(Discussion Thread) - Fretboard Challenge #4- Entries

Antique_Guitars · September 2014

Hi Everyone,

Please use this thread to discuss all the entries for Fretboard Challenge #4.

steamabacus · September 2014

It's a difficult choice again! I'm going to have to mull this over a bit before I can pick my top three but congratulations to everybody on some excellent entries. And we've even got a bit of 'controversy' again to spice up proceedings.
X_X

Love these challenges.

thomasross20 · September 2014

Ooh controversy!

Haha, enjoyed listening to those. Will vote this weekend

Fretwired · September 2014

Bending the rules is part of the game .. ;-)

Antique_Guitars · September 2014

So yes a few people have slighly bent the rules in a minor way and one person has bent it in a larger way. As always I try to be pretty flexible as it is a fun challenge so people can vote for any of them if they feel it sits within the spirit of the competition.

I will just please ask people to be aware of the rules of the various competitions in future and if there are any grey areas please ask a question and I'm sure we can sort it out. I don't want to get too serious about it but it would be good to follow the challenges a teeny weeny bit more strictly
<:-P

Fretwired · September 2014

Antique_Guitars said:

So yes a few people have slighly bent the rules in a minor way and one person has bent it in a larger way. As always I try to be pretty flexible as it is a fun challenge so people can vote for any of them if they feel it sits within the spirit of the competition.

I will just please ask people to be aware of the rules of the various competitions in future and if there are any grey areas please ask a question and I'm sure we can sort it out. I don't want to get too serious about it but it would be good to follow the challenges a teeny weeny bit more strictly
<:-P

Fair enough .. I have no problem with rules and my comments should not be construed as criticism. I should have read the rules properly. Perhaps my entry should be excluded as it doesn't meet the rules being too long ...

Antique_Guitars · September 2014

Don't worry you followed the rules you just went over a little bit, not a major issue honestly. You composed for the vid and a little bit of an outro:-). Your entry as with all of the shall stay. Good luck to all of you who entered!

thecolourbox · September 2014

Hurrah! This will brighten up my journey into and out of work today listening to and watching these

I'd like to point out mine would have been much better if *somebody* hadn't taken it out of the freezer and left it to melt

TTony · September 2014

Just given them all a quick listen.

Hmmm.

I think I have my top4 based on initial reaction, but will need to listen again.

I did spend 10 mins trying to sync Grunfeld's entry to a copy of the original video running in a different window ... and then realised that they're of different lengths, so gave up on that one I'm afraid.

Lev · September 2014

Just submitted my vote, really excellent work by everyone. I loved the more modern takes of @Fretwired and @theColourbox and how well they work with the vintage footage. I think I got too carried away with syncing up sound effects.

Not sure what everyone was using but Reaper was absolutely brilliant for this, I could import the video and it just added it as an additional track in the project. It popped up a little video player each time it played which made it so easy to sync up to the video with other audio tracks in the project.

steamabacus · September 2014

Lev said:

Not sure what everyone was using but Reaper was absolutely brilliant for this, I could import the video and it just added it as an additional track in the project. It popped up a little video player each time it played which made it so easy to sync up to the video with other audio tracks in the project.

That's exactly how my version of Cubase is supposed to work. But I've got an old computer, an old version of Cubase and a couple of different media players - they just wouldn't play nicely with each other.

I know it's possible but I just didn't have the time and energy to get it all working. I had a grand plan to record something very similar to the 'Unquiet Spirit' track that I submitted but with pecussion, bass and guitar played along to the film to emphasise the action.

What I ended up with is, I feel, more akin to a music video than a soundtrack. I have great admiration for anyone who managed to sync up their track with the action - whether as a more modern 'soundtrack' with effects, etc or as an old-fashioned 'silent movie' style piece improvised along with the action.

And then there's Grunfeld's masterpiece! Definitely stretching the challenge brief to breaking point. I'm trying to decide how important that is to my voting decisions. Absolutely stunning piece of work, though.
=D>

Lev · September 2014

steamabacus said:
What I ended up with is, I feel, more akin to a music video than a soundtrack. I have great admiration for anyone who managed to sync up their track with the action - whether as a more modern 'soundtrack' with effects, etc or as an old-fashioned 'silent movie' style piece improvised along with the action.

I thoroughly enjoyed your video, I think you got the feel and tension in your composition spot on.

steamabacus · September 2014

@Lev Thanks, although as I said in the entries thread, I feel I 'cheated' a little as this was a pre-existing piece I adapted and edited for this challenge. It was the original inspiration for what I intended to do had I managed to get video working in Cubase. At the last minute I suddenly realised I could probably just use the piece as it was. It seemed to work quite well when I finally heard it along with the video for the first time.

I guess my life must just feel like being chased by zombies!
>:D<

thecolourbox · September 2014

I essentially decided i wanted it to be 32 bars (8x4 bar loop riff), the vid was roughly 90 seconds, so my metronome needed to be roughly 85 to 90 to get 32 bars in. Set the drum going then just made a racket over the loop. Hence the lack of coordination with the vid and me also overunning by (i think) 6 seconds...

Used Cubase, Zoom g3, an undisclosed mix of guitar and synth (guitorgan?) and an old mans voice

can not wait to watch these later!

Fretwired · September 2014

Thanks @Lev .. I liked your track as well.

Mine was produced in two hours using NI Maschine for the drums, Roland GR55 for various bass sounds and a Strat through a clean amp sim with a Strymon Blue Sky for the ambient guitar noise. This was dumped into Cubase and the sounds manipulated using Izotope Alloy and Trash and Steinberg plugins.

thomasross20 · September 2014

Crikey!! I just recorded straight to mic playing my Larrivee acoustic! I think my entries are way too raw in comparison to you guys

Loved the entries, though - and will vote in due course!

daveww · September 2014

Good stuff everyone who entered and thanks Skarloey and TTony for the votes. Interesting the different ideas on all of them! I've only had a quick listen this morning before going off to work. So I'll put the headphones on and give them all a thorough good listening to before casting my votes tonight.

Mine was played and recorded straight into a mic' as well on my THR10 amp so it's also pretty raw as with all my stuff. Added the little bit of drumming in the background freestyle in garageband. Did want to put a comic doorbell in for effect when she went to the house door but couldn't find a good sample.....

steamabacus · September 2014

So, the votes are in from the land of geriatric steam-powered computing....

Firstly, I thought @Grunfeld 's piece was excellent but in the end decided it strayed too far from the challenge brief to get on the podium. Superb, atmospheric piece though - in another challenge it would probably have won.

So my votes went (in reverse order)

3rd - @Lev     ; Great use of sound fx to emphasise the action. I thought your piece was the closest to a 'proper' soundtrack style entry and you managed to do everything I failed with as far as getting the computer to synchronise all the audio and video. Nice credits at the end, too.

2nd - @Daveww   ; Really effective atmosphere and 'vibe'. The playing illustrated the visual action well and the percussion really helped emphasise the action. I liked the 'Phew! I'm safe now' chord at the end as well.

1st - @Thecolourbox  ; I loved the guitar on this and I'm a sucker for a bit of William Blake. Maybe more of a 'music vid' style than 'film soundtrack' but the music and images went together really well - a bit like those old B&W films they used on The Old Grey Whistle Test. Is this the same guy who posted a thread about giving up the guitar because he wasn't any good? Bollocks! I hear talent there.

thecolourbox · September 2014

@thomasross20 superb playing there to follow the video, was really effective at getting the panic and tension across. Works remarkably well on acoustic, its almost like a sketch to go with the black and white vid

@daveww really like your feeling of motion as well, really could imagine it mariachi style with a banging drum as well

@fretwired really interesting and different groove for the fretboard, looked coherant and like an actual mash up music vid style, with a lovely building up of texture

@lev wow, sounded like jools Holland being possessed by demons, in an awesome way. Boogie woogie from hell and a real fitting soundtrack

@grunfeld agree it doesn't fit the brief but who cares outside of that, its very emotive and clearly means something strongly to you so well played for expressing it and getting it out there

@steamabacus smooth man! Love the jazzy drums, very real movement in the piece that matches the zombie frenzy perfectly. I think I've seen that zombie playing bass at my local jazz club actually. Really liked the uneasy atmosphere your piece created. And I'm not just saying that because you were nice to me and gave me five points, my first five points ever. Honestly! Thanks though

@thecolourbox who the frick invited that plank?

thomasross20 · September 2014

Just voted - always hate doing that and leaving people out - would vote for you all lol!

thecolourbox · September 2014

Thanks Thomas, if you're interested the "high pitched wails" you mentioned are effectively two strings held down at the same time on any combination of the top three strings above the 12th fret, bend them up then back again and then slide down the frets. But also heavily mashed up with fx (though all through g3). Its got big muff fuzz on max, volume low, tone to taste, octaver 1&2 octaves below, into the bassman model fairly cranked, then after that the whammy style model on one of the different colours, i think detune), then the marvellous trigger delay. All that just to make a scream noise...vive le multi fx

Grunfeld · September 2014

thomasross20 said:

Very atmospheric - was that your voice!?

@thomasross20 -- yep, sounds like me. I tried a text-to-speech program but it sounded like Stephen Hawking which was not what I was aiming for!

thomasross20 · September 2014

Wow, lots of FX lol!!

Grun, cool voice then lol...

thecolourbox · September 2014

Ha indeed, masks the playing underneath somewhat...

thomasross20 · September 2014

Nonsense!

Lev · September 2014

Wow, can't believe I've picked up a few votes, genuinely chuffed at that.

My recording process was this:

Created 2 tracks using my Alesis Q49 keyboard with Air Ignite instruments. One track was a vocal choir effect and then added the piano riff on top of that. I had experimented quite a bit with adding drums but it just didn't seem to fit the video. In the end I decided to bring the piano to the forefront and let that drive the rhythm.

Imported these tracks into Reaper and recorded a bass line with a Zoom G3 and then the guitar bends with my Baja Tele into the G3 (Twin models with reverse delay).

All the sound effects were just cobbled together from various Google searches and imported into Reaper. As I said earlier Reaper added the video as a separate track so it was pretty straight forward to sync up the effect clips.

thecolourbox · September 2014

I for one love hearing how the tracks came about, almost as much as listening to them. I'm noticing the g3 (and indeed telecasters!) are getting a good workout on this one in particular

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(Discussion Thread) - Fretboard Challenge #4- Entries

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