Gamers who play musical instruments

Michael wrote:

The performer's job is to try and resist all of those people by having an Uncompromising True Artistic Vision that they just don't get.

I just had to say I appreciated this :D.

RawkGWJ wrote:

I’m going to try out our walk in closet which is over stuffed with clothes.

That was actually going to be my bargain recommendation. When I recorded a podcast I spent a lot of time uncomfortably hunched over in my closet.

Michael wrote:

The mixing engineer would work on how they recorded. The technical bits - where to mic the amps, what mics to use, how to compress the vocals, how to record the vocals, which amps to use, all that good stuff.

This is partially true (and on some projects, roles are blurred, or combined) but you're mostly describing a recording engineer here. On a big session, you'll maybe have:
- producer: the person who guides the overall sound and direction of the recording and coaches the performers
- recording engineer: the person who is actually in charge of determining how the performers get recorded, usually in very close collaboration with the producer. This is mic selection, mic placement, treating the room, choosing amps and cabs, all the technical nuts and bolts of recording.
- mix engineer: the person who mixes, EQs and otherwise shapes the sound of the final recorded performances. Often this will be done by someone in an entirely different studio.
- mastering engineer: the person who does final tonal and dynamic adjustments to the mixed recording and prepares it for release in all necessary formats. Almost always done by someone in an entirely different studio.

Lots of producers and mix engineers are also recording engineers, lots of mix engineers are also mastering engineers, and there are plenty of people who do all of those things (mostly out of necessity, because nobody makes any money in the music industry anymore).

Podunk wrote:

because nobody makes any money in the music industry anymore

Oof.

We had another neighborhood jam session in my court's gazebo last night, with folks outside the gazebo in the grass to be safe. Super fun. After 2 beers and some wine I taught the other guitarist to play 4 Non-Blondes' What's Up and I sang it poorly!

Mixolyde wrote:

We had another neighborhood jam session in my court's gazebo last night, with folks outside the gazebo in the grass to be safe. Super fun. After 2 beers and some wine I taught the other guitarist to play 4 Non-Blondes' What's Up and I sang it poorly!

::jealousy:: your neighbors are the best

I agree, they are the best. Two of them played in a bluegrass band and play at their churches. We also discovered a junior high school band teacher who is going to join us on percussion soon.

That sounds super fun!

Tried the loop recording function of the Artiphon Orba yesterday; what a blast! When you start recording, it gives you a metronome for the bpm, and you can play one of four instruments. When you have what you want in place, switch to the next and so forth until you've got four tracks playing together, then you can over-dub if you want. Save it and export it into whatever.

Thing is, it's tactile and welcoming. As a compositional newbie, the ability to develop an interesting beat, then put a bassline in, then build chords around those and finally a lead, well, it's *encouraging* playing around with it. So what if it's loose around the edges and I missed a chord? It's *fun* to just mess around and have something playing a few minutes later. And the synth functions, like vibrato and sustain and attack and a bunch of others are all built into the tilt, movement and vibration sensors, so it reacts to how you move it, and how you move your fingers on the buttons. Very cool indeed.

Looking forward to hooking it up to Garage Band and seeing how they play together. I'm still intimidated by the little bit of keyboard stuff I know, but this physical design is different enough that I feel like I'm learning from scratch. It's freeing.

I recorded this UU hymn. I’m singing two parts. Melissa, my choir director is playing piano. She is a dope pianist. I also eq’ed and mixed it.

Go Lifted Up on SoundCloud

I’m pretty happy about how this turned out. I lowered it by three half steps and slowed it down just enough to be different from the original. I might put a bass part on at some point, but not any time soon.

RawkGWJ wrote:

I’m pretty happy about how this turned out. I lowered it by three half steps and slowed it down just enough to be different from the original. I might put a bass part on at some point, but not any time soon.

I don't know anything about the original, but I dug it. Is that your voice? If yes, you sound good dude.

RawkGWJ wrote:

I’m pretty happy about how this turned out. I lowered it by three half steps and slowed it down just enough to be different from the original. I might put a bass part on at some point, but not any time soon.

Most excellent

ColdForged wrote:

I don't know anything about the original, but I dug it. Is that your voice? If yes, you sound good dude.

Thank you. I did like 8 vocal takes. I liked the last two the best so I doubled the vocals with them.

My choir director insisted that I make a video to go along with it for the zoom service. I jus faked along with my recording. I should’ve tried a little harder on the video. My mouth is out of sync quite a bit. Also I should have smiled every now and then. I wasn’t into the video and it shows. Lesson learned I guess.

I recently turned 50 and I treated myself as a birthday present to a new guitar. I've been wanting a Reverend guitar for a long time and I thought what better time than this?

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EjmT3-pWAAAp8m7?format=jpg&name=large)

Fredrik_S wrote:

I recently turned 50 and I treated myself as a birthday present to a new guitar. I've been wanting a Reverend guitar for a long time and I thought what better time than this?

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EjmT3-pWAAAp8m7?format=jpg&name=large)

Nice! Happy birthday! That's a fabulous birthday present.

She’s beautiful!

Reverends have an incredibly cool aesthetic, and I like the guitar shop I go to most often because they carry Hagstrom and Reverend guitars rather than yet another stack of Gibsons or Fenders. Have really like a number of Reverends, there was a really great one with a flamed Aqua blue top, but the sides/back were left a really pretty stained rosewood color. Beautiful instrument.

Hello fellow musically inclined gamers,

A while ago there was discussion about doing some virtual band pieces as "Orchestra Simulator 2020." I had planned to run a project for it, but had difficulty finding a track that was suitable for all the different instruments we have, had a voice line, isn't copy write problematic etc, etc.

Well my wife discovered that the local Kmart has decided to start selling Christmas trees and I realised that Christmas carols are all public domain and I went looking for a suitable set of sheet music for a project I could run.

So for my first project for Orchestra Simulator 2020 I present

"Hark the Herald Angels Sing"

To account for the different instruments, vocal ranges, etc. I've found some sheet music in SATB format. For those that haven't met it before there is a line for Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Base hence SATB.

As such, there should be something that is suitable for each instrument voice we have in GWJ, even if there are some that haven't spoken up yet.

Sheet Music and tracks here
In that folder you will find the sheet music, as well as a Click only track, and a click track with each of the different parts. Its 4/4 at 105BPM.
I've only set it up for one verse (first verse for vocals) at the minute to make it a simple introduction for everyone who would like to participate.

For those guitarists who would prefer to play chords rather than notes: This is perfectly acceptable, but I unfortunately do not have the skills or knowledge to pick which chords are suitable. If someone wants to play chords and does manage to work that out, please post it here so everyone can play the same chords. I'll see if I can modify the sheet music if that becomes a thing.

Upload your music here
After you have recorded your part(s), click here to upload your recording(s).
Please feel free if your instrument has more than one voice or your vocal range is suitable to cover multiple parts to submit multiple recordings. Please only 1 part per recording though.
Feel free to use whatever method of recording you have available, I'm not after Symphony

Can everyone please name their submissions as follows:
Part - Instrument - Name you wish to be credited with
ie: Bass - Cello - Alyosius.wav

Ultimately I'd love to have a few of these together before we get to Christmas. We could have our own "Orchestra Simulator 2020 Christmas tunes DLC"

Any issues, thoughts or questions, please feel free to hit me up!

This project will be open till the end of the month. I've got some life events happening late November and I'd like to get this rendered and complete before those get in my way.
If we get towards this timeframe and people need more time I can look to extending it.

I’ll get you a tenor part for sure. Possibly a bass and alto as well. All vocals.

T - Vocal - Rawk

Do you want to hear the click track in our recordings? I’m assuming no.

I will send you two different takes for each part so you can double them. Well, not soprano.

So for my first project for Orchestra Simulator 2020 I present

"Hark the Herald Angels Sing"

Oooo, interesting. So, just to make sure I "get it"... you're asking for individual stems of those parts in various instruments? Like, can I play the parts with an electric guitar? Does the tone matter much? Are you looking for a bunch of different versions from different folks?

ColdForged wrote:

Oooo, interesting. So, just to make sure I "get it"... you're asking for individual stems of those parts in various instruments? Like, can I play the parts with an electric guitar? Does the tone matter much? Are you looking for a bunch of different versions from different folks?

Yeah that's correct, play the part(s) with whatever instrument you feel comfortable with. And yes, I'm hoping everyone can get involved with whatever instrument they feel comfortable with.

As to tone, no I'm not overly concerned with tone, since I'm planning to mix a whole heap of different instruments together, my aim mixing it will be to mix it into one cohesive voice - now a highly distorted instrument for example would probably create a challenge to fit in, but for the most part, absolutely any instrument should be able to join in.

RawkGWJ wrote:

Do you want to hear the click track in our recordings? I’m assuming no.

Correct, the only thing I want to hear is your voice/instrument

There’s a four measure count in of silence. Will there be a piano intro or something like that?

RawkGWJ wrote:

There’s a four measure count in of silence. Will there be a piano intro or something like that?

That's purely there as a count in to help during the recording process

So I was informed about this thread yesterday when I posted in the "love" thread about how I'd started practicing 5 string banjo again. I hadn't practiced in two years and I kept procrastinating getting back into it because I was afraid I'd forgotten everything, but then finally decided that I was going to put 30 minutes of it into my daily schedule and if it took the whole 30 minutes just trying to figure out what was what, then so be it!

So today is my second day of starting again! Went over some basic rolls, muddled through Worried Man Blues, and I'm definitely out of practice, but it started feeling more natural with the emphasis in the right places and not pausing and all those things you do for basic bluegrass rolls.

Then for the last few minutes (I went about 45 minutes or so today it turns out) I decided to pull out the Classical Banjo book and see what I could still do. I left off there working on learning Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring and I was able to again muddle my way through a few measures. Definitely sloppy with some mistakes while trying to get the fingering, but I could hear the basic melody and I am confident I can get back to where I was with it soon!

I've never been particularly advanced since I'd only played for a few months before neglecting the practice, so I'm not trying to get back to Earl Scruggs ability here, but I do also have the Earl Scruggs book and had gotten the Beverly Hillbillies theme to sound somewhat recognizable (though very slow compared to good old Earl!)

I’m so glad that you’ve found the thread!!

bekkilyn it sounds like we are in the same boat! I discovered this thread thanks to that same post in the "love" thread. I just recently picked up my guitar again after maybe five years of collecting dust. I was never that good but these games you may have heard of, Rock Band 3 and RockSmith had me playing way back when they came out.

So this time I'm really sticking to it - doing something similar to you and setting aside at least a half hour a day to sit and practice, often more. I also found a local old rocker dude (in every sense: this guy was in a hair band in the 80s, and no not a particularly famous one but the photos on his walls are amazing. He was a founding member of a somewhat famous AC/DC cover band too!) who does lessons, so I'm getting some real instruction. It has been so great. I'm focusing on heavy metal type playing since that's the kind of music I love.

To make the comparison you did, I'm certainly no Eddie Van Halen, but I've made the beginning steps. I've got some basic riffs down and I'm working on my fast but controlled picking. I even just purchased a sweet guitar pedal that makes my little amp sound VERY metal. It's only a matter of time before I upgrade this Rock Band 3 Fender Squier guitar to something truly real.

d4m0 wrote:

bekkilyn it sounds like we are in the same boat! I discovered this thread thanks to that same post in the "love" thread. I just recently picked up my guitar again after maybe five years of collecting dust. I was never that good but these games you may have heard of, Rock Band 3 and RockSmith had me playing way back when they came out.

So this time I'm really sticking to it - doing something similar to you and setting aside at least a half hour a day to sit and practice, often more. I also found a local old rocker dude (in every sense: this guy was in a hair band in the 80s, and no not a particularly famous one but the photos on his walls are amazing. He was a founding member of a somewhat famous AC/DC cover band too!) who does lessons, so I'm getting some real instruction. It has been so great. I'm focusing on heavy metal type playing since that's the kind of music I love.

To make the comparison you did, I'm certainly no Eddie Van Halen, but I've made the beginning steps. I've got some basic riffs down and I'm working on my fast but controlled picking. I even just purchased a sweet guitar pedal that makes my little amp sound VERY metal. It's only a matter of time before I upgrade this Rock Band 3 Fender Squier guitar to something truly real.

I love metal and have dabbled with guitar on and off over the years. I played classical piano between 3rd grade and college so have a good bit of music background, and even though I haven't done anything with piano in years, it's helped me a lot in learning banjo as well as doing some things with guitar. (Piano is like riding a bicycle for me at this point...would just need practice to get my muscle memory back.) I have an inexpensive Ibanez electric as well as Rocksmith for XB1, so eventually plan to get back to that again too, but I figured one thing at a time!

There was a pedal I was looking at a good while back, but I can't remember if I actually bought it or if it just went on a wish list or just in the file cabinets of my mind.

Alyosius wrote:

So for my first project for Orchestra Simulator 2020 I present

"Hark the Herald Angels Sing"

To account for the different instruments, vocal ranges, etc. I've found some sheet music in SATB format. For those that haven't met it before there is a line for Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Base hence SATB.

As such, there should be something that is suitable for each instrument voice we have in GWJ, even if there are some that haven't spoken up yet.

Sheet Music and tracks here
In that folder you will find the sheet music, as well as a Click only track, and a click track with each of the different parts. Its 4/4 at 105BPM.
I've only set it up for one verse (first verse for vocals) at the minute to make it a simple introduction for everyone who would like to participate.

Bekkilyn and D4m0, would you be interested in contributing to this?

[quote="RawkGWJ"]

Alyosius wrote:

Bekkilyn and D4m0, would you be interested in contributing to this?

I really don't know if I would be ready with anything before the deadline, but I'll be glad to send in something if it turns out I am!

bekkilyn wrote:

I love metal and have dabbled with guitar on and off over the years. I played classical piano between 3rd grade and college so have a good bit of music background, and even though I haven't done anything with piano in years, it's helped me a lot in learning banjo as well as doing some things with guitar. (Piano is like riding a bicycle for me at this point...would just need practice to get my muscle memory back.) I have an inexpensive Ibanez electric as well as Rocksmith for XB1, so eventually plan to get back to that again too, but I figured one thing at a time!

There was a pedal I was looking at a good while back, but I can't remember if I actually bought it or if it just went on a wish list or just in the file cabinets of my mind. :)

I played trumpet from 4th grade up through high school graduation myself so I might have a similar background. It wasn't chords and other goodness like that of course, but I learned to read music and get timing down. Piano is one of those things I wished I spent some time learning when I was young. My mom played sometimes so we even had a piano in the house for a while. Knowing the chords and how to play something like a piano I think goes a long way towards helping to learn just about any other instruments.

Rawk and Alyosius, I'll echo bekkilyn and say I don't think I'd be ready by the end of the month, but I'll see what I can do! I'm still just learning which frets on which strings are which notes at this point, by memory anyway instead of needing to count up from the bottom every time, so we'll see. Surely there are guitar tabs out there already for that song, which will greatly help. If I do submit something I'll be sure to keep the gain and distortion pretty far down