Thanks Jim, it's very good you are analysing and breaking down your technique like this. Based just on this video, the following strikes me:

* you might want to experiment with your left hand thumb position, and have it completely behind the neck.

* I saw you had some problems "restarting" the lick at 00:12 - this is a clear indication you are pushing speed too much. With these kinds of fast runs it is extremely important you can pretty much play them in your sleep - otherwise you are not ready to use them in your performances yet. (however in collabs like this one you should of course experiment with them, how could we otherwise discuss these kind of stuff! )

* I would advise you play this super slow over a steady pulse, with both clean and distorted sound. In both cases all notes should be evenly heard and without noise.

Keep woking on it, I like where this is going!






You have got some good advice already. The first thing to do is change your strings (if they are more than 3 weeks old), and when you have done that you can tune your guitar not only by checking the open strings - but a bit further up on the neck - to try and get a compromise.

If changing strings don't solve the issue - you might want to take the guitar to a luthier (most guitar stores can provide this kind of service). Also note that excessive finger pressure (if you fret the notes to hard with your left hand) also can give intonation problems, as this will cause pitch to go sharp.

Let us know if this makes any sense? This is a common problem so it's great we discuss it.



Nice - I don't think this one has any obvious problems (although we could of course polish forever - that's the beauty of it).

Let's compare with your first take:

https://soundcloud.com/stortzmusic/xmas-collab-rough-outline

I think with correct mixing (guitar is too loud) this one will sound great in the final mix. Well done!

I think you have made added a huge amount of musicality to your take, I hope you can take the thought processes we have discussed here with you, in future recordings as well!

Here is my take:



I was a little bit nervous about this one since I felt the need to deliver something 'perfect', having spotted mistakes in everyone else's takes Since there is no such thing as perfect, this was not a very good starting point in the creative process.

So instead I went for something different and experimented more with the 'singing + guitar lead' concept. I called it "pray" since I accidentally [somewhat] sang that word towards the end.

@ Darius - I did a longer take because I wanted it to provide some value to the viewers of my youtube channel as well. Let me know if you think you can fit it in, in the final mix?

Hey Kris,

love your guitar work but don't know what to think about the lyrics actually .
Never know what to expect from you pal!

So here's my new take experimenting with sound and phrasing..

Hahaha....I think it's a big pressure to make a solo after you spotted mistakes in our takes I can say that your solo guitar fits damn great with my taste. Has all the tasty things that I like and your tone it's really awesome!!! It's always a pleasure to watch at your videos. Anyway, after I heard you playing blues in Vchat you are one of my favorite guitarists

Now it's our time to be "instructors"
One little/tiny/invisible thing I would change in your take. I don't say it's a mistake it's just an humble opinion and a matter of taste. I didn't looked after mistakes (please keep this in mind).
At 1:09-1:10 your voice it sound like you lost your breath and apparently your focus is for a second at guitar solo part. You played 1:08 with distors in voice and there sounds awesome. Would have been nice (for my taste) to have used the same distors in voice over 1:10.

Hey Kris your spot on, the speed is well over my limits. I want to keep pushing because I know that I can do it.Darius wanted a recording over the backing, In this example audio I play the same lick but at 16th notes which is very slow compared to the tempo. My hands were completely burned out and could barely play at the time. I did just punch in so.... this is just an example.

I figure what I was trying to play was twice this speed which is too fast. Splitting the difference may do the trick, say 6 notes per beat instead of 8.

Also I have been playing on 11's and even though I am used to them by now, they are quite the workout. I may switch back to my 9's just for comparison.

I'll see if I can overdub the first one and get it to what I had in mind!


https://soundcloud.com/neilwaller/krismas-pleaser-ft
https://soundcloud.com/neilwaller/krismas-pleaser-nbt

This post has been edited by Sensible Jones: Dec 31 2014, 06:14 PM

Wow! Super take Kris

I like how when you get nervous you still pump out a super clean take - when I get nervous I play like I'm getting shock treatment

I got to sit at my amp today and jam a bit during work. Used a ditto looper to rec. the progression from the backing and played over top. Very slowly the ideas that I'm learning here sink in a bit. I still have some time left so I'll give my fingers a tiny break and get back at it before the deadline.

Halfway through I play that lick I'm working on and one lick that you may hear too is a raked d Maj arp then sliding to b5. That is cool and I really like that chord sound. Can I move that shape around to get other chords to ring like that or is it specific to dMaj. Can you flatten any fifth?

Any suggestions on why an amplifier sounds a bit tight/compressed aka not creamy..... Let me know if you know what I'm talking about. The reverb on this amp is real tingy. There is an rca cable going in and coming out of the spring reverb. Do you think I could send that signal through an external reverb unit?

Thanks Monica. You are right about ~01:10 - there are also several places where guitar playing is much weaker than it could have been if I wasn't concentrating on singing as well, for example vibrato during the whole ending, and the whole fast run at 00:53 which has lots of missed notes and weird ending ( I tried to make up for it by adding some tremolo picking). At this point I was very focused on starting the singing in time.

However for each recording I do I feel slight progress, that's why these collabs are golden!

Nice! I really like the vibe of this and I don't see any problem with your sound, it did sound pretty creamy and compressed to me. If you weren't already, you might want to try playing on the neck pickup instead, for even more of that effect.

At 00:17 I noted a typical maj7 shape, is that what you were referring to? You can play that exact same shape over the other chords for a cool substitution effect (it won't sound the same as over a major chord but not bad either). Alternatively you can play similar sweep shapes with other arpeggios, you would get more of stretch though - the maj7 shape is relatively easy to play.

b5 over a major chord is the lydian note and it's usually very pleasant. You can also play the b5 over a minor chord and you will get the blues note (or tritone), depending on what other notes are being played this can sound as locrian or blues.

Generally, I recommend not caring about the scale names - but instead just go for whatever sounds nice to you. Typically if you're playing of a progression that doesn't modulate (like this one) then one cool shape will sound decent over all chords - it can sound completely wrong as well - it all depends on how you use it, which note you end on etc. As far as I can tell from your playing you have a great ear, use it and don't worry about what is considered ok and what isn't!

Keep going!



Thanks Chris! I wasn't very nervous when recording this one, because I had decided to play something "different" rather than something "perfect" which met all the demands I had on you guys.

I am still experimenting with these kinds of "jam" takes where I turn on the camera without having decided exactly what to play. Typically I will rehearse the planned take for a few days and then record. Because the record button triggers something within us, it is impossible to play exactly the way I planned. Now recently I have started to (try to) use this to my advantage, and have more of a jammy vibe.

Previously I would get really pissed off because I couldn't get get it to sound exactly like I wanted, and I would practice until I got it "right". But this has the disadvantage you cant be very productive and you spend a lot of time working on a single take (several months in my case). This also destroys spontaneity!



Hi Rhida, my previous comments are still valid. When you slow down it sounds good, and one can hear you have a sense for melody. But as soon as you try to play a few faster notes in a row one can hear you need to practice your technique, hand sync and timing is off.




Hehe thanks, yes my singing might be on the provocative side here. But I liked the contrasts between the different types of voices used. I am experimenting though, and for each new thing I try - I feel I take a step closer to nailing my own style.

All right then!
I will go with my previous solo improving the phrasing.
But I know what to work on this year!
Is the new sound Ok?

Thanks Kris for your feedback!

Hey Kris happy new year buddy. I want you to know that I know that you know that I know your a nut. Your videos are wacky and I like them. I think your holding back a bit though. One belt missing from a full straight jacket.... I could see your ideas in full production with a stage crew and one bright light shining magic into your soul.

Thanks for the remarks about the vid. It's very very different tone from headphones to amp. Still getting used to it I guess.

I have a wacky idea for this backing but I'm not sure how to write it. Kinda of a 50's carnival tone. I'll have to rec. it because that's all I can say to describe it. It might be the way I connect the other licks on my way through.

Cool, to me this is the best one so far.

I can agree with Darius comment, that this one is a built a bit backwards in terms of tension and dynamics. It starts out pretty aggressive and it's soft at the end. But your take feels fresh to me as a contrast to the other takes.



Thanks for this one Jim. In the [relatively "slow"] run starting at 0:18 one can hear slight problems in hand sync and cleanliness. This will be further amplified when you play faster - although when playing faster it is harder to determine exactly what the problem is. More importantly - it is only possible to fix this stuff at slow speeds.

This is problem something you will hear among a good 95% of guitar students who are trying to learn technical runs. And it is also the reason why very few end up sounding like Yngwie, Gilbert (etc) once they do get up to speed. I have done the exact same mistake and I am working on fixing it up to this very day.

So in short: never ever push speed. If you want to practice playing as fast as you can, feel free to do it at the end of your sessions. But I think at least 75% of your practice time should be spent playing below your comfort speed, as this will allow you actually improve how you sound. And after all music is about how we sound, nothing else.




Hehe thanks! You should know I knew you knew I know how to. Know what I mean??



I do think your sound is better compared to your first take, and more suitable for long sustainy notes.

Bare in mind though that by skipping the faster stuff (but keep work intensively on technique of course), you will easily 'up' the level of you take by 200%. If we want to make something shine, the first priority is to remove what's not good - then we can polish what remains to make it really good.

You know it's already pretty cool. I would go for a video You could make and post it on Your YouTube channel

Also I would kie to remind about some cool sentense I found (do not remember who exactly said it) so i'll just spot the punchline.

Usually while doing composition or mix of the song we do not finish, we abondon - break the work at some point where we have enough of it

This topic is endless. We could improve our solos or songs constantly. Even if You think You've finished, a few days later You'll have another idea and think that You could do something better.

Same is with the collaboration - do not expect from us to say "Your solo is perfect". We can not say that about our own solos as well )) The whole idea is we make the deadline and keep workiing to make as much improvements as possible before the deadline Of course You are the one to decide about "Ok, I have enough of this so I'll abandon this solo at the point I am now" It's actually nothing unusual and it just the way music is so Of course we can give You some tips as long as the collab is online, but You can decide if You want to continue tweaking the solo or to leave it this way

All the work You made so far brought pretty nice result and for sure is much more polished comparing to the prototype take Congratulations




Ha ha ha ha! You know what most people would say seeing such a performance live on stage? IT would sound like "Somebody please take away the microphone from this guy " I've got to speak with Your wife Kris - You spend too much time focusing on vocals instead of guitar and Your vocal ideas start to cross the line of what is proper for a listener

Happy New Year everyone!

Again, you guys are all very talented and I'm super pumped to be apart of this with you all!



http://youtu.be/z13GIY1s9RU

With Backing:  XmasFinal.wav ( 6.23MB ) Number of downloads: 102


Without Backing: [attachment=40372:XmasFinal2.wav]

Video: [attachment=40373:XmasCollab.mp4]

Due to the time left to the deadline I would leave that concept and no try to fix single spots - most of those are timming issues. Phrasing has been improved and You have the concept for a solo. Now let's use the time that's left to polish that particular version - smiply learn it and rerecord




Ha ha ha ha! 1:0 for Monica! She couldn't resist to use the occasion for revenge




Jim - skip from 9s to 11s is a big to much at once. Maybe a good old 10s would be perfect? somewhere in between and approved by many players. For some reason it's the most regular gauge of the strings. Simply try to play on 10s for some time and make Your won decision

As for the lick it sound pretty tasty for me. Lets find a compromise. What I would do is to leave it like it is until 0:23 where it simply begs for a tension increasemnt. I would execute it by speed up to the 8th triplets (BTW You do not play 16th notes - You play 8th notes according to the bpm value of this backing track). You might try to modify Your lick to make a speed up at 0:23 till the end. I think it would be a perfect tebsion built and a really descent solo of Yours




Could I as for a favor ? Could You please upload You vids to YouTube and set as "not public" to make them embbed in You posts? For some reason Your vid does not want to launch on my home PC. It's a codec issue for sure but I do not want to install anything since it took my some time to make a stable configuration of my PC for audio-video editting....I would really liek to help but I'm afraid to risk the failure.

Your vid being in the post would make things much more easy for us also it helps to keep the updates on their places to compare progress




Happy New Year Chris! We do enjoy working with You as well Have a great time developing Your guitar skills

Darius I knew something wasn't right about that. No wonder, tempo at 140 is at my threshold for 16th notes... I was counting 1 for every 2 beats. 16th notes is what I was trying to play. I'll give those triplets a feel, it's tricky because I'm forcing control of that hammer on. I just picked up some 10's and I'll send my files asap. Any leniency on the deadline?

Don't live in fear Darius, it won't bite you.... Just kidding. Making you tube videos is a good idea...

Excellent! We'll leave it at that!
I, too, get what Darius said although if he can fatten the 2nd part up with some delay I think it won't sound so 'thin'!

Some time to work on my solo this morning.

I tried to sum up all the comments I got on this one (Kris, Darius and Cosmin).
I also played with my treble pick-up and I like the sound better. hopefully you will like it too.

Thanks for all your help and patience guys!

You have right, collabs are golden! I really like when I must to do something and I have a deadline. Makes me focus much more, I have more ideas than usual and I learn new things.
Also, I love the fact that this time, wasn't only a collab was a real workshop For me the benefit was double because I already added new stuff in my daily practice