GT Solo Assignment - September 2008

Hey man here's a backing track I made. It's not too long, but hopefully it's fun to play over :)

Chords are:

Emaj G#7 Amaj Bmaj Cm7 F#maj Amaj Amin6

So it's 'mostly' in the key of E, except that G#7 and the Amin6. You can treat the Amin6 as a substitute for B7alt. It's a nice sort of cadence really.
It sounds hard but on the whole you can play the E major scale, with a few blues notes here and there.

~Julian

Here's the file itself:
Right Click and Save As...

Oh yeah.. and if you just left click on it, you should be able to get a preview of it play in your browser if you just wanted to hear Julian's work.

Ok I got the chords wrong there. They are:

Emaj G#7 Amaj Bmaj C#m7 F#maj Amaj Amin6

Also the chords that aren't native to Emaj are:

G#7, F#maj and Amin6

They all have roots native to Emaj, but the qualities are altered to give a different sound. Wheee!!

Yeh.. it's a challenge to play over it. It really forces you move around the modes a little.. I find that the 6th note of the E Major scale doesn't sound good in some places but sounds fine in others. I won't try to over analyse it as I am not a professional but I have already had a little fiddle with it. It is also making me pay more attention to my picking hand because of the low levels in the backing track.. so I need to be more precise in sounding my notes rather than letting my left hand run all the notes together. I'll do a rough take sometime tonight and post it as my "first impressions" take. :)

That's a good point. I should have compressed the track a little. The dynamic range is a little too wide. It's not possible to just make the backing track louder because it would be too loud at some points and would clip.

Ahh good idea.. I just applied a standard compressor to the whole track and it made it much easier to play along with.. though there's now some hiss there.. a shame.. but it doesn't matter too much for this application.

I've put my first take together, did a bit of mixing to bring the levels into a nice balance and all that.. It's still far from finished because I usually come up with ideas throughout the month as I come back to the track again and again. I do appreciate some people's idea that the best take can be the first.. but this is not usually the case with me until I have worked on it a little while.. then when I am comfortable with the tune, the "next" first take I make is always the best. :)

First Impressions - Right click to save, left click to preview

Hey man you've got some nice stuff going on there. It seems like you lost it a bit during the build up section. What I found worked great over that section is to come up with a repeating phrase, and use that constantly, getting more intense and changing it slightly, rather than just fiddle around.

Otherwise, you've got the feel of it nicely :)

Did I make it too hard this month?

Hey guys....

I havent played guitar for months...

I think I'll have a shot at this track this month.... I think :p

Originally Posted by: Julian VickersDid I make it too hard this month?

Hey Julian, sorry I havent done one of these track for about 4 months - was out of my house with no access to home studio. Not sure if I'll be able to do something this month but I'll try. Nothing to do with the track just time and logistics...

same deal here, in process of upgrading old gear including PC , software and preamp...will be getting back into this shortly......

Still working on mine :)

Took on board some comments from last month and trying to incorporate it into this track

I've also found time hard to come by, I'm working away from home this month.

I have cobbled something but it's not good enough so I'll be passing too...