TGF Do Something Weekly Challenge Week 1 Thread

[la szum]

PART 2...

@la szum
Cool track. I love when an odd meter doesn't feel odd and you've got that down. I'm gonna have to try that 9/8 time sig myself at some point. Constructively, I think the bass could be lower or less bright in the mix. It fights the guitar and snare sounds. Maybe some more guitar panning would leave room for that tone. Everything except the drums seems to be centered.

@Piing
Nice tones from your Frankenstrat. Well executed boomer bends. Very smooth and easy to listen to.

@TheTrueZoltan!
That was rocking'! Sounds like something you'd hear on the end credits of a big car chase movie. I kinda wanted to hear those lead lines a bit more. Overall very well played.

@Jarick
I hope this isn't the last song you write in the next 15 years 'cause I like the vibe here. Interesting mix of heavy and clean. The end solo made for a great built up. I wanted more of that.

@JiveTurkey
Where are the dancing robots when I need them I really like the scratchy quality of some guitar parts. They're almost like a counter rhythm against the main thumping beat. I miss your guitar synth though ;-( Forget cowbells. More trumpets please!!!

@woody
The guitars in beginning and throughout is very nice with the panned effect. Love the style. Strong lead solo.

@Gearzilla
There's some great playing here and a cool concept. Constructively, I'd say there's also way too much reverb in the mix. Almost like being in the nosebleed seats of a concert arena. I'm also a big fan of Valhalla stuff. But most of the presets need the mix level dialed down to be less showy. Loved the radio dial samples.

@Whizzinby
Powerful track. I like the way everything amps up in the middle to the end. My personal taste would have liked to hear the bass play more of a groove along to the drum track. This, with some counterpoint to keep things going. Overall, I like the airiness of the track.

@TravisG406
Nice old school rockin' vibe. I almost can vision a hippy blonde chick dancing in the front row to this. This being a demo as you said, the production is very dry and the vocal is somewhat buried. It reminds me of Rolling Stones like rawness. I could see you keeping it that way or producing it more.

@fretworn
An '80 vibe like the sound of my youth. Very pleasing tones. Now I want an electric 12 string. Dammmmmmm you!!!

@Bruce
Ok, the vibe and Leslie stuff is delicious. The solo guitar soaring is great. Loved the percussion and vinyl speed drop. To quote "The Crunge", excuse me, where's that confounded bridge? Oh wait, it's in there :) I like that.

@DrewJD82
OMG!!! This like driving the Autobahn in a Chiron Super Sport 300+. Too much for me to take in personally, but I very much respect the effort. The mix output is kinda low relative to the other postings here. I dig the wha lead.

That's it. I hope I get everyone.

That's super cool and generous of you @TJontheRoad . I'll give my mixing engineer your notes.
I hope everyone else appreciates this as much as I do.

 

[la szum]

Hopefully everyone who participated got the first submission ebee jeebies over with! You all already proved you’re more capable than you thought or let onto, so ya’ll can blow that stuff out your asses!!

I’m trying to get the motivation to go do the drum tracks for this coming week’s submission, this next one will have to run Sunday-Saturday. And note, this will most certainly be the last time I submit the drum tracks simply because I don’t have that many full songs ready to go like that and if I program them myself I won’t have time to do anything else.

If anyone has full song MIDI’s they want to send me I’d be more than happy to run them through SD3 and make the tracks, though!

As a reminder, there are a ton of free drum tracks out there (MIDI and .Wav). A little effort on our part to
search some of this stuff down isn't too outlandish to ask for.

 

[la szum]

20 of us took the Polar Plunge in the first week by my count. That's pretty f'ing great!

 

[DrewJD82]

Those squeals totally sound like the Dime wah pedal variety, but I don't see a wah listed in your gear. Am I off base with that?

I just realized you might be talking out the very end, that’s just me f*cking with the Whammy in the AxeFX because I need to use it in everything like a comfy blanky.

 

[DrewJD82]

View attachment 3720
The mobile recording rig! I’m loving the Ernie Ball headphone/instrument combo cable for this use!

That’s killer!!

 

[Alex Kenivel]

Hopefully everyone who participated got the first submission ebee jeebies over with! You all already proved you’re more capable than you thought or let onto, so ya’ll can blow that stuff out your asses!!

I’m trying to get the motivation to go do the drum tracks for this coming week’s submission, this next one will have to run Sunday-Saturday. And note, this will most certainly be the last time I submit the drum tracks simply because I don’t have that many full songs ready to go like that and if I program them myself I won’t have time to do anything else.

If anyone has full song MIDI’s they want to send me I’d be more than happy to run them through SD3 and make the tracks, though!

Sunday?? I already stated drunk tracking last night!

of course I deleted all the takes cuz it was mostly on a

Did some retracking of the 7th heaven ripoff inspired-riff today before at my Mac because Reaper likes to change the play rate on my media items out of the blue, rendering the past hour of work wasted

 

[la szum]

Sunday?? I already stated drunk tracking last night!

of course I deleted all the takes cuz it was mostly on a

Did some retracking of the 7th heaven ripoff inspired-riff today before at my Mac because Reaper likes to change the play rate on my media items out of the blue, rendering the past hour of work wasted

Bad karma comes to those who try and get an headstart.

 

[Alex Kenivel]

Bad karma comes to those who try and get an headstart.

MFer by the time I get this machine to cooperate it'll be Sunday!

 

[la szum]

Sorry man. Technical difficulties suck ass.

 

[Alex Kenivel]

Sorry man. Technical difficulties suck ass.

It's not that bad, really. I'm just playing around . Saved my project, I just need to cool it with all the time sig changes

 

[DrewJD82]

Sunday?? I already stated drunk tracking last night!

of course I deleted all the takes cuz it was mostly on a

Did some retracking of the 7th heaven ripoff inspired-riff today before at my Mac because Reaper likes to change the play rate on my media items out of the blue, rendering the past hour of work wasted

That’s fine, man. The rules are pretty loose, the whole spirit of it is to get people flexing some creativity so as long as you’re working on something during the challenge you’re fine to post it. Wrapping up a mix from a song from last year is kinda eh, but if it’s a bunch of riffs you have that haven’t been organized or you demo’d the song but didn’t track it for real, that’s all fine.

 

[Stone]

I was going to get home and do the vocals and a few more cracks at the solo but I've got friends over and I doubt I'll be able to do anything by the time they leave. I still want to do vocals on this one, I got most of the parts written in my head. And a better solo. The mix is a bit f*cky with the solo volume, just a bit too loud but I'm not gonna start mixing now.



Guitar- Solar E-type
Amp-AxeFX using a dual-amp preset, IIC++ on one side and Dual Rec on the other. The guitars are double tracked and when I did the 2nd track I reversed the cab panning, so basically each amp is on each side to fulfill an OCD thing in me. I just prefer things balanced like that instead of an entirely different tone in each speaker, but I'm working on it.

Bass- Spector Pulse, preset is a JCM800 into an 8x10 and a DI.

Drums SD3 and I chopped the sh*t out of that drum track. Sometimes I just can't force something out and the dance/hi-hat pump section and the other section I cut out were just making me not enjoy working on it, so I went with keeping the song uptempo the whole way through so I could feel thoroughly stressed while getting all those palm mutes double tracked tightly.

It's a whole different thing mixing something at this tempo, I never realized how much of an effect that would have on everything the higher the tempo. I also initially had this in drop-D but when it wasn't working out with the Edwards I switched to the Solar in drop-C. I prefer it in D, but only because of the tension of the strings.

Drum tracks for the next one won't be posted til tomorrow, FYI!

Damn Drew that was heavy as F*uck
Gotta love this thread

 

[SymphonicDischord]

Damn guys, hats off. I was thinking this would be a really cool thing to do (had some family things come up this week which derailed guitar) but after making it through the entries on just the first 7 pages it's clear I should probably just stay on the porch while the big dogs run. I'll come back in a while with some specific individual comments, but just to you all as a group, brav-freaking-o!!!

Honestly man there’s always the bi-weekly challenge and then you’re still on track. That’s my goal. I don’t think life will allow me to keep up weekly but I can make bi-weekly work. Plus, it’s tumbleweeds over there. In my head I won’t be directly compared to these excellent submissions. It’ll be like I’m on the B team which suits me fine.

 

[Mongillo19]

Honestly man there’s always the bi-weekly challenge and then you’re still on track. That’s my goal. I don’t think life will allow me to keep up weekly but I can make bi-weekly work. Plus, it’s tumbleweeds over there. In my head I won’t be directly compared to these excellent submissions. It’ll be like I’m on the B team which suits me fine.

B Team Squad rise up lol

 

[Bruce]

I really don’t know what to say, but that it was just freakin ton of fun fella‘s… Thank you.

Thanks for putting up with all the multi-tracking.

Someone stop me before I go to buy all the s**t I need to actually do this, incl lessons… lol

Guitars: PRS P24 LR Baggs doing 12 strings; Strat for most everything else. Including bass.

AxeFx3: ‘59 Bassman, Bogner 20th, Ric O’ twelve

Ok, I’m feeling this from the drop, like from the 1st note!

 

[Bruce]

Here's mine.

GEAR USED:
Drums: Beta Monkey loops & hits
Bass: 1994 Ibanez EXB445 w/Bartolini pups, Helix preset w/Stupor OD pedal, Soldano Lead Amp, Mesa 610 Bass Cali Cab
Guitar 1: 2017 Jackson JS22 Franken-7 (modded with Hipshot bridge, Nazgul bridge pup, Hipshot locking tuners)
Guitar 1 amp & FX: Helix preset w/Stupor OD pedal, Soldano Lead Amp, Mesa Cali V30 Cab
Guitar 2: 2017 Jackson JS22 Franken-7 (modded with Hipshot bridge, Nazgul bridge pup, Hipshot locking tuners)
Guitar 2 amp & FX: Helix preset w/Stupor OD, ANGL Meteor Amp, Ola Englund Mesa OS Cab IR
Guitar 3: 2020 Jackson HT7Pro Series DKNYw/Fishman Classics
Guitar 3 amp & FX: Helix preset w/Stupor OD, Das Bensen Mega (Deizel), Ola Englund Mesa OS Cab IR
Guitar 4: 2020 Jackson HT7Pro Series DKNYw/Fishman Classics
Guitar 4 amp & FX: Helix preset w/Stupor OD, German Ubersonic, Uber 412 V30 Cab

SFX: swiped off Youtube - taken original from the old horror movie Prince of Darkness

Guitars 1 & 2 panned left, 3 & 4 panned right

DAW: Garageband
Interface: Scarlet 2i2 gen 1.

I think that's it...

Had a good listen. Super angry stuff!

 

[Bruce]

Hello, folks of TGF!

This is my submission to this week's challenge and my first post also here in TGF. Recorded this just today based on an unrecorded song idea I had way back in 2018.

Gear used:

Takamine acoustic
Charvel Dk24
Focusrite Scarlett Solo
Cakewalk Bandlab
Helix Native

Love the chord progression here. Sounds well tracked. In my mind I play acoustic like this. Until I sit down with my Taylor and belt out the same 3 chord cowboy shit. Some tasty lead stuff happening too

 

[Bruce]

Okay, here's my submission:


Started writing/recording on Saturday, finished up recording vocals and mixing this morning (Sunday).

Gear used: 2012 Mac Mini with Reaper Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 Gen2, 22 DAW tracks total - 3 of which are Parent/Master tracks.

Guitar: Ibanez Prestige AZ2402-PWF - 6 tracks, 3 DI tracks using Helix Native and three live recorded tracks using an HX Stomp and when needed - my Creambackatana for feedback in the room.

1. Rhythm L: Horizon Drive - Placater Dirty - Dual GB25 4x12 cabs using 57/121 mics (50% L)
2. Rhythm R: Horizon Drive - Badonk - Dual Cali V30 4x12 cabs using 47FET/SM7 mics (50% R)
3. Lead R: Horizon Drive - Badonk - Dual Cali V30 4x12 cabs using 47FET/SM7 mics (40% R)
4. Lead L: (Tracked live with HX Stomp) Wah - Dlx. Comp. - Essex A30 - Alex Cab Heavy Cream 3 IR - Transistor Tape and Dynamic Plate used for the spacey outro. (40% L)
5. Fuzz 1 (Tracked Live with Stomp) Dlux Comp - KWB - A30 - Heavy Cream 3 IR (Center)
6. Fuzz 2 (Tracked Live with Stomp) Dlux Comp - "Ring Fuzz" (Bighorn Fuzz/Pitch Ring Mod) - US Princess - Heavy Cream 3 IR (Center)

Bass: Ibanez TMB100 - 2 Tracks, both DI with Helix Native.

1. Bass Dirt: Vital Dist (Parallel) - 60s Bias Trem - Ampeg SVT-4 PRO - Script Mod Phase
2. Bass Clean - Factory 1 Preset 036 - BAS:Cougar 800 + High shelf boost +6.2db @ 2kHz

Drums are my Pearl Roadshow kit, sh*tty stock snare head that I need to change, 14" Zildjian A Custom Projection Hats, 17" Zildjian Z Custom Rock Crash, and augmented with XLN Audio Addictive Drums 2. Mics on drums are from a $300 Samson Drum mic kit with a Shure SM57 on snare. Waves CLA-2A on the dual overhead mics, FF Pro-Q 3 and Saturn on the snare. Waves H-Reverb added to the last tom hits at the end.

The Snare is blended about 50% with a sample from AD2 using some room reverb. Kick is blended about 50% with a sample from AD2 as well. Rack and floor tom are 100% replaced -- all using Audio to MIDI plugin.

Three tracks of Vocals - recorded with a handheld SM57, processed with Waves CLA-2A, some Low cut from FF Pro-q 3, and driven with the Warm Tape setting in FF Saturn, with some H-Reverb for the end parts.

Waves MetaFlanger on the mix bus for the intro (along with some bandpass filtering). and some subtle flanging on the outro.

First time actually trying vocals in this style. The lyrics are inspired by my trippy dreams, practicing lucid dreaming, and living with medication.

Flanger got my attention. Always does. Kudos for tracking real drums. That’s work. Good listen

 

[Alex Kenivel]

Flanger got my attention. Always does. Kudos for tracking real drums. That’s work. Good listen

I only added the flange after the flange discussion

 

[Bruce]

Ok, I'm not gonna have time to do anything original this week, but I didn't want to miss out on the first week submission, so here's a cover of one of my all-time favorite songs I threw together this morning.




The drums are one of the GarageBand automated drummers

Everything else you hear is:
- Gibson Les Paul Standard
- Marshall DSL40CR
- York Audio IRs (Matchless 212 + Bassman 410)

Reverb, compression, and delay are from GarageBand


Even though it's not an original, I still learned a ton from doing this. Every time I record I'm reminded of what a horrible tendency I have to push and be in front of the beat.. I need to work on my timing in general. This was a really good reminder of that.

The hardest part to record was actually the rhythm guitar that's just plunking out chords under the whole song. Keeping that steady was challenging. At first I tried to do it in sections, but I realized there was too much discrepancy if I didn't do it all through in one take.

Another thing I'm learning listening back to this is that my reference headphones are super bass heavy so this sounds WAY thinner and brighter than what I thought I was mixing. Definitely something I'll have to keep in mind next time

Oh god. Good for you. Great recording here. I knew by the 4th chord there was going to be some music happening. I too push the beat. My cure is when I’m aware of it, I dont do it so I always remind myself going in. I’m currently going over a guitar book for a musical Im doing and there is some big band style swing kinda kicking my ass hard.