TGF Do Something Challenge Week 2!!

[la szum]

Hahaha I think I know where you got that lyrical inspiration! Vocals reminded me of Greg Puciato from Dillinger. Your stuff goes in unexpected directions, man, that's definitely a breath of fresh air. Tight work!

Damn! I can't fathom the time and energy you put into that. And in a day or two? WTF? I am slacker
enough without epicly layered songs like this to make me feel way worse. Mission accomplished!

Love that main riff. At the end when that additional guitar comes in it is . Are those 6ths you
are playing, and is that a nod to those in your song title, or am I way off base here?

Great job, Doc. I can imaging your daughters being a bit concerned when Daddy is guttural screaming again!!

 

[Alex Kenivel]

Damn! I can't fathom the time and energy you put into that. And in a day or two? WTF? I am slacker
enough without epicly layered songs like this to make me feel way worse. Mission accomplished!

Love that main riff. At the end when that additional guitar comes in it is . Are those 6ths you
are playing, and is that a nod to those in your song title, or am I way off base here?

Great job, Doc. I can imaging your daughters being a bit concerned when Daddy is guttural screaming again!!

Aww thanks man. Don't let my audio scrawlings get you down! I used to throw songs together in less than a day before the kids. I've always been dripping creativity even when I'm not noticing it (so I've been told). If it weren't for digital modeling and drum samples it would take me much longer. When I was a teen I would rip cymbal strikes right from Zildjian's demo webpage and copy/paste drum strikes for over an hour. Just to make a decent beat.

You get there! I should dig up some of my older songs so we can laugh at them!

I called it 6th Heaven because the chorus riff sounds like Steve Vai's part in the 7th Heaven video, only I'm playing it on a 6 string - Har Har..

The girls left the house for a few hours so I dedicated that time to screaming my head off.

 

[TJontheRoad]

My saxophonist bro in law has a Yamaha one. I was flabbergasted when I descovered it in our closet during his time in China 9 years ago. That was the first time I'd ever seen one.

I used to have a Yamaha WX5. Something I should have never sold.

 

[DrewJD82]

Aww thanks man. Don't let my audio scrawlings get you down! I used to throw songs together in less than a day before the kids. I've always been dripping creativity even when I'm not noticing it (so I've been told). If it weren't for digital modeling and drum samples it would take me much longer. When I was a teen I would rip cymbal strikes right from Zildjian's demo webpage and copy/paste drum strikes for over an hour. Just to make a decent beat.

You get there! I should dig up some of my older songs so we can laugh at them!

I called it 6th Heaven because the chorus riff sounds like Steve Vai's part in the 7th Heaven video, only I'm playing it on a 6 string - Har Har..

The girls left the house for a few hours so I dedicated that time to screaming my head off.

Too funny, I was wondering if the 6th Heaven was a reference to that vid.

And yeah, on a good day, without interruptions and I actually have the inspiration to work on something, it’s f*cking insane how many tracks I can put out. This week’s submission has something like 12 tracks of synths, 4 acoustic/4 electric tracks and I’ve got plenty more planned. If I can work without interruptions and everything works like it’s supposed, I can move pretty damn fast, but I intentionally designed my studio for that.

In 8 hours yesterday the longest it took me to start a new track was the 20 minutes I needed to dig the 12-string out of the closet and tune it. I spent more time doing that than I did recording the damn thing!

And to be fair, most of those synth tracks are just me loading up different sounds and using the same MIDI to print to audio, but if I’m just stacking different string sections, it’d be kinda silly to play the same part each time.

 

[Alex Kenivel]

Too funny, I was wondering if the 6th Heaven was a reference to that vid.

Yup, there it is! That riff I was recording and later realized what it sounded like.

This week’s submission has something like 12 tracks of synths, 4 acoustic/4 electric tracks and I’ve got plenty more planned.

Great Satan! Can't wait!

I used to have a Yamaha WX5.

Thank you, I was trying to figure out what it was, and that's it.

 

[la szum]

In 8 hours yesterday the longest it took me to start a new track was the 20 minutes I needed to dig the 12-string out of the closet and tune it. I spent more time doing that than I did recording the damn thing!

You just reminded me. I fucking hate 12 strings.


No sorry. "Hate" is not a strong enough word for how I feel about those never quite in tune monstrosities!

That's what could use an Evertune Bridge. 12 String guitars!
Can't wait to hear it!!

 

[DrewJD82]

You just reminded me. I f*****g hate 12 strings.


No sorry. "Hate" is not a strong enough word for how I feel about those never quite in tune monstrosities!

That's what could use an Evertune Bridge. 12 String guitars!
Can't wait to hear it!!

I should send this one to you, you can play it for about 30 seconds before it goes out of tune. My former boss owned it, asked me to put new strings on it and then offered to sell it to me for $50 after I put the strings on it. I had a song intro that needed a 12-string at the time so f*ck it, I bought it. I've played it exactly 3x since the first time I saw it because f*ck that thing.

That said, I'd LOVE a nice Taylor or Breedlove 12-string, but this Johnson.....well, it's appropriately named at least.

 

[Jarick]

I've had a couple strong sparks of inspiration but didn't capture them quick enough, so that's something I need to keep an eye on. Having song (even album) ideas while you're driving a bunch of kids around isn't super timely.

Also really struggling trying to figure out the Logic live loop functionality. I watch people do these awesome loop things on YouTube and then I try and can't get any of it working. Ugh.

It's interesting, since I've gone down the rabbit hole of watching loop videos, I'm hearing songs completely differently, as little chunks of parts that are arranged rather than long compositions. Sadly that's probably highly related to the dumbing down of modern music, but as I've never really made songs like that, I'm kind of interested.

On my wish list, I need to find a good way to record acoustic guitar to add some percussive strumming. Yeah I could do something with my SM57 but I might try and get the piezo working on my 30 year old Tacoma or look for a pickup or something.

 

[la szum]

I should send this one to you, you can play it for about 30 seconds before it goes out of tune. My former boss owned it, asked me to put new strings on it and then offered to sell it to me for $50 after I put the strings on it. I had a song intro that needed a 12-string at the time so f*ck it, I bought it. I've played it exactly 3x since the first time I saw it because f*ck that thing.

That said, I'd LOVE a nice Taylor or Breedlove 12-string, but this Johnson.....well, it's appropriately named at least.

Guy goes into Music Store says," I want to check out that 12 string Acoustic over there." Employees don't allow him to.

 

[FAKA!]

Unfortunately I can‘t watch the video. Here in Germany it seems to be blocked because of copyright issues with „UniversumFilm“. :-(

Hey @TheTrueZoltan! , yeah sometimes I get that warning on youtube, it will literally say blocked in Germany and Austria... Ultimately the problem is me using copyrighted movies to go along with my songs lol. Anyway, I made a dailymotion account today to see if using it for hosting non youtube friendly vids will work. Test link below...

 

[FAKA!]

That was just plain awesome. You missed your calling as a soundtrack composer for sure.

Dude lol. I totally wish I could do backtracks for action scenes or video games or something lol. If I could do that and pay the bills I would in a heartbeat!

Hahaha that video was perfect for the music! I just woke up a few minutes ago and feel quite awake without my coffee yet after that vid!!! I’m very stoked you’re a part of this forum!!!

Thanks Drew! You sure know how to make a guy feel welcomed! Stoked to be a part of this place

As promised, there will be trumpet!!! Here’s some laid back jazzy country blues of sorts called “Frame Of Mind”. All performed by yours truly.

Gear used in production;

Roland Aerophone Pro AE-30,
CF Martin GPC14F,
Takemine EAN40C,
Taylor T5z,
Warmoth Thinline Tele,
Fractal FM9,
Arturia Augmented Strings,
Arturia Solina V2,
Arturia Mellotron V,
Swart R2 Ribbon,

Woa... that was a trip... There is so much on in there, very cool man!

Holy s**t my throat is THRASHED. I need to do something softer/more mellow next week. The lyrical content of my submission this week may be interpreted as being lead astray by someone with power in say a religious role or a political one, or it's perhaps related to a polarizing piece of gear and corporate shenanigans of a certain company I'll leave unnamed.

"Ye Mighty and Despair (6th Heaven)"



Same Mac Mini/Reaper/Focusrite setup as before, just not playing actual drums because of family in the house. Vocals and mixing I did today (5th render!) 17 tracks total - Two of them being parent tracks.

I had started this song in another project on Saturday where I had some parts with tempo/time sig changes but after moving some of the elements around, the recorded guitar and some of the midi files got all f****d up so I had to copypasta into a new project and attempt to salvage my work. It started off at 85 BPM but it got skewed to 85.795, along with all of the media items (a play rate of 1.072) so editing had to be done mostly by ear and not to the click -- which I'm kind of used to from recording actual humans playing drums but was a PITA regardless.

• I programmed the drums with my Akai MPKmini using AD2 as a VSTi.
• Verse/Chorus guitar is my PRS S2 Standard 24 Satin in drop D running into my HX Stomp.
• Intro/Bridge guitar is my Ibanez SIR27FD in drop A into my HX Stomp.
• Lead guitar is my Ibanez Prestige AZ2402 in HX Stomp (broke my A string on the first pass)
• Bass is my cheap Ibanez Talman with Helix Native.
• Used my MPKmini to tap in a melody for the vocal -- first time doing this and it helped a lot with writing words.
• Vocals sung into a Behringer B-2 Pro condenser mic

Vocal Processing:

• 1 Vocal Master Track (FF Pro-Q 3 with some mid shifting to work around the guitars and a high shelf dropping a few DB)
• 1 Tape Saturation Bus Track (HX Native's Retro Reel)
• 1 Reverb Bus Track (Waves H-Reverb)
• 1 Delay Bus Track (HX Native's Stereo Crisscross Delay)
• 1 Shouting Verse Track (SSL Comp, FF Pro-Q 3)
• 1 Singing Verse Track (SSL Comp, FF Pro-Q 3)
• 1 High Pitch Track (SSL Comp, FF Pro-Q 3)
• 1 Shouting Chorus Track (SSL Comp, FF Pro-Q 3)
• 1 Singing Chorus Track (SSL Comp, FF Pro-Q 3)
• 1 Bridge Vocal Track (SSL Comp, FF Pro-Q 3)
• SSL Comp used to even out dynamics and Pro-Q 3 for low cut.

Guitar Processing:

• 1 Guitar Master Track (FF Pro-Q 3 providing Low Cut and mid shift to work around the vocals)
• 1 Guitar Left (Live tracked, Panned 50% L)*
• 1 Guitar Right (Live tracked, Panned 50% R)*
• 1 Guitar Lead (Center, Live tracked, HX Native providing Cosmos Echo and Dynamic Plate)

*Before I started recording this idea I was playing around with the L6 2204 Mod model into my Creambackatana. I chucked a Low/High Shelf in before it to remove some low end and drive the front a little bit and it was off to the races. I added the Horizon Drive to the same preset for the 7 string parts but switched to my usual Comp/808/Placater Dirty for the lead.

Bass Processing:

• 1 Bass Track (HX Native, FF Pro-Q 3) - I noticed a lot of you guys doing heavier songs are using guitar amps with bass cabs so I decided to blend the 2204 Mod with my usual SVT sound and I quite liked the results.

Drum Processing:

• Drums are all AD2 samples - Started with the Black Velvet - Post Grunge preset, changed the kick and hi hat. Added saturation and compression to the snare, which is pitched down a bit. Also elongated the sustain on the snare itself.

Dude... I really like that chorus melody a lot. The whole thing was cool as hell overall but I have that chorus stuck in my head now

 

[Alex Kenivel]

Hey @TheTrueZoltan! , yeah sometimes I get that warning on youtube, it will literally say blocked in Germany and Austria... Ultimately the problem is me using copyrighted movies to go along with my songs lol. Anyway, I made a dailymotion account today to see if using it for hosting non youtube friendly vids will work. Test link below...




View attachment 3761

Have you tried mirroring the copywritten material to display backwards? Will that slide under the ago-radar?

 

[Alex Kenivel]

Dude lol. I totally wish I could do backtracks for action scenes or video games or something lol. If I could do that and pay the bills I would in a heartbeat!


Thanks Drew! You sure know how to make a guy feel welcomed! Stoked to be a part of this place

Woa... that was a trip... There is so much on in there, very cool man!


Dude... I really like that chorus melody a lot. The whole thing was cool as hell overall but I have that chorus stuck in my head now

Thanks man! The chorus melody was literally the last thing I came up with in the entire song. I wrote another melody that fit well but it I couldn't make cadence of it. I scrapped it and almost decided to leave the chorus empty until I asked myself "What was that quote written on the PCB of the QC?" I read it and then the cadence hit me before the melody just kind of came out. I guess I can't always force things out

And your stuff seems very fit for some car/fight scenes

 

[FAKA!]

Have you tried mirroring the copywritten material to display backwards? Will that slide under the ago-radar?

I actually did lol.. for my week 1 vid with godzilla I tried backwards, in black in white etc... was thinking of altering the video in a similar manor to Mystery Science Theater 3000 to see if that would break the copyright identifying software. I may experiment some more.

 

[TheTrueZoltan!]

[...]



[...]

Yep, this video link worked just fine. Thanks for sharing!

Car chase music! Nice groove, very organic sounding. Excellent stuff!

 

[TheTrueZoltan!]

Honey & Cheese

I'm a big fan of Tiamat's 1994 album "Wildhoney" and several similar sounding bands that emerged around that time. This week I'm submitting a small song written with the intention of capturing the style and general vibe of this era, which was an absolutely magical time for me as a rock & metal-loving teenager, discovering new and exciting music on a daily basis. Besides my usual gear I also used a 90’s keyboard (Korg Trinity), which admittedly sounds slightly cheesy by today's standards, but is an important part of the homage. Had a lot of fun putting this together for the current week of the challenge!

 

[DrewJD82]

Honey & Cheese

I'm a big fan of Tiamat's 1994 album "Wildhoney" and several similar sounding bands that emerged around that time. This week I'm submitting a small song written with the intention of capturing the style and general vibe of this era, which was an absolutely magical time for me as a rock & metal-loving teenager, discovering new and exciting music on a daily basis. Besides my usual guitars, soft- and hardware I used a 90’s keyboard (Korg Trinity), which admittedly sounds slightly cheesy by today's standards, but is an important part of the homage. Had a lot of fun putting this together for the current week of the challenge!

This is really f*cking good, man! Guitar tones are rippin’ and I LOVE all the synth sounds. I don’t think anyone can go wrong with a Trinity! As soon as I heard them I got a Devin Townsend vibe just because the synth sound. This is just really, really good, man! Everything is so well done and it’s melodic as f*ck. Hell yeah!!!!

 

[Alex Kenivel]

Honey & Cheese

I'm a big fan of Tiamat's 1994 album "Wildhoney" and several similar sounding bands that emerged around that time. This week I'm submitting a small song written with the intention of capturing the style and general vibe of this era, which was an absolutely magical time for me as a rock & metal-loving teenager, discovering new and exciting music on a daily basis. Besides my usual guitars, soft- and hardware I used a 90’s keyboard (Korg Trinity), which admittedly sounds slightly cheesy by today's standards, but is an important part of the homage. Had a lot of fun putting this together for the current week of the challenge!

Sounds huge and epic on phone, can't wait to give this a listen on proper speakers

 

[Iron1]

Honey & Cheese

I'm a big fan of Tiamat's 1994 album "Wildhoney" and several similar sounding bands that emerged around that time. This week I'm submitting a small song written with the intention of capturing the style and general vibe of this era, which was an absolutely magical time for me as a rock & metal-loving teenager, discovering new and exciting music on a daily basis. Besides my usual guitars, soft- and hardware I used a 90’s keyboard (Korg Trinity), which admittedly sounds slightly cheesy by today's standards, but is an important part of the homage. Had a lot of fun putting this together for the current week of the challenge!

This just might be my favorite entry so far. Wish I could write stuff like this...

 

[la szum]

Honey & Cheese

I'm a big fan of Tiamat's 1994 album "Wildhoney" and several similar sounding bands that emerged around that time. This week I'm submitting a small song written with the intention of capturing the style and general vibe of this era, which was an absolutely magical time for me as a rock & metal-loving teenager, discovering new and exciting music on a daily basis. Besides my usual gear I also used a 90’s keyboard (Korg Trinity), which admittedly sounds slightly cheesy by today's standards, but is an important part of the homage. Had a lot of fun putting this together for the current week of the challenge!

Badass is Badass! Wow! So cool! Love it.