Little Jam with friends


Here is what it sounds like when you mix myself on guitar and my friend on drums!

Rec8 06 by gaud2029
Rec8 13 by gaud2029
Rec8 8 by gaud2029

tell me what you think!

House of the rising sun #1

Here is another recording I did, this time it's an extract of the house of the rising sun. The song is incomplete, it was more of a recording exercise than anything else.

house of the rising sun by gaud2029

impro jazz track by track

I decided to share this little recording that I made while I was practicing to demonstrate how my "practice session" goes.

it's all impro except for that little part where I play some "canon in d" by pachelbel. At least it sounds like it.

I really like to approach of jamming over my own track and adding layer of stuff on every take, a little fill here and there and you try to have an harmony between track.

For the recording, an Epiphone g400 was used. Here is the signal chain :

guitar -> tc electronic g-sharp (for the reverb) -> m-audio fast track pro -> amplitube using a clean fender amp without any changes in the settings.

It was recorded with Reaper.


please, tell me what you think.

impro jam track by track practice. by gaud2029

Space Shooter tune.

I decided to make a small tune based on a theme, a space shooter game..

Right now it's mostly a demo of a song..  but I am surprised and happy with what I could achieve in just 2 hours using garageband. It's encouraging.

If I get positive feedback, I will redo the whole song and do a proper intro/outro. I will also redo the solo as right now it's very bad and it's only a big "spacer" for later.

Anyway, here it is, tell me what you think.

space_shooter by gaud2029

Godin Freeway Classic and GarageBand

A small tune made with GarageBand and my Godin Freeway Classic..

Minor Pentatonic Scale

Here are some interesting schemas I just did, it's the minor pentatonic scale in the key of A

So here are all the notes :

If you want to play in the key of B for example, just switch everything 2 fret to the right.. it's that simple.

To make it easier to remember, I suggest you learn each of those shape and then try to connect them in a horizontal way or else you might feel that you are stuck in those patterns.

This scale is very common in popular music so it's a very good one for someone who wants to learn songs by ear. A lot of solo are made using that scale, Stairway to Heaven from Led Zeppelin,  One from Metallica.. Hendrix was using it a lot.

Btw, in this scale, just add a flat 5 (b5) , in this case it's a D# and you have the minor blues scale.

Pattern 1 :

Pattern 2 :

Pattern 3 :

Pattern 4 : 

Pattern 5 : 

Come back and I'll add more scales and modes.

Symphony X - Iconoclast

Thank you Symphony X for bringing us this gem!

Since a couple of weeks I had the feeling that nothing good was coming out of the metal world but they did change everything, again.

Some people complaints that Symphony X is not accessible for everyone but this album is a lot more easy to listen than previous album, a lot more catchy. It doesn't mean however that they did become commercial/pop or anything, they are far from that.  This band always bring something new on every album and this time they did hit hard. 

It gave me that idea to listen to all of their older releases and I did. I'm thinking now that it could be one of their best release to this date. 

I never give a note for the review I write on this site, but if that albums absolutely needed a note, it would be a good 9 out of 10.

Godin Freeway Classic

This Guitar is made in Quebec, some part are shipped to the USA and it's assembled there. I think it's to avoid having to pay for custom fee because of the electronics.

I did pay 580 CA$ for that guitar, it's a steal if you consider the quality.

The pickup are Godin's and they sound full and amazing, I am not sure but I think they are in fact made by Seymour Duncan. I'll post some video or some sound sample soon to let you hear the different pickup position on that guitar

I chose that model because I believe it's a very versatile guitar. At first, the metal player in me was afraid but after a few minutes I quickly realized that this guitar has nothing to envy to those metal axes.

The neck is a bit smaller than a Fender Strat, it's really comfortable for both classic rock, shred.. anything you want.

I highly recommend you to try a Godin guitar before you decide to buy that fancy and thin Ibanez or that too expensive  Les Paul.

Check out the manufacturer website : http://godinguitars.com/

Amorphis - The Beginning Of Times

As I am writing this review, my 3 weeks old son is sleeping on my chest. He does sleep tenderly to the music of Amorphis. He does seem to enjoy as he open his eyes from time to time with an interrogation point in his face. He wonders what is that great music, those majestic melody only Amorphis can stick in your head. I am sure that if he could talk, he would ask me to raise the volume in those rare faster moment of the album.

As An adult, I see thing a bit in a different way, I think this album lack a bit of originality.
Some time, the singer growls , more than in previous album, but it never last and after 15 seconds, the music goes back to the classic Amorphis sound.

I feel that I am listening to the older album, again and again.  Lucky for me.. the older album were damn good so in the end it's still a great album, I recommend it.

Feel free to comment on this post or on the other posts from this blog, it does badly need some discussion going on.

Here is a sample of the album for you to enjoy

Septic Flesh - The Great Mass

A lot of bands these days can say they are producing an "atmospheric metal" but none of these band can rival with what Septic Flesh can achieve. This band can produce an atmosphere like no other band can. 

After 3 or 4 listen.. I came to the conclusion that it's not their best album at all but is still a great piece of work.

Dark Tranquillity - Projector

I am not sure I can find any words to describe the mood of that album. The only thing I can say is that it's able to draw a map of what sadness can be, at the same time, it's able to bring you the anger you need to kick that sadness in the nuts. It can be so depressive and yet so motivating.

I used to listen to that album in some stale moment of my life so this one has a very special meaning for me.

To get back to the band, I find that album a lot different from the other Dark Tranquillity albums and I never found out why. It makes me wonder what was happening in the songwriter head at that moment.

They said in an interview that they wanted to do something different and conceptual, but we all know that's what they always say in interview, not what they really think/feel  when they do write the score.

Listen to the samples below, close your eyes and feel the intensity it's able to spit.

Tristania - Beyond the Veil

This albums is probably one of the most important in my metalhead journey.. it's really the album that got me into metal. Each song as something special. They play a lot with the energy provided by male vocals, chorals and female vocals. There are plenty of band now that use this recipe but no one succeed like Tristania did with this Beyond The Veil

The music is mostly composed by Morten Veland, a great songwriter which sadly lost some of its amazing inspiration in later  Sirenia/Mortemia albums.

Many considers this album the opus magnum of Tristania but I will go further than that by saying this is  one of the best symphonic gothic metal album ever made.

Arch Enemy - Doomsday Machine

A review of this amazing album will be available very soon, for now, have fun with this sample!

 

Cradle of Filth - Thornography

This album might be the least appreciated album from Cradle of Filth but for some reason I ignore, I really do appreciate this album. At the same time, I really don't like the other album from that band so that might explain why I'm different from the crowd here.

In other words.. If you think you don't like Cradle of Filth, listen to a few songs from that album and you might change your mind.

happy listening.

In Flames - The Jester Race

Album review soon to come. For now, enjoy this preview..

Website worth looking at for any metal fans!

Every week or so, I check all my RSS feeds and sites related to my favourite genre of music, Metal.
Here are some good source of information related to everything going on in the metal scene. those site have very good reviews as well!


- MetalStorm this is really my favourite one, very well done, information is easy to find and the shoutbox is very nice. Myspace player is embedded there, very useful
- Thrashocore (french)
- Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives this is the reference for some people (I think this one was created before distortion was invented)
- Spirit of metal (multi-language!)

I'm sure there are a lot more, don't hesitate to comments!

Why is itunes so slow to start playing a song

I had that problem where my mp3 would start playing only after 2-4 seconds.

I found out that the problem is that Itunes totally sucks when it's time to decode a mp3 that was encoded with LAME, I even tried different version, I didn't find any way to decode the mp3 faster.

The only way I did find was to convert again to mp3 using the Itunes encoder, then it would be lightning fast to start a mp3 playback.

If someone has a way to speed up the decoding of an mp3 encoded with LAME in Itunes under mac, please tell me, I would appreciate because I'm not sure I want to convert all of my mp3 collection!!