that trance, trip-hop etc etc all can be traced back to John Martyn. Martyn played a guitar most of his career (he got into keyboards at one point), but he did get some unusual sounds out of it. When he had a humbucker gaffer-taped onto a D28 and fed that into volume pedals, echo plexes and who knows what else (he got a lot of sustain out of that combination) was he still playing guitar?

evolucian

so wait... are we allowed to use beat fx or not really? Like rene mentioned about the one thing in guitar rig... are we allowed to use it or not really?

AlanRatcliffe

The key here I think is experimentation - you can do a lot with just the way you play the guitar and experimenting with
"prepared guitar" (look up John Cage's Prepared Piano) and playing with unusual implements (hint: Mattias Eklundh's Chopstick Boogie).

It's difficult to say where to draw the line, but I'll try:
* No guitar synth
* No to anything that uses any circuit more commonly associated with synthesis, including but not limited to: modifiers like sequencers and LFOs, arpeggiators, filters, ring modulators.
* Any multi frequency processor designed to create synth like sounds (HOG, POG, VG-99)

Yes to any other kind of effect (you can do a lot with just fuzz, EQ, delays and pitch shifter - listen to Adrian Belew's The Guitar As Orchestra or his track Animal Kingdom). Also listen to Brian May creating a Dixie Jazz band on guitar for the solo of Good Company on Night at the Opera.

V8

Renesongs wrote: By popular demand this fortnights challenge is...
All Guitar- a competition that is done all on one guitar. Bass, drums, melody, harmony, rhythm, any anything else.

Awesome idea Rene. As a perrenial lurker, I was real bummed to miss out on the last challenge - "fast blues @ 160bpm+". The 12 bar progression turned into an acoustic boogie, which I'll *hopefully* submit :? this time around.

Thanks to all for the inspiration,

V8

AlanRatcliffe

Almost forgot this, so I just submitted a quick n dirty rock track.

BMU

Renesongs wrote: Some folk here don't think the words electric and guitar should be used in the same sentence while others would examin an acoustic over and over trying to find the jack input and a few metal heads in search of the secret of fire, so year I guess there are purists here too.

I chortled. Great post.