Puppet_616

Another song I need a bit of help on. This was the first song I ever wrote by myself.
Basically ignore all the backing music in the "solo" section, as I would like someone to help me come up with a guitar solo for the song.

Also the drum beat is fairly simple throughout, so if anyone has any ideas for that, then that would also be great.
Ignore the vocal track, as that kinda messed up a bit lol.

Anyway c4c as always and all help is appreciated

Attached Files

Role Models.gp5 (43.9 KB, 183 views)

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thorbor

no offense here, but you can basically scrap that thing. There is no real structure and every part seems to be completely random. Also, why did you write your very first song in 3/4 time? it makes things even harder. 3/4 itself doesn't really work in metal, you either have to make it sound like triplets in a 12/8 or you just go with the usual 4/4 time.

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Puppet_616

Fair enough, it was written a while back and it was just the way I could make each bit fit into the bars by putting it into 3/4 tbh.
I didn't expect great things from it lol.

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huevos

I echo thorbor's sentiments. 3/4 doesn't work in straight-forth metal most of the time. It can work, but it's usually not for the 3ntire song if it is in e/4.
****ing JD.

Anywas. What I'm I supposed to do with this?

Attached Files

187_on_a_fragile_mind.gp5 (23.0 KB, 151 views)

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thorbor

tat thing doesn't even make sense to me either

it was hard to get into, I didn't recognise the first guitar as tripletrs right away and it seemed off to me, but know I got it. The pause at bar10 for the first guitar put me off, it interrupts the flow and you should fill something in there.

In the clean part at the beginning, the rhythm guitar made no sense to me. Just like randomly picking some chords. I don't mean the chord choice but the rhythm, it's just impossible to get. Basically you don't know which track to listen to, it really needs drums or at least some kind of percussion.

The transition to teh verse thign as horrible, just what you would call bad. The pauses in the 2 acoustic guitars put me off again. The few notes that are there are great so why does it have to stop?

The more then likely removing this-part was actually pretty good.

Verse 2 is again hard to get. Your rhythm in this piece is just too strange. It seems that you've tried to hard to use awkward rhythms and time signatures and failed after all.

The riff at the end is quite cool but comes out of nowhere, lacking a transition and any relation to the previous parts. Might as well save that for another song.

I don't know what to say about that, it's just completely random to me.
You could still take a look at the thing I pasted earlier, a few posts back.

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JazzDeath

3/4 works great for stuff like Opeth, for black metal, and for several other things in Metal - I don't believe the time signature is the greatest culprit here, moreso a misunderstanding of the time signature that you're using - the first riff sounds like it'S meant to be in 4/4 to feel natural, and the second riff basically cheats your time signature to be in 4/4 time - the Chorus on the other hand actually is in 3/4 and sounds, well, not great, just fine to me, but thinking that it doesn't work because it's in 3/4 is not the best way to see things... if anything it might be limiting to your use and understanding of time signatures, to see certain things as do and dont's within a certain style.

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huevos

That piece was something I just jammed out a while back. The format I put it in was the closest I could get to what I was actually playing, as it was a random tapping spasm that came out of me.
The segue I made up in GP, as well as the overdriven part in the 2nd Verse. The segue is cool, but I don't like that transition.

I wouldn't say I tried too hard (on awkward rhythms), as this is what came out.

I was thinking of remaking the song around the VoM riff, but I would just end up making the VoM.

From the comments, I can see the title is appropriate. It's also a reference to Don Caballero. They are like the gold standard of math rock. Pretty much synonymous with the genre.
Which gets me thinking, I should rewrite this as a straight forth math rock piece.

Oh and I wasn't cursing at you up there JD, I was talking about Gentleman Jack from Tennessee.



thorbor-Wasn't sure if that was your piece until I heard it. The funk is undeniable, yet again. The 1st riff sounds a bit groove metalish given the syncopation. Not a bad riff, but it pales in comparison to the cleverly disguised bass line. How do y'all make bass lines that work in sacrosanct with the other instruments, yet follow their own path?
I got some pointers from this one Madea dude on here (fantastic bebop writer), but I'm not trooly familiar with the concept of the walking bass line.

Hella. Yeah, if you think my piece is ridiculous, listen to any of their songs. I think my song is way too tame when standing against their monstrosities (awesome monstrosities, of course).

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thorbor

@ jazz I wasn't saying the song was bad because of the time signatures, at least not for the biggest part. It's just strange to start a first song in 3/4 while 4/4 is much easier.

@Huevos and everyone else interested, this is from one of my older threads, like 8 9 months old or something. Really helped me writing basslines. And yes, I had to keep the last sentence in there for an ego-boost

of course, you have to find your own style and you have to have ideas to begin with. For that song you listened to, I started out with the drums. I bascially had the drums in mind before I even got onto the computer. Everything else just came naturally, I didn't even plan to go into that direction.

Basically, if you look at icronics basslines, often it's only the root and the octaves, played in a good rhythm. I don't even know if you can actually learn how to write good rhythm, I guess you just have to have a good feeling for that.

Another thing that works great for clean, softer songs is, playing around with m7 and m7M chords.
For example have the guitar playing something based on Fm7, F G# C D#
and have the bass play around with F and E, one of them one octave higher.

But you may not like it since that was was I mainly did in the song I submitted last time

edit: yay for grammar edits in the evening

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testekleez

I've got a lot of this song figured out but I'm stuck on where to go with it. I need basslines added and any fills on lead guitar basically everything. I've got the skeleton of the song for the most part but it needs to be tweaked by someone more knowledgable than I.

It's kind of a dark ballad style I guess. I also have another one that needs some bass lines added and some additional lead. I'll post that one when I finish the drum track. Help would be greatly appreciated! If you have a good idea for percussion for Hello From Hell feel free to add it (or anything else for that matter).

Okay the other song is added as well now.

For clarity....

"Hello From Hell" needs a bass line and work on structure as well as additional lead and percussion.

"Formally Speaking" needs a bassline throughout. I've completed only a portion of the bass line (bars 25-32). It also needs some additional lead fills and outro the lead I wrote for it needs an ending, could just solo all the way out if you want.

Attached Files

	Hello From Hell.gp5 (47.7 KB, 144 views)
	Formally Speaking.gp5 (23.2 KB, 183 views)

testekleez

Got one more and I can't figure out where to go from this intro. Strumming just doesn't seem right. Anybody wanna take a stab at making something out of this?

Attached Files

Moonrise Street.gp5 (2.3 KB, 148 views)

thorbor

alright, working on them, will post something later on. What I can say now is that Hello From Hell sounds good but is still far from beeing finished. There are also some typical greenhorn mistakes in there. (googled that one but it doesn't feel right, anybody got a better word for this? )

alright, first one is done. I shortened the intro, was way too long. Having 3 guitars playing exactly the same isn't just a waste of potential but it also screws up guitar pro's sound.
I also tweaked a solo section, the thing you had there was just ultra cliche and somewhat predictable, you have to avoid that thing with 2 dotted and 1 normal note.
Now, I didn't work on the last part because I can't be arsed to write in 3/4
Seriously though, it's too long and to boring, even with a solo over it. You can maybe keep that for a couple of bars and then come up with another riff, then use the riff with the distortion guitar again at the end.

now, starting with teh 2nd song.

edit3: haha testekleez, you really gotta work on your rhythmic feel. Didn't you notice that moonrise street is just plain 4/4? if the 3/4 and 2/4 was planned, noone will actually get it and it will still feel like 4/4. And I wont go thorugh the track and make everything right, that's your work

The other 2 songs are not my style though, I write anything for them and right after writing a good bassline I cant be arsed to write another one right away.

Attached Files

Hello From Hell.gp5 (37.6 KB, 139 views)

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testekleez

Hey I appreciate it man! The bass is cool and I like what you did with the solo part. I agree the 3/4 part is boring and way too long lol. Thanks for the pointers. Moonrise is in a screwed up time signature because I must have erased the original gp file and all I had of it was the midi so I imported it and that's how GP wrote it (I was too lazy to change it lol).

Thanks man! I'll work out some kinks and see if I can't come up with a better arrangement. For the other tune, that's cool man I can't expect you to do everything for me lol.

atira

You can help yourself a lot if you have a clear notation.

Where to go from here... sorry, but it's almost 11pm here, so can't help you with that now.

Here's a different (I'm not saying for sure that this is the correct way of) notation:

Attached Files

Moonrise Street[1].gp5 (2.2 KB, 130 views)

atira

I've been working on this in the last few days.

I'm having troubles mainly with the drums, especially in the solo part (there's going to a 16 bar solo after bridge also but that'll come later), but I don't know whether the drums in the chorus, bridge, outro and ending are good or not since I know too few about drums as a guitarist.

Also the bass line during the solo... I'm usually fine with the bass when it's about following a guitar riff, but I'm clueless when it comes to solos. Any ideas on that?

Attached Files

akkord19_3_alt_bridge.gp5 (33.8 KB, 138 views)

testekleez

Right on. Hey that works man, thanks! Oh and your drum beat isn't bad at all it just needs to be cleaned up a bit. Not bad at all for a noodler actually. The bass sounds good too to me. I know a little about drums but probably not enough to help with that type of beat.

I was actually about to work on that notation issue but we got a fair amount of snow for the area and it threw my plans off a bit.

I tweaked Hello From Hell a little, but I'm still not sure it's the right way to go. Tweaked the bass and changed the arrangement and shortened it significantly lol.

Is it any better now?

Attached Files

Hello From HellRV.gp5 (34.0 KB, 122 views)

thorbor

so, drums are done. Really cool song you got there, just a bit short. Good feeling and the solos are cool too. Like the bass in there.

edit: @ testekleez. Another typical mistake with the bass now. I arranged it as a full instrument which plays a bit melody too, while you seem to think that the bass HAS to play the chord tone on beat 1 of every bar.
If you do that, each bar stands for it's own and there's no real connection between them. With the E in bar 11 you totally erased the feeling I set up with the G in the previous bar.
If you want a special bassline that will be remembered by the listener, you totally have to change the bass back.

Attached Files

akkord19_3_alt_bridge.gp5 (36.6 KB, 129 views)

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testekleez

I've still got the one you made thor. Is the arrangement better though?

atira

This is pure awesomeness, thanks!
There will be more, I want to add at least a 16 bar solo after the bridge.

One more thing: do you know some resource (url, book etc.) where I could learn some drum/percussion theory?

thorbor

there actually is theory for it? haha, just grab your favorite bands and listen to the drums man, nothing better than that. After a while you will know what to do and what not to do. If you listen to closely you will notice some kind of patterns though. I mean things like intro riff with open hi hats, verse riff with closed hi hats and solo/bridge with ride as the leading cymbal.
You just have to get a feel for it, and I think I have that

also, you guys should check out the thing I posted on the last page called #35.

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