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Posted by: Pavel Jan 18 2008, 10:38 PM

It's finally finished and i want to announce the list of members and guests who participated and contributed to this great (IMO) collaboration!










1. preownedguitar
Yours was the first solo uploaded and i really liked your sound - actually TYPE of sound. I like the spacey distortion lead with some delay/reverb on it - it hits the collab mood very well. However, i would suggest you try adding some "meat" to your sound - make it a bit thicker, try adding some more middle and bass frequencies. The first part of the solo was good, but in the second part i could feel a bit of a: "I'm not sure what to do here!" feeling. The last note hits the solo perfectly i really liked that ending Good job!

2. Juan M. Valero
Love the screaming sound of your guitar man! You got some really cool ideas and i can feel a lot of Steve Vai influence in your tapping licks There are some missing notes in that alternate picking part and you can also try playing those AP licks with neck pickup - it really makes them sound smoother and more "in the spot". Thanks for taking part m8 - loved it all in all!

3. Andrew Cockburn
I can hear a lot of practicing in your playing! Really clean playing man. However, you sound like you are afraid to go around the fretboard - relax man! It's like driving your first car - you just hit the gas and you don't care where you go - you just enjoy driving - same goes here

Ok, now about those sweeps - i listened a lot to your solo and noticed that you use a lot of repeating notes. You play it really clean and you're on a good way with sweeping but if you play sweeps at that speed you want to avoid repeating notes and i included the GP5 file with your sweeping part and 2 possible variations you can try just to see that you have a choice

 For_Andrew.gp5 ( 2.32K ) : 195


And those repeating notes are not only in your sweeps but also regular AP phrases - it sounds all fine until you hit a repeating note for no reason - it destroys the phrase and is like: "Should i stop or continue driving?" and sounds really unsure so try avoiding those repeating notes unless they are REALLY needed for the rhythm - but the way you play them here they don't sound rhythmically important.

Thanks for your solo!

4. David Wallimann
David totally blew me away with this solo! The harmony part is amazing! I keep listening to it again and again Thanks for your contribution

5. botoxfox
You hit the first bend straight away and overdid it a bit Also you missed 1 note from the scale in the first descending part in your solo but it's no big deal - the main thing is to make sure you know all the scale boxes and it will not happen to you again The rest after that is all cool! I like your sound in this solo.
Practice a bit more of tapping and correct bending pitch and you'll be on a good way my friend

6. Iluha
By the start of the solo i was expecting something really cool and screamy but you stayed at the same part of the neck for too long and did not develop your idea. Also instead of repeating the beginning of the solo later in the solo you could replace it with some cool AP run and develop it into a much better and cooler solo. These are just suggestions - don't kill me for that I appreciate your contribution man

7. coffeeman
You got a cool sound there but your only problem is your timing - you lose the track of timing pretty often so i suggest you practice soloing with metronome. The tapping mistakes are also due to the timing instability You'll get it with a bit of metronome practice every day Nice solo overall - the idea of it is great, you only need to fix your timing and you're on the road to good soloing

8. nikolai
I added a bit of reverb to your sound so it sounds more "in the feel" with the backing track and the whole piece. I have to say you have a correct approach to the construction of the solo but you lack some "performance" - i mean you need to make your ideas sound more confident, if it's a long note than hit it with some vibrato and it will sound really like: "Hey, i'm standing here and i know what i'm doing!" - than you'll really grow in your soloing. I would also suggest you working on your sound a bit - you got too much treble and not enough "meat". Middle and bass are also important parts of the sound so experiment with it a bit
I encourage you to take part in our future collabs - don't be afraid - you're on a good way

9. fatb0t
I also added a bit of reverb to your solo - sounds a lot better IMO. You got some decent bends - they are pretty precise (the first one in the end is out of pitch but immediately after it you hit a perfect bend so i guess it was accidently). But you do need to work on your AP so when you are playing a phrase or a run you're sure that THOSE are the notes you need to play and not some unsure dribbling 'cause it sounds like: "Ouch, uff, ouch this hurts...ouch, uff, oh..." like you're walking on the broken glass

Good job all-in-all! Thanks for jumping in and helping us out with the number of playing members

10. Muris
Do i need to comment this? Listening to a solo like this you can easily say that you're listening to a really experienced player The melodies in the second part of the solo are particularly good - amazing! And i must say that your start in the middle of the bar gave me some troubles aligning it with the backing track But than i decided that i will align it easier if i use the last bar of the solo for that

11. Ivan Milenkovic
Thanks for gust-appearance man! Some cool licks in there and i am sure GMC-ers will benefit from listening to instructor's solos I got nothing to say there - thanks

Final word:

This turned out better than i expected and all of you perfectly matched the style of solo i expected for this backing track. Some people need to improve some of their skills, and i am glad we have something to improve on because otherwise we wouldn't need GMC Read the comments and feel free to ask questions.

Special thanks to newcomers who stepped out and tried their skills in this collab!

Feedback is really appreciated! See you all around GMC

Posted by: coffeeman Jan 18 2008, 10:47 PM

Hey Pavel what an awesome collab. Thank you for your words, the metronome is my new girlfriend , im working really hard with "her".


Thanks Again and congratulations.

Posted by: Smells Jan 18 2008, 10:48 PM

wow! totally excellent collab, excellent backing track (wish I joined but doing so many lately I didnt want to seem a collab hog )

great solo`s by everyone, great comments, excellent!! great work by everyone!

Posted by: fatb0t Jan 18 2008, 11:52 PM

Thanks Pavel, I like how detailed your criticisms are they really help!

I learned the major scale specifically for that collab, so my AP stinks because I don't know the scale well enough! Gotta practice your Ionian speed picking lesson a lot more.

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Jan 18 2008, 11:53 PM

This turned out really well

Thanks a lot for your comments Pavel, it means a lot that you said my playing was clean, considering where I started from when I joined GMC just under a year ago!

Thanks too fro the Sweep alternatives, I'll have a lot of fun studying them, and the pointers on repeated notes and fretboard movement, thanks for taking the time to give me this feedback, you rock!

And well done to all the other collaborators - excellent job all around

Posted by: Muris Jan 19 2008, 12:13 AM

Great takes and collab,good work everyone!!

Sorry for aligning troubles Pavel

You could set it on stereo track since it's stereo file
and has some stereo efxs on but no big deal tho.

Posted by: DeepRoots Jan 19 2008, 12:21 AM

awesome guys! congrats to all

Posted by: chast Jan 19 2008, 01:38 AM

Very cool stuff in here
Congrats

Posted by: Milenkovic Ivan Jan 19 2008, 01:48 AM

Great collab Pavel, great job guys!

Posted by: FretDancer69 Jan 19 2008, 01:56 AM

awesome collab i love it!!!

Posted by: preownedguitar Jan 19 2008, 06:42 AM

Hey thanks, I actually was looking for a thicker sound but still getting used to the new POD X3, and think I've found a thicker more presence sound with that preset. Thanks for this great collaboration, hope to see more of them from you in the future. Also the constructive criticism is very helpful.

Posted by: nikolai Jan 19 2008, 10:47 AM

first off, everyone did a great job on this!!!!!!!

thanks for the constructive criticism, i've decided to add some reverb to my personal setup after hearing the final mix. I also noticed i used way too much distortion for the sound im looking for, so that has been turned down a little bit.

i am working on my performance and technique daily, by the time i do another collab it should be much better!!

Posted by: Pavel Jan 19 2008, 10:48 AM

You are welcome! See if you can add some delay - it is IMO way better than reverb if you set it to low feedback

Posted by: Kristofer Dahl Jan 19 2008, 10:56 AM

Pavel - WOW!!

You nailed this one - excellent sounding and superb, constructive feedback! I wish I had participated in this one!!

Also I agree that we can sense a lot of practcing and progressing in Andrew's playing, the forumfather!

Posted by: preownedguitar Jan 19 2008, 10:58 AM

Yup it was a great first collab, but hey it was comming from the Lord of the Ring finger.

Posted by: Iluha Jan 19 2008, 12:25 PM

Was a great collab

Thanks for the comment Pavel but I completly disagree, Intially I WAS going to throw in an alt picking run after the first harmonics, but it sounded too technical so I changed it, and also it does sound to me like it needs to turn into something screamy, but not in the first 30 seconds, if this was longer than it would turn into something of the sort

Great job everyone!

Posted by: Pavel Jan 19 2008, 12:41 PM

I like short solos more as long solos tend to become boring so i like to keep it short especially if we have 11 solos one after another. I think these 30 seconds were more than enough to construct a cool sounding solo

The development of the solo depends on a backing track and as this is a pretty happy-sounding one i think some technical stuff is really appropriate


Thanks Kris! You'll participate in the next one - i'm sure of that

Posted by: Iluha Jan 19 2008, 12:50 PM

Well I guess this is just a conflict of styles, I'm more into blues and avoid technical stuff as much as possible and instead I put unique melodies, and I'm not going to force it to go in any direction it doesn't want to go, I'm really proud of my take and wouldn't change it to anything, but I respect you'r opinion and understand where it's coming from

Posted by: Pavel Jan 19 2008, 01:28 PM

I think you got me wrong - i'm not telling you what to do - i'm just saying that in a solo - especially if it's short, there is no place for repeating same 10 seconds long ideas as they become boring The beginning is great - but you could have developed it better

Posted by: Iluha Jan 19 2008, 01:41 PM

This is such a useless argument man.. everyone has their own approach, this is mine, and I think it stands out in the collab by the fact that I looked at the backing as MINOR instead of MAJOR.

Again, there's nothing I would do to change it because this is allready gone through several changes before being at this state, I can see why you won't like it because it isn't you'r style, but this is my style and I'm sticking to it

Posted by: Pavel Jan 19 2008, 01:42 PM

I'm finishing it here as i see you're just starting to offend me for no reason and all i want to do is help you with your writing/composing skills - so - no more comments about your solo - i don't care!

Posted by: Iluha Jan 19 2008, 01:47 PM

I wasn't offending you... and as I said I appriciate you'r opinion, but in this one I'm extremely proud of my take and think it's stands out and unique that's why I'm protecting it so strongley

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Jan 19 2008, 01:51 PM

Thanks Kris - its entirely down to the excellent instructors here at GMC (including you who got me started on proper alt picking in the first place!). Still have a long journey ahead of me though ...

Posted by: Kristofer Dahl Jan 19 2008, 03:25 PM

Hmm Iluha if you are offended (that's the impression I get from your replies) by the collab leader's suggestions of improvement, perhaps you shouldn't participate in this kind of teacher-lead collab? Or if you disagree perhaps do it a little more politely?

Posted by: Kristofer Dahl Jan 19 2008, 03:35 PM

You have great tone - I am guessing practcing without pushing the speed too much has helped you?

Posted by: Owen Jan 19 2008, 03:47 PM

Sadly never took part in this but I must say that I loved David's section, the harmony was just awesome.

Posted by: Iluha Jan 19 2008, 04:18 PM

I wasn't offended and I didn't mean to sound impolite, sorry if it sounded that way.

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Jan 19 2008, 08:00 PM

I guess so - I never really wanted to extract the very last BPM from my playing so my emphasis has been on playing cleanly (something i knew nothing about before i joined GMC) and learning new techniques, but not really pushing the speed. I guess it is starting to make a difference - thanks Kris

Posted by: MickeM Jan 19 2008, 08:29 PM

Iluha - listen to Pavels words here! Pavel made a collaboration for you, the main reason you're here (I guess) is to learn to be a better guitarist. Pavels suggestion was to do just that, if you listen to what Pavel says instead of arguing your own perfection (which isn't very humble) and if you adopt Pavels suggestions you would improve. I say this in a general manner since I didn't listen to your solo I'm just assuming Pavel knows more of guitar playing and composing since he's a tutor here.
Joining a collaboration led by a tutor is to improve, not to show off. And if you joined with the intention to learn and improve I suggest you listen and adopt instead of arguing and stating your solo is perfect. Then you'd be fully skilled already, right?

Posted by: Iluha Jan 19 2008, 08:56 PM

Now im beginning to feel mobbed, I don't have to listen to Pavel's advice if I think it's wrong, and forgive me if I don't care much for assumptions and don't take you'r opinion seriously if you havn't even listend to it.

I'm going to repeat this for the bilionth time, I respect Pavel's opinion, and appriciate all the efforts he put in the collab, but I disagree with he's opinion on my take, and it's my right to do so.

And if I sounded anywhere offensive it is not my intention and I'm sorry.

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Jan 19 2008, 09:59 PM

Lets make that the end of it then.

Posted by: Stevie·Ray·Vaughn Jan 19 2008, 11:10 PM

Andrew I really liked the end of your solo Had some nice melodies to it

Posted by: Kristofer Dahl Jan 21 2008, 09:01 AM

Ok no problem - thanks for apologising

Posted by: Nick325 Jan 30 2008, 10:51 PM

great collab guys

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Jan 30 2008, 11:48 PM

Hey thanks SRV