guitplayer backing track... listen and play!

[michael saulnier]

A few people mentioned in another thread that they would like to create something to a "backing track" created by one of us...

 

So I improv'd a Backing Track... One 2 Many Notes... on my Karma... It's somewhat erratic... but its what I did...

 

Then did my own "one take" improv solo on top of it.

 

Not the most "tasteful" thing I've ever created... But I like the sound of my Guild Blues 90!

 

If you take a turn at recording something... and post it on the web, and on this thread below, I'll add a link on this post and on my own site.

 

Have fun... and post your own backing tracks if you want!

 

Here's another "take" on the backing track... it's been "schmee'd" with more drums, horns and other great stuff! guitp.mp3

 

Here's my original guitar part with schmee's additions to the backing track...

 

One 2 Many Notes - schmee

_____________________

Here are the links to the submitted tracks. They're turning out great!

 

AlChuck - Nice job on guitar over the original backing track... Many_2_Many_Notes.mp3

 

Pauldil - Another great submission. Totally unique take filled with a great intro and cool blues jazz feel... Guitplayer.mp3

 

Teahead - One of the more "wild" takes on this... it's about as far away from my original take as you can get... love that Whooooooooaaaaa! And the muted trumpet and flute stuff is very cool! papawasastrollingbone.mp3

 

guitplayer

[James-Italy]

WOW! Quite a bit away from "3 o'clock in the Morning"!!! Cool though. And compliments for getting us started.

 

I'll take a crack at doing something, but I won't have anytime till next weekend . I've got long 4-day trip planned this weekend to Salzburg, Austria.

[NMcGuitar]

Ditto!

 

Wow, that was some wild stuff!

 

I've gotta find a few hours to actually start playing with this and the other tracks we've talked about.

[Rim]

Very cool, guitplayer! I may try to track something on top of it this weekend.

[Rim]

Originally posted by James-Italy:

I'll take a crack at doing something, but I won't have anytime till next weekend . I've got long 4-day trip planned this weekend to Salzburg, Austria.

James, I've been to Salzburg and had a nice time there. You may want to check out Mozart Geburtzhaus (sp?) - where he was born. While you're there, try some of Mozart's Balls (hehe) - it's good chocolate candy.

[michael saulnier]

Hey, Thanks for the comments.

 

James - Yeah, this is no standard blues track! Sometimes I get the itch to do something WILD! Then stuff like this comes out.

 

It's pretty self-indulgent... but if you can't be self-indulgent sometimes... then something's wrong! I was going to go back and do some re-takes and edits, but I thought... NO. Leave the first take as it stands...

 

Say, what did you think of the sound of the guitar on this?

 

Guess what I used to make it?

 

guitplayer

[James-Italy]

Originally posted by guitplayer:

Say, what did you think of the sound of the guitar on this?

 

Guess what I used to make it?

 

guitplayer

I like the guitar a lot. I'd like to see it lifted some in the mix to bring it a little out in front. It's a much better sounding guitar than I first gave it credit for. I had to work a bit to listen to it, but now that I'm trying to figure out what you used I've listened to it much better detail and appreciate it much more.

 

What did you use?

hmmmm that's really tough Guit. I got home late tonight and don't have time to go down to the studio and try the Univalve, but I'll take a stab at it anyway.

 

The guitar is very overdriven with singing sustain and controlled feedback. A lot of that is the P90's- they are awesome for that cool feedback, just move closer and farther from the amp and they wail. You said it was the Guild Blues 90 so I'm assuming it's got P90s. I tried to replicate the sound with my Studio Gem with 90's to figure out what it was.

 

While the guitar is overdriven, it's very tight and compressed. I heard no speaker distortion at all- very Podish or mystical engineering! So I was thinking you went straight into the Pod or maybe Karma. I'm not familiar with Karma, but since you're playing around with it now, it would have been my number one choice. Until I tried to take my hottest wail setting on the Pod, adding a Wah stomp with like a 30%/40% setting on the pod so it's only there when I really go for it, and playing over your track. The guitar sound was very close, but it was missing totally the P90 squeal from the feedback. So I had to rethink it.

 

If you were running the guitar through the THD, it sounds like a fully cranked EL84, some kind of pedal, and with the guitar in Rock- probably with the hotplate on to to tone down volume. Don't know where you would have put the wah though because it's not always there. And you've got a lot of delay before the speaker to my ears. So I can't vote on the THD either.

 

So in the end I'm guessing THD with EL84 AND at the same time the Pod or Karma. The THD for the feedback squeal and the Pod/Karma for the tight compressed sustain and delay. I'm just guessing though... maybe you had the PA turned up and got the squeal from that.

 

In any case, nice work

[fantasticsound]

Very nice, Guit! The guitar timbre is near perfect approximation of Satch on Surfing With The Alien, right down to the wah sounds. Satch probably had more high end then I hear on your track, but not much.

 

Cool!

[James-Italy]

Cool Guit-

I didn't hear any mistakes at all in your playing! I think we are always more critical to our own music than that of others. We tend to focus on our parts and hear the "mistakes" much more than someone who listens to the whole song. And remember some incredible songs/solos have been born out of "mistakes".

 

As far as the level of the guitar being low to me- well, you've done some really nice recording and probably know more than I do, but so much depends on how loud you listen to it and where you listen to it. Headphones, large room, car, etc. all reproduce differently. From '95 till this year I had my cellar "stuido" entirely sound-proofed. Carpeting on the floor and walls covered in acoustic dampening foam. Everything that I mixed there and that sounded good to me in that room, mostly sounds terrible anywhere else. I used way too much reverb and found myself mixing at too hot of a volume (@100db) because the room absorbed everthing. Now, I've take off all the soundproffing from the reflective wall, the one behind me when I'm mixing, so I can hear better and I'm able to mix now at 80-95db and use much less reverb. Also, I've added a second set of monitors. Now I mix with both the NS10m's and a set of Mission Stereo speakers. The NS10m's are too sterile and the Missions too forgiving so somewhere in-between is probably right. It's a lot of work getting a good mix. Hats off to guys like fantasticsound who are good at it. Anyway, back to the guitar level. Yeah, to my ears I think you could bring it forward a bit.

 

How'd you get that feedback with the Pod? I can get a fair amount with the new Goldtop Burstbuckers or the Wolfgang, but don't usually g get much of anything with the P90's or with my Custom. Were you recording with the PA speakers turned up or with headphones? The feedback is what threw me off.

[michael saulnier]

Originally posted by fantasticsound:

Very nice, Guit! The guitar timbre is near perfect approximation of Satch on Surfing With The Alien, right down to the wah sounds. Satch probably had more high end then I hear on your track, but not much.

 

Cool!

Thanks Neil... I'm glad you liked it... and I appreciate the comparison to Satch... but if that's the case it's by accident not design!

 

guitplayer

[michael saulnier]

Originally posted by James-Italy:

Cool Guit-

I didn't hear any mistakes at all in your playing! I think we are always more critical to our own music than that of others. We tend to focus on our parts and hear the "mistakes" much more than someone who listens to the whole song. And remember some incredible songs/solos have been born out of "mistakes".

 

As far as the level of the guitar being low to me- well, you've done some really nice recording and probably know more than I do, but so much depends on how loud you listen to it and where you listen to it. Headphones, large room, car, etc. all reproduce differently. From '95 till this year I had my cellar "stuido" entirely sound-proofed. Carpeting on the floor and walls covered in acoustic dampening foam. Everything that I mixed there and that sounded good to me in that room, mostly sounds terrible anywhere else. I used way too much reverb and found myself mixing at too hot of a volume (@100db) because the room absorbed everthing. Now, I've take off all the soundproffing from the reflective wall, the one behind me when I'm mixing, so I can hear better and I'm able to mix now at 80-95db and use much less reverb. Also, I've added a second set of monitors. Now I mix with both the NS10m's and a set of Mission Stereo speakers. The NS10m's are too sterile and the Missions too forgiving so somewhere in-between is probably right. It's a lot of work getting a good mix. Hats off to guys like fantasticsound who are good at it. Anyway, back to the guitar level. Yeah, to my ears I think you could bring it forward a bit.

 

How'd you get that feedback with the Pod? I can get a fair amount with the new Goldtop Burstbuckers or the Wolfgang, but don't usually g get much of anything with the P90's or with my Custom. Were you recording with the PA speakers turned up or with headphones? The feedback is what threw me off.

James,

 

Thanks again for your comments. Yeah, the environment, speakers, room size and more all effect how your mixes can and do sound.

 

Listening critically on my own system, I can see where someone would want the guitar a "smidge" more up front... but there's a certain point where it's too dominant... That's why some folks do tons of remixes to get it "just right"... I basically did ONE!

 

As far as the feedback with the POD is concerned, I have powered monitors (event ) so that when I monitor myself as I'm recording, I can get a pretty good volume going... then I just do what you would do with a straight amp... point the guitar pickups toward the sound source so that the speaker vibrations are influencing the strings... and voila! "Good" sounding feedback...

 

I also "fed" the feedback by bouncing the guitar body off my body and legs and shaking the body a bit in front of the speaker...

 

It REALLY is only possible with some of the high gain amp models and the Soldano ones are my favorite for this purpose.

 

Plus my Guild Blues 90 has "sound chambers"... not really hollow body, but certainly more sustain and feedback than some solid body guitars might have.

 

I REALLY have been digging my P-90 pickups and I can see why some people prefer them over everything else... They are a huge part of this sound imho!

 

guitplayer

[AlChuck]

Hey guitplayer, I really like that track. I plugged into my POD and played as suggested...

 

http://alanoehler.com/alanoehlermusic/news.html

[michael saulnier]

Originally posted by AlChuck:

Hey guitplayer, I really like that track. I plugged into my POD and played as suggested...

 

http://alanoehler.com/alanoehlermusic/news.html

AlChuck. That was VERY cool! I love the tone you're using... along with the scales... it was somewhat Al DiMeola-ish... in a "good way"!

 

Thanks for posting your "take" on the track.

 

guitplayer

[NMcGuitar]

Originally posted by AlChuck:

Hey guitplayer, I really like that track. I plugged into my POD and played as suggested...

 

http://alanoehler.com/alanoehlermusic/news.html

I really dig the sort of middle-eastern modality.

[AlChuck]

Thanks, guys, I appreciate it...

[Teahead]

Okay, so I have a Pod, a laptop with recording capabilities, and a burning desire to play around with that excellent backing track of g'players!

I've just got that same Vokator programme, and even though it may take a while before I post something, I'd love to give it a go.

Could anyone advise me on what the general process is and the pitfalls? I have yet to venture into this realm of binary jamming and I am clueless(!)

Once again, funky track guitplayer...

Any help much appreciated, thanks, T.

[michael saulnier]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Teahead:

Okay, so I have a Pod, a laptop with recording capabilities, and a burning desire to play around with that excellent backing track of g'players!

I've just got that same Vokator programme, and even though it may take a while before I post something, I'd love to give it a go.

Could anyone advise me on what the general process is and the pitfalls? I have yet to venture into this realm of binary jamming and I am clueless(!)

Once again, funky track guitplayer...

 

guitplayer

[Teahead]

Thanks for getting back so soon, I managed to download the track this morning and I've been playing with a few loops and samples thus far.

No definable 'guitar' added yet, only soundscapes and atmospheric noises, I've saved it as 'Papa was a Strolling Bone', because it kinda put me in mind of the old Temptations hit of a similair name.

Again, thanks for the help, I'll let you know how I get on as soon as I've finished, or at least force myself not to do anymore, you know how it is, see you later, T.

[Teahead]

Actually I'm going to try and post my first fumblings, just to see if I can manage to publish the results. If this works then I'll spend a day of next week giving it some proper attention, here goes,

www.worldofthecusp.com/StrollingBone.mp3

Fingers crossed, the finished job will follow.

Thanks for the inspiration to finally learn this stuff guitplayer, I've avoided it for so long, and now I really don't know why!

[AlChuck]

Very cool and totally different that guitplayer's and my takes on it! This is interesting listening to where it gets taken by different folks...

[michael saulnier]

I liked it too Teahead... I agree with AlChuck that it's amazing how each person can add their own personality to something like this...

 

It seems like you're set in terms of knowing how to publish and post your stuff... if you make more changes go ahead and post it...

 

Do you want me to wait to put a link to this on my original post and on my website?

 

guitplayer

[pauldil]

Cool track, Guitarplayer! I liked what you, AlChuck and Teahead have done with it! It's great how everyone adds a totally different flavor to it

 

OK, no pointing and laughing, alright? Here's my attempt . It was done very quickly.

 

Paul

[AlChuck]

Another cool one... I really like the way you sort of quoted at "Night In Tunisia" as you started your solo. I like how you slide in and out of a jazz bag and a blues bag...

[michael saulnier]

quote:

---

Originally posted by pauldil:

Cool track, Guitarplayer! I liked what you, AlChuck and Teahead have done with it! It's great how everyone adds a totally different flavor to it

 

guitplayer

[pauldil]

Thanks for the kind words guys. I played my '84 335 through a POD 2.0. For the harmony parts, I had it set to a rectified model, full drive with no reverb. For the chords & solo I just went with a clean setting, a little more bass and a little reverb. Like I mentioned, it was done really quickly.

 

Thanks again. Let's hear some more!!

 

Paul

[Teahead]

Thanks for encouragement guys! Guitplayer, it would be cool of you to post a link, I'm both glad, and releived(!), you liked the direction of the track. Hopefully I'll be able to return the favour someday and furnish you with a backing track of my own.

Paul, your flavour is very stylish in its note selections, what scales/neck region are you exploring?

For now, I'm gonna try a few more ideas out and see where they take me, thanks again, T.

[Teahead]

Well I've run into a little difficulty, it seems my soundcard isn't up to scratch, (latency issues apparently), to me it means everything I play has a slight delay(1.5 seconds).

As you can imagine, this has made "jamming" over the track a near impossibility, so I've been restricted to sampling stuff and cutting it in.

 

Not an ideal situation, but I'm happy to have mastered the publishing issues I once had!

www.worldofthecusp.com/papawasastrollingbone.mp3

Here's the link to my finished product.

 

Can anyone recommend a good USB input soundcard for my laptop with Cubasis vst? Then I can get my teeth into this stuff!

[AlChuck]

Teahead, what's your system like? You should be able to record properly with just about anything as long as you don't try to monitor what you are playing after it passes through the software. Most soundcards can pipe the input at the Line In straight to the output, so you can monitor from that. The disadvantage is that if you are applying effects in the software via plug-ins. you won't be able to hear them as you record unless you have a fast modern machine with ASIO drivers.

[Teahead]

All I know is there's a delay between my playing and hearing the notes through the speakers. My vst manual took me through a change to my windows volume control which allowed me to monitor the inputs. Excuse my ignorance but I'm brand new to this. If it's any help I have Windows XP on my laptop. Your advice would be a great help, thanks, T.

[AlChuck]

I don't have Cubase but in SONAR there's a checkbox to enable or disable what Cakewalk calls "input monitoring." In the Windows volume control you should enable the Line In for playback as well as the Wave device. Odd terminology, I know; it just means that when sounds are playing, anything coming into the Line In is echoed out the output too, but directly and not after being digitized, manhandled through the software, and then piped through the Wave output stream along with the previously-recorded stuff...