Solo of the Month (SotM) #100 - Challenge

stratman3142

It's a special occasion. This is the 100th solo of the Month (SotM) Challenge !!!

Perhaps we should break out the champagne or something.

The challenge is now open and ends at midnight 23rd November 2023

Discussion:

The honour of providing the backing track to SotM100 goes to @flying_pie

You can download the backing track from Soundcloud below:

https://soundcloud.com/thefretboard/sotm100-flying-pie-cyrusthanemums?si=5f2a874a71b84fd9b2021b0e0c65092a&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Brief:

Here's a brief from @flying_pie:

"In the good old nostalgic days you’d find pop songs with a banger of a guitar solo, often by Luke or Landau to bring some joy to our hearts. But in the sad vacuum that is modern pop music that has all but disappeared. Your challenge is to restore the glory.

This might sound very loosely similar to a 2023 pop song but that’s fine because that particular song blatantly ripped off Gloria Gaynor in terms of song subject, chord structure and the strings arrangement so it’s fair game for us to play with. Good luck!"

Track Info:

120bpm

Am Dm G C F Dm E E7

Am Dm G C F Dm E E7

Am Dm G C F Dm E E7 E E7 (Am)

Record your solo over the top of it and then submit it (ideally in mp3 format) to solos@theFB.co.uk

Also, feel free to comment on how you approached the solo, which will add a bit more interest and maybe we can learn something from each other.

There should be headroom to record your solo. Try to set a level without excessive master limiting, because we want to avoid loudness wars.

Voting will start soon after the submission deadline, with each voter selecting their 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice.

First choice gets 5 points - Second choice gets 3 points - Third choice gets 1 point

The order and scores of the top three entries will be announced soon after the voting ends.

No prizes. It's just for fun.

As people submit their entries, I'll post them below to hopefully promote some discussion on approaches used for the solo:

https://soundcloud.com/thefretboard/sets/sotm100-2023-11?si=89d65697b79e468890ab7a4c5acdfa4d&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

fastonebaz

Hopefully I'll survive this round. 

digitalkettle

fastonebaz said:

Hopefully I'll survive this round. 

I'm sure you'll be strong enough.

fastonebaz

Sent one in.

This time I comp'd some of the lead bits.  I wanted to get a little bit of a tail overlap between sections.

I stuck a mild Honky Tonk effect on my lead bus at the end, kind of gave a slight accordion effect which I liked.

100 SOTMs for the team, whoop!  

stratman3142

fastonebaz said:

Sent one in.

It's in the playlist.

fastonebaz

stratman3142 said:

fastonebaz said:

Sent one in.

It's in the playlist.

Hmm the mix sounded spot on in my earbuds but a bit off in the car today.   I might need to tweak it. 

fastonebaz

Tweaked version sent in. 

I realised I'd overlooked something with the levels and eq before rendering and also that I'd previously been experimenting with extreme eq curve on my phone audio player so when doing a final listen back with my earbuds I couldn't hear the mixing errors I'd forgotten about.  Doh! 

Also removed thy honk effect.  Whose idea was that eh  

Or I'm just terrible at mixing and partially deaf  

stratman3142

fastonebaz said:

Tweaked version sent in. 

Updated version is in the playlist.

fastonebaz

Thanks. 

I deliberately left in my opening trail artefact.  I quite liked it. 

Bellycaster

Sent one in.

I used my Strat on the neck pick up, then switch to bridge for final section. I did a kind of Ghost Double Tracking on the solo.

stratman3142

Bellycaster said:

Sent one in.

It's in the playlist.

stratman3142

Mine's in the playlist. Listening to the entries now, I think I've inadvertently nicked one of @Bellycaster's licks

I've called it 'Compalot' because there's certainly a lot of comping on this one. I was partly using it as a way of learning the 'comp in lanes' feature in Reaper 7.
 

Bellycaster

stratman3142 said:

Mine's in the playlist. Listening to the entries now, I think I've inadvertently nicked one of @Bellycaster's licks

I've called it 'Compalot' because there's certainly a lot of comping on this one. I was partly using it as a way of learning the 'comp in lanes' feature in Reaper 7.
 

You must be the first one to ever have nicked one of my licks. Definitely had to be an accident 

flying_pie

Sent one in

This was a single take... Almost. I split the start section into a different track as I felt it needed a scooped EQ to be less prominent in the mix. I also dropped in the harmonic minor part at the end as I hadn't fully thought it out but thought the rest sounded okay enough and couldn't be bothered doing loads of full takes until I sorted the ending!

stratman3142

flying_pie said:

Sent one in

It's in the playlist.

DrCornelius

Sent one in after not being involved for too long (laptop/interface issues).  Have been watching/listening from afar during that time and the quality has been fantastic and so far this months is no exception !

My one is my CU24 into Garageband - I can't mix for toffee so it sounds a bit unpolished unfortunately

Ive just listened to @Flying Pie's entry and its exactly what I wanted mine to sound like in my head, unfortunately there a bit of a talent gap there !

Bennyboy-UK

I like this backing - I keep coming back to it but not put anything down yet  

stratman3142

Entry closes at midnight tonight.

stratman3142

DrCornelius said:

Sent one in ...

It's in the playlist.

stratman3142

The might be a slight delay in starting the voting. I should be able to get things sorted by Sunday. So feel free to send any further entries after the deadline.