Elhombre's Axe Laboratory Options

[ElHombre]

Yes its too bad selling it really its a nice american made instrument. But I doesnt play well anymore. Using the whammy bar get it out of tune etc. It feels like my ibanez can do everything better than the fender.Also the pickups are really nothing special its as stock as It can be.

[Cosmin Lupu]

Mate, you know best, so go ahead and sell it if that is your heart's desire

[ElHombre]

I made the deal for the guitar. Dont know about the fender though
I will record something for the Night collab with the new guitar I hope

[Cosmin Lupu]

Great man! Always glad to have you onboard! How is everything going with the practicing?

[ElHombre]

Its going well mostly doing theory now when I dont have my IBanez and awaiting my new guitar.
Im thinking maybe I could learn some chord progressions (which I havent learned so much of) meanwhile while harmonising and learning scales and I could make some backings and improvise I would learn much at once then
What do you think

[Cosmin Lupu]

Hey man! Sure thing! for this kind of stuff I TOTALLY recommend picking up famous songs from all the big bands and figuring out the chord progressions. Start with the Beatles hey, why don't you pick up 5 Beatles songs which you like and we can discuss the chord progressions! What do you say?

Cosmin

[ElHombre]

Yes I can pick out a few songs, just a question.
Well soon I will get my new guitar and my Ibanez back, which one should I use for drop tuning for your lessons?
The Ibanez will have thinner strings than the ESP I think.

Anyway Im kind of careful with the neck, tuning it down and up again doesnt it hurt the neck?

[Cosmin Lupu]

Usually, the one having a fixed bridge is always better to downtune I don't like using floyds anymore, frankly

[ElHombre]

My new guitar will have a fixed bridge I have never played a guitar with a fixed bridge before lol
anyway cosmin will have to interupt my praticing to work with my new songs + mixing them.
I will need to be done before april the 30th. The most important is to get a decent mix, not a pro mix of course but im leaving them in for a test, so I might redo the songs properly later with some more inovative guitar playing. I wont rush them though.

Hope you can help me, your mixing skills will be more than enough to help me I guess. Its just some basic mixing that needs to be done

This post has been edited by ElHombre: Apr 17 2012, 07:11 PM

[Cosmin Lupu]

hey Erik!

I usually don't use any secret ingredient but here's what I do:

- take care to make all the tracks defined and audible in the mix (recording as clean as possible will help A LOT and taking care that the volumes are balanced among themselves)
- add compressions to the guitar tracks
- double the riff tracks
- add reverb or delay on the melodies or solos

That's pretty much what I am doing

Hope it helps mate

Cosmin

This post has been edited by Cosmin Lupu: Apr 18 2012, 10:21 AM

[ElHombre]

Okey well I have done some things to my track you mentioned above
I will have to add and EQ in reaper though it would be good for the tests I dont know how to use one

[Cosmin Lupu]

I think the tube helps a lot man, that little AMT machine has done a big deal of recording for me and I never added any EQ on top of the actual tone from the recording.

I have no connection to AMT whatsoever in terms of endorsement or dealing and all that, but I really recommend it, both stage and home

Cosmin

[ElHombre]

Is there a compressor and sustainer built in reaper?
And what AMT?

[Cosmin Lupu]

Hey Erik! I have no experience with the Reaper, but I found this:



and this

http://mixingtips.org/forum/mixing-tips-%2...sion-in-reaper/

regarding the AMT:

http://amtelectronicsusa.com/productpagess20.html





Cosmin

[ElHombre]

Hi cosmin. Been in germany for a few days.
Can you help me out with my new song idea? I attatched it to this post.

Its supposed to be a happy instrumental rock song, with a real summer feel.
I have some ideas regarding the rythm and the starting solo line.

I dont know what chords I should use though and in the rythm you can hear the playing between the chords I am not really sure how to get them to fit in could you help me out?

Then the song should change between that and some chords that are picked, and I could play some pentatonic over that.
Cheers

Attached File(s)

 newsongidea.mp3 ( 639.59K ) Number of downloads: 22

 

[ElHombre]

cosmin?

[Cosmin Lupu]

Hey mate, didn't forget about ya I was thinking that, you could do something a bit Satriani oriented, as a feel I'd say, I took my time before answering this as I wanted to come up with some ideas for ya

I'll think of something and be back with some ideas, k?

Cosmin

[ElHombre]

okey thanks comsin

[ElHombre]

Well the most difficult thing would be to choose a good chord progression.
For example in a marco sfogli song i transcribed, which has some satriani influences, he used:

E, D, C#, C# playing the notes (D,C#,A) E(hammering on an A note), D, C#, A, B.
Then he played some pentatonics over two chords.

Very cool progression, but I dont know really which one.
He played in E. So we have I=E, IV= A VI=C#, B=V, but D doesnt belong?


Then, do you need to play only the chord notes, or can you play any notes in the E major scale togheter with that chord?
I want to play the E chord, then B-G-A-B

This post has been edited by ElHombre: May 2 2012, 05:23 PM

[Cosmin Lupu]

Hey Erik! You can play any note belonging to the E major scale if the progression is based on chords harmonizing the E major scale. Now the note choice depends on you

If we stick to this idea, the progression you suggested E B G A B should have the G#minor chord rather than the G chord. G#minor is formed on the 3rd step of the E major chord.

Basically, you should first start with a melody and a chord progression This one for instance (the chord progression above) - what sort of a melodic theme would you come up with over it? If you want that summer feel (Satriani's Summer Song for instance ) you should try something super catchy.

My suggestion is: record these chords and make a loop out of them. Then start singing all sorts of lines in your head until you find one which you are satisfied with. NO NOT stop at the first idea this will be the nasty part as it may seem that it can take forever, but trust me, this is a sure footed way to get your melodic sense and compositional skills sharpened

Would you like to try this?

Cosmin