(Discussion Thread) - Fretboard Challenge #3 - Entries

Antique_Guitars · July 2014

Hi Everyone,

Please use this thread to discuss all the entries for Fretboard Challenge #3.

thecolourbox · July 2014

Excellent work again guys! A remarkable variety once again so well done for making me feel bad for giving up on my ability to play anything except barre chords in quaver rhythms.

In particular I enjoyed @daveww where I kept expecting Tim Buckley to start singing at any given moment. an excellent vibe man, I like it

Congrats all for giving it a good go with some difficult chords to match together

I'm now going to listen again for a C# anywhere

Antique_Guitars · July 2014

Thanks to everyone who submitted, great stuff as always!

Thanks for making this challenge fun and interesting.

8-X

steamabacus · July 2014

Excellent entries again this time, Well done, chaps.

I'll need another couple of listens to pick my top three. I'm going to take it on trust that nobody has smuggled any illegal substitutions into their luggage.

mellowsun · July 2014

Some great entries, particularly in the backing and instrumentation, some great beats here. Tough to make a decision, so I'm going to give it a few days and some more listens before picking my top three.

Love @Basher's logo, what a great piece of art!

daveww · July 2014

+1 to @basher for the art work! I know who my top two are but still undecided about the order. Need to have a few more listens to decide. All in all some really nice inventive stuff. Basher and Fretwired great and both very Floyd like

The recordings are great and to compete I'm going to have get my head around some more advanced software in the future me thinks. Love the tone on Ttony's lead work. Has a great atmospheric sort of late night distant vibe. Love the way Steamabacus builds as it progresses through the recording. Mellowsun is just overall a nice chill vibe and Skaloey is very inventive. Difficult choice!

not_the_dj · July 2014

Great stuff from everyone. Really really difficult to decide, but I have and my votes are cast.

I like the new voting system btw.

Personally I found this one really hard (possibly why I failed in getting anything down to enter myself). I'll make sure I make more of an effort in the next one!

Basher · July 2014

I agree that there are some great entries in this one. I found the voting really difficult and it's sad that we've had to select three from seven. On another day I may have chosen differently.

Maybe we should adopt a Tour de France jersey system for general composition (yellow), king of the changes (polkadot) and best saturated tone (brown)

TBH, I hate the voting thing. I just like listening to what everyone comes up with. Interesting that Fretwired heard the chords as very Floyd-like too, although I think he did a better job of impersonating them. I was going for a slightly more "proggy" vibe but the mellow 6/8 groove I used seemed to lead me back into a "Live at Pompeii" feel.

I think this was a very hard challenge but on the plus side, there's been no "pentatonic noodling" and I found everything that was submitted was harmonically very interesting. Oddly enough, I'd never have guessed that everyone had to use the same three chords, despite their distinctive sound.

Hopefully, the next one will be a bit more open to interpretation and we'll have a few more entries.

TTony · July 2014

I have just voted.

@skarloey got first place from me - because of how he managed to turn those 3 odd chords into a really coherent and realistic piece of music. I could absolutely hear that in its suggested theme tune role.

Note to self; must try harder - much, much harder.

fatherjack · July 2014

@skarloey for me as well - plenty of good stuff in all of the entries, but his and @steamabacus both went in a direction I wasn't expecting.

mellowsun · July 2014

Tough to decide, and I don't really like voting (can we ditch voting next time and just do this for fun?). Still, a decision has to be made. Loved the overall sound and production on @Basher's track, @skarloey's concept was really original and I love Lalo Shifrin's work so this had to be in there, and enjoyed the Pink Floyd vibe of @Fretwired's track.

Fretwired · July 2014

Thanks to everyone who voted for my track .. :-)

An interesting task which got my little grey cells working overtime. What's really impressed me is the overall standard which is very high. Can't wait for the next challenge.

steamabacus · July 2014

@thomasross20 asked about drum software over on the voting thread.

I did mine using Addictive Drums. I'm still acclimatising myself to using this with Cubase but it's pretty easy to get to grips with the basics - lots of preset patterns (my main groove is based on an AD preset), usable kits and easy to mix the sound (especially with tweaking the room mics level).

thomasross20 · July 2014

Thanks for the info! I used to do lots of recording on my computer but have done none for years now...

Basher · July 2014

Drum wise - I used Jamstix for the basic pattern (6/8 rock using the "Phil" drummer model). However, I didn't use a Jamstix kit. I used the midi from Jamstix to drive my new Abbey Road drums (late 60s kit) that came with NI Komplete (a recent acquisition).

I have a love hate thing going with Jamstix. If you can nail something quickly then it's great but I find it almost impossible to tweak patterns effectively. The multitude of parameters very rarely seem to do what I expect them to do and this can be incredibly frustrating. I never use the "jam" mode and use it just to generate patterns. It also seems really buggy. Whenever I try to export an entire track as a midi file (for fine editing) it never comes out right!

I will experiment with the drum stuff that comes with Komplete. It seems to be just a case of using midi loops, which has the benefit of simplicity but the selection of styles and fills is nowhere near as great as the variety you can generate with Jamstix. I'm sure there's a happy medium somewhere but I'm skint so I will persevere with my current setup.

daveww · July 2014

Thanks for those that voted for me and all those that took the trouble to listen and vote for the others. I had great fun doing it and look forward to the next challenges. Hope we get more entering and voting in the future.

@thomasross20 My drums were generated using the instant drummer on ipad version of garage band. You can generate random patterns then add drums and move them up and down in the mix. The rest was just recorded live into garageband for ipad using my little Yamaha THR10C and an apogee mic'.

thomasross20 · August 2014

Interesting... I intend to enter the next competition with just raw guitars but hopefully will get drums into the mix in future, if I can be @rsed!

steamabacus · August 2014

@thomasross20 There's no need to feel you have to submit a 'full-on' production job. Just guitars is fine. For Fretboard Challenge #1 I used just my guitar and a looper pedal.

thomasross20 · August 2014

Hmm, I have the TC Flashback pedal which has a 40s looper on it - might try that.... thanks!
(Or may even just do an acoustic piece). Can't wait to do this zombie-themed one!

mellowsun · August 2014

steamabacus said:

@thomasross20 There's no need to feel you have to submit a 'full-on' production job. Just guitars is fine. For Fretboard Challenge #1 I used just my guitar and a looper pedal.

Same here, just a guitar and a Strymon Timeline in my case.

daveww · August 2014

This how I wish I'd done the drums!

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Apologies - link won't work..

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(Discussion Thread) - Fretboard Challenge #3 - Entries

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