Straturday Night Solos (Talk Box Update)

DrewJD82

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After banging out metal riffs all night, I finished out Saturday night working on one of my non-metal tunes. I had the first 4 bars of this worked out a while back but didn't know what else to do with it, I winged it a few times and stumbled upon this. It won't be the final version, there's some tiny nuance things I want to nail, but nonetheless...

(Starts with a camera audio noodle then the Logic audio comes in)


Gilmour Strat into a Dry Bell Vibe 3, using one of Austin Buddy's Superlead presets I tweaked a bit, I think there's a Klon doing a clean boost and the obvious sh*tload of delay. For the delays I'm using a 1/4 Vintage Digital and a .8th Ping Pong, I love the way it fills in the rests between notes.

It's been a good guitar day, that's for sure.
 
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Nice! You seem very comfortable when you play. I still have trouble keeping the next string silent when I go for bends. It drives me crazy!
Sometimes I keep the string silent by trapping it with my finger, sometimes I catch it and push it out of the way with the tip, and sometimes my palm keeps the other strings muted. But my technique isn't consistent, and I know I can't rely on accidentally catching the string and pushing it up along with the note I'm bending. The action is too low to do it that way consistently. It pisses me off!!

I used to set my action high on purpose, just so I could push the string, but then I decided high action was too much of a tradeoff for playing comfortably, when doing faster stuff. But way too often I still struggle with that next string sounding. But the action is staying where it is, that much I'm sure of.

Your bends look like it's totally natural for you.
 
Nice! You seem very comfortable when you play. I still have trouble keeping the next string silent when I go for bends. It drives me crazy!
Sometimes I keep the string silent by trapping it with my finger, sometimes I catch it and push it out of the way with the tip, and sometimes my palm keeps the other strings muted. But my technique isn't consistent, and I know I can't rely on accidentally catching the string and pushing it up along with the note I'm bending. The action is too low to do it that way consistently. It pisses me off!!

I used to set my action high on purpose, just so I could push the string, but then I decided high action was too much of a tradeoff for playing comfortably, when doing faster stuff. But way too often I still struggle with that next string sounding. But the action is staying where it is, that much I'm sure of.

Your bends look like it's totally natural for you.

Man, I'm really picky about the action and individual string height past the 12th fret and I'll go back and forth between neck relief/saddle adjustments until I have the exact height and tension I want and it's specifically for that reason. Definitely where Strat-style bridges win over Floyds for me. And that's pretty much exactly how I mute, using both hands at different times for specific things. That Eric Johnson Total Electric Guitar DVD, man, ya gotta pick up a copy of it, even if you don't dig his music or his playing; there's so much great technique stuff and just some basic things in there that were the foundation of my playing because I sure as f*ck couldn't play anything else on that thing when I was 11. :rofl

The bending is the Gilmour influence, for sure, but going back to that EJ vid, he discussed bending to absolute pitches and having a target note where you want to bend up to and that's more the thing I'm thinking if I'm bending, the bend is just how I'm going to get there. If I have the option to bend up to a note rather than just starting on the note I'm bending up to, I'll bend up to it. In the context of leads, I have it in my head that phrasing, vibrato and bending are the key things that give a guitarists their individual identity, so I just milk the sh*t out of that as much as I can and hope for the best. And if you had as many bong rips as I've had tonight, you'd be pretty comfy, too. :chef
 
the key things that give a guitarists their individual identity,
You are so right about that. I have a keyboard player buddy that I get together with and "partake" from time to time, and I was showing him some of the stuff I'd been working on, technique-wise, and he was just amazed at all the little nuances a serious guitar player has to be concerned about, if he's serious about technique. About the only thing he could relate to was note velocity!

I showed him how different picking, or hammer-ons/pull-offs affects the sound, how your fingering needs to be a certain way to sound clean, and more. He said it gave a him a new respect for guitar.
 
@DrewJD82 Are... are you cropping the video to hide the input meter from me now?

It’s actually a pain in the ass to get the camera right, I have a headstock clip that’ll hold a cellphone, I got it for Christmas or something a while back, I just mount it to my monitor stand, but if I want HD video I need to use the front-facing lenses on the phone, so I have to get up and get behind the damn phone to line up shots….or stop the video when I’ve f*cked up 20x in a row and start it again. Eventually I just went with “F*ck it, I’m sure it has most of me in the shot” :ROFLMAO:
 
I had my talk box out tonight for some overdubs on this song and figured "f*ck it, let me see if I could pull off the solo with it and see how it sounds". I already recorded a take of it that was a bit of an improvement on the video in the OP and after the first take I was 90% sure I wasn't going to use a talk box take, but I felt like I had a point to prove with myself when I couldn't nail it right away. :rofl

(there's a NSFW curse at the end the mic picked up)
 
I had my talk box out tonight for some overdubs on this song and figured "f*ck it, let me see if I could pull off the solo with it and see how it sounds". I already recorded a take of it that was a bit of an improvement on the video in the OP and after the first take I was 90% sure I wasn't going to use a talk box take, but I felt like I had a point to prove with myself when I couldn't nail it right away. :rofl

(there's a NSFW curse at the end the mic picked up)

What about a wah?
 
I had my talk box out tonight for some overdubs on this song and figured "f*ck it, let me see if I could pull off the solo with it and see how it sounds". I already recorded a take of it that was a bit of an improvement on the video in the OP and after the first take I was 90% sure I wasn't going to use a talk box take, but I felt like I had a point to prove with myself when I couldn't nail it right away. :rofl

(there's a NSFW curse at the end the mic picked up)


Fuck yeah man. It's a keeper and that's a wrap! :headbang
 
That was fun!

How could I tell that it was fun? Well sir, I had a big grin on my face the whole time, and I watched it twice :D

Hahahah right on, I got a kick out of it. The first 3x I just bombed all over the place, I barely use the talk box and getting the technique with the tube is a bit of a learning curve; if you close your mouth too much the volume drops out and you practically have to know how to circular breath like a wind instrument player to use the thing. I end up holding my breath almost the whole time because paying attention to your breathing, manipulating your mouth/talk box while trying to play the right notes is like riding a unicycle while juggling while balancing a pole on your nose. :ROFLMAO:
What about a wah?

I’m a wah junkie and have it on so much stuff as it is already, it’d definitely work in a couple spots, but listening to the songs that I‘m pretty sure are going to be on the album, there’s a lot of wah already. Like Kirk Hammett levels of wah use. Actually, I’ll jump to Kirk’s defense over his wah use because if we compared song-to-wah ratios, I think I have him beat. :rofl
f**k yeah man. It's a keeper and that's a wrap! :headbang

I might layer it behind the take I’m definitely keeping in there, just mixing it in and out at specific times, or if it works, crossfade the two takes together. We’ll see how adventurous I get (by adventurous I mean baked). There’s a lot of guitar tracks in this song and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard the phrase “walls of talk box guitars” but it could apply to this song. For each chorus I doubled tracked the talk box stuff, just playing the B/A chords and part way through start incorporating some of the lyrics into the talk box, it’s either going to sound really f*cking cheesy or mildly interesting.

So far, in just the pre-chorus/chorus there’s-

2 tracks of the cleanish Superlead
2 tracks of slide guitar using a Gilmour PULSE tone, like in ”One Of These Days”
2 tracks of talk box
2 tracks of an Ebow playing a melody over the chords
2 tracks of the Freqout playing a harmony to that melody above
2 tracks of slide playing that melody
2 tracks of acoustic
An organ
A mellotron
Strings
Choir voices

And somehow, there’s still a ton of space in there for vocals, which consists of the main vocal melody and a counter-melody to it underneath/along with it. Using a Strat for everything and just switching pickups eliminated the need to EQ the sh*t out of everything, that’s definitely a benefit of single coils because if I did that with humbuckers I’d need to EQ everything to give everything it’s own space. Just panning everything into it’s own spot seems to have done the trick. The verses are just a single, mono guitar track, so when it opens up to the pre-chorus it really opens up.

I’m really anxious to hear this completed because it’s been stuck in my head for months now. I started writing this the day I found out Taylor Hawkins passed and while I’m only a casual Foo Fighters fan, I absolutely love Taylor’s playing in that band. Over the last couple of months it’s gone from sounding like Hawkins playing in RHCP to Foo/RHCP/Devin Townsend doing their best to write a Floyd song, with Mike Portnoy coming in at the very end for some over the top drum fills. I had an idea to do something cool with the drums at the end, I was initially thinking along the Danny Carey lines, but after seeing the Petrucci/Portnoy vids a few weeks ago I spent the night programming some very obviously Portnoy-influenced fills at the end.

As long as I don’t get too hammered tomorrow, I’ll start vocals on Friday and can hopefully have this banged out before the weekend is over. However, Nacho is coming over tomorrow and we don’t generally stay sober for very long when we’re together. :rofl
 
Hahahah right on, I got a kick out of it. The first 3x I just bombed all over the place, I barely use the talk box and getting the technique with the tube is a bit of a learning curve; if you close your mouth too much the volume drops out and you practically have to know how to circular breath like a wind instrument player to use the thing. I end up holding my breath almost the whole time because paying attention to your breathing, manipulating your mouth/talk box while trying to play the right notes is like riding a unicycle while juggling while balancing a pole on your nose. :ROFLMAO:


I’m a wah junkie and have it on so much stuff as it is already, it’d definitely work in a couple spots, but listening to the songs that I‘m pretty sure are going to be on the album, there’s a lot of wah already. Like Kirk Hammett levels of wah use. Actually, I’ll jump to Kirk’s defense over his wah use because if we compared song-to-wah ratios, I think I have him beat. :rofl


I might layer it behind the take I’m definitely keeping in there, just mixing it in and out at specific times, or if it works, crossfade the two takes together. We’ll see how adventurous I get (by adventurous I mean baked). There’s a lot of guitar tracks in this song and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard the phrase “walls of talk box guitars” but it could apply to this song. For each chorus I doubled tracked the talk box stuff, just playing the B/A chords and part way through start incorporating some of the lyrics into the talk box, it’s either going to sound really f*cking cheesy or mildly interesting.

So far, in just the pre-chorus/chorus there’s-

2 tracks of the cleanish Superlead
2 tracks of slide guitar using a Gilmour PULSE tone, like in ”One Of These Days”
2 tracks of talk box
2 tracks of an Ebow playing a melody over the chords
2 tracks of the Freqout playing a harmony to that melody above
2 tracks of slide playing that melody
2 tracks of acoustic
An organ
A mellotron
Strings
Choir voices

And somehow, there’s still a ton of space in there for vocals, which consists of the main vocal melody and a counter-melody to it underneath/along with it. Using a Strat for everything and just switching pickups eliminated the need to EQ the sh*t out of everything, that’s definitely a benefit of single coils because if I did that with humbuckers I’d need to EQ everything to give everything it’s own space. Just panning everything into it’s own spot seems to have done the trick. The verses are just a single, mono guitar track, so when it opens up to the pre-chorus it really opens up.

I’m really anxious to hear this completed because it’s been stuck in my head for months now. I started writing this the day I found out Taylor Hawkins passed and while I’m only a casual Foo Fighters fan, I absolutely love Taylor’s playing in that band. Over the last couple of months it’s gone from sounding like Hawkins playing in RHCP to Foo/RHCP/Devin Townsend doing their best to write a Floyd song, with Mike Portnoy coming in at the very end for some over the top drum fills. I had an idea to do something cool with the drums at the end, I was initially thinking along the Danny Carey lines, but after seeing the Petrucci/Portnoy vids a few weeks ago I spent the night programming some very obviously Portnoy-influenced fills at the end.

As long as I don’t get too hammered tomorrow, I’ll start vocals on Friday and can hopefully have this banged out before the weekend is over. However, Nacho is coming over tomorrow and we don’t generally stay sober for very long when we’re together. :rofl
I love your ambition. I wish I had 1/100th of it. Talk box sounds GREAT. Your idea of blending it in and bringing it up for accent here and there is the right one I'd say. Looking forward to hearing it with vocals!
 
I love your ambition. I wish I had 1/100th of it. Talk box sounds GREAT. Your idea of blending it in and bringing it up for accent here and there is the right one I'd say. Looking forward to hearing it with vocals!

Thanks, man! I‘ve definitely realized in the last year that not having a wife/kids allows me to keep that ambition going, which plays a big part in my current anti-relationship status. The fulfillment I get from doing stuff like this, well, I’d say I wished I had this fulfillment years ago, but I think the last 15 years had to happen in order for me to realize that fulfillment. Even if it’s doing something I consider kinda silly, pulling it off is really rewarding.

Another thing adding to that ambition are the kind words I’ve been receiving lately, between everyone here and everywhere else I post this stuff, I’ve really been blown away and humbled by those words. It makes me want to do more and really milk myself (huhuhuhuhuhuhu) for all I’m worth. I received a message on another forum the other night in regards to this solo and by the 2nd paragraph I had tears rolling down my cheeks because of this person’s reaction to the solo in the OP and I’ve never been so grateful to be a musician, to be a part of the communities I’m in where people actually take the time to listen and comment, to have the ambition to write music again, it’s all creating a cycle that‘s so uplifting and rewarding that it’s all I think about lately.

So really, to everyone who has taken a minute to listen and comment, thank you.


(Side note- I need to do some research into who came up with the idea of forcing sound out of a tube, putting the tube in your mouth and making music with it. Like, wtf? How does one even think of something like that?)
 
Thanks, man! I‘ve definitely realized in the last year that not having a wife/kids allows me to keep that ambition going, which plays a big part in my current anti-relationship status. The fulfillment I get from doing stuff like this, well, I’d say I wished I had this fulfillment years ago, but I think the last 15 years had to happen in order for me to realize that fulfillment. Even if it’s doing something I consider kinda silly, pulling it off is really rewarding.

Another thing adding to that ambition are the kind words I’ve been receiving lately, between everyone here and everywhere else I post this stuff, I’ve really been blown away and humbled by those words. It makes me want to do more and really milk myself (huhuhuhuhuhuhu) for all I’m worth. I received a message on another forum the other night in regards to this solo and by the 2nd paragraph I had tears rolling down my cheeks because of this person’s reaction to the solo in the OP and I’ve never been so grateful to be a musician, to be a part of the communities I’m in where people actually take the time to listen and comment, to have the ambition to write music again, it’s all creating a cycle that‘s so uplifting and rewarding that it’s all I think about lately.

So really, to everyone who has taken a minute to listen and comment, thank you.


(Side note- I need to do some research into who came up with the idea of forcing sound out of a tube, putting the tube in your mouth and making music with it. Like, wtf? How does one even think of something like that?)
I have zero tolerance so I would pretty much barf on contact with the plastic tube :oops: :barf
 
I had my talk box out tonight for some overdubs on this song and figured "f*ck it, let me see if I could pull off the solo with it and see how it sounds". I already recorded a take of it that was a bit of an improvement on the video in the OP and after the first take I was 90% sure I wasn't going to use a talk box take, but I felt like I had a point to prove with myself when I couldn't nail it right away. :rofl

(there's a NSFW curse at the end the mic picked up)

That was awesome, never tried a talk box, I might need to send a note to Santa this year :grin
 
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