Start to Finish: Vance Powell - Episode 7 - Guitar Solo And Drum Samples

00:00:23
Alright man, so now..

00:00:26
Our world is solo.. solo guy! - Yeah, yep! - Solo guy..

00:00:30
So I'm gonna dump these, we'll definitely need some serious gain..

00:00:36
that sound you had yesterday, man..

00:00:38
was really, really cool, when we were doing the tracking.

00:00:42
- Of the solo when I was trying to do it live? - Yeah, yeah, that was really cool.

00:00:47
- Yeah, it's gonna be in that ballpark. - Yeah, good.

00:00:49
- Do you wanna go one amp or two amps? - Two. Just like we had. - Cool.

00:00:53
- Whatever our setting was let's try and get that..

00:00:55
I don't think the amps changed, right? - I'm just gonna kill the reverb, on the Princeton.

00:01:00
- That'd be great, cool! Did we actually talk about maybe doing this with the sub on it, at some point? - Oh, yeah, you want me..

00:01:36
- Let's see what that sounds like.

00:01:40
Lemme hear that, real quick.

00:02:02
Alright we're gonna make some noise, ready? Here we go! - Let's do it! I'm digging everything until it gets to where the sub bass solo thing happens.

00:03:00
The sub guitar is really cool in that intro part.

00:03:05
- Oh, I see what you're saying.

00:03:07
- Yeah.

00:03:08
- But then the sub bass.. the subby, other sub guitar..

00:03:11
the thing with did with the OTO..

00:03:13
- Yeah it should be off that point.

00:03:14
- Yeah, it should go off there.

00:03:16
- Lemme..

00:03:17
can you send..

00:03:18
- We'll do it in pieces.. - Yeah.

00:03:20
- Yeah.

00:03:21
- A'ight let's just hit the first half real quick, then.

00:03:23
- You got it.

00:03:24
Here we go! Man, the first half of the front is great. - Yeah.

00:04:07
- It's alright! Well, keep going! Pretty good! - Yeah, is that the one or we got one more? - Yeah, we've got another one. - Yeah.

00:05:26
- Awesome, man.

00:05:27
Hey, so.. come in real quick - OK.

00:05:30
Let's comp this together real quick it's really great. - OK, cool! [sings] [laughs] So there's like maybe a little edit thing here that might be really cool. - Alright.

00:06:10
It's a little manipulation of the file, so..

00:06:44
- Sweet.

00:06:45
- And maybe this one, if we sorta just do this kind of right at the end of the thing, so..

00:06:57
Now, there's others.. I've just been using this one take, set of things..

00:07:15
- I mean, maybe the part I'm hearing is more of like a, it's like that sort of like [unintelligible] thing that we do in some other places where it's like [sings] Much of it'd be more how it enters the solo that's not there yet. - Yeah.

00:07:37
- That's what I'm talking about, so..

00:07:38
- Oh yeah, it could be, actually..

00:07:49
One that I wanna listen is.. there is one take early that was some kinda sick about the first one.

00:08:09
Something about that, does [sings].

00:08:20
You know what I'm talking about? There's a little weird..

00:08:25
[sings] I'm gonna make that work.

00:08:38
I don't like this, at all.

00:08:50
I'm just gonna kinda add these two little blurps in here, you know, they are like a madder part of the solo, they're kinda cool, you just tipped off the E-string open or something? - Yeah, yeah.

00:09:00
- Yeah, it's cool.

00:09:30
Maybe we should do a couple of these where you're hitting like the.. like you're kinda hitting back on the bridge or something, like the thing..

00:09:37
I know you are doing that thing but like..

00:09:39
maybe at the top of the neck or..

00:09:41
something where we get some different sort of vibe, you know.. or something..

00:09:45
- Yeah.

00:09:45
- ..but it's cool, it's just this one sounds like that one or sounds like this one.

00:09:58
Let's work on this part, right here, right now, alright? - Cool. Feedback world? - Feedback world. - Yeah.

00:10:04
- What about, uh.. - The world of feedback..

00:10:06
- ..like a delay, you change the speed of the delay each time, so one time is like.. [sings] - You can just let it feedback and you know..

00:10:14
use your switch to cut it in and out or..

00:10:20
plus I thought I'd put some flanger on it.

00:10:36
It might be.. just forget about that and just do the pickup switch.

00:10:41
'cause that.. see that's more of a sharp attack.

00:10:47
That's cool, right there, man! - You want a note [unintelligible] or just feedback? - No it's just that.. it's just that kinda blast of sound it's just cool! Yeah! - Yeah, let's just try a couple takes like this.

00:11:10
- I love it. - Alright, cool. - Let's do it! I loved all that! - Nice! - Keep going.. - Hang on one sec..

00:11:33
Jake, where do you want that last one? [sings] 3 and! [sings] and 4 and..

00:11:45
- 2, 3, and! OK! - ..and yeah, cool! - Let's do it! - Here we go! That was cool! - Pretty cool! - Let's come take a listen.

00:12:12
- Sweet! - So I'm just gonna heal a little bit of this massive amount of noise, back here.

00:12:40
So, this one, first one's great.

00:12:41
These two are great.

00:12:42
So the 9 is the last one..

00:12:50
I kinda like that! - Yeah, changes its character half-way through it's kinda cool.

00:12:56
- Let's see what happens when we get there..

00:12:58
and then here at the very end..

00:13:16
So this one [unintelligible] let's not worry about this right now because this might end up being part of our solo - Yeah! - Alright? But otherwise, we're in this headspace..

00:13:40
Yeah, I love it. So now, the solo..

00:13:43
so this tone..

00:13:44
we have this little sort of we're just..

00:13:46
I don't want to it to be too bright and shimmery shiny because we have..

00:13:55
that thing actually is, you know, it's not super bright or whatever but it's a big, it's a pretty good amount of space..

00:14:01
Like sort of Wah-y sort of like..

00:14:03
- I got that Waffle. - ..like a filtery Wah thing, maybe? - Yeah.

00:14:08
- Did you hear the.. you probably didn't hear the flanger..

00:14:10
did you hear the flanger I had on all this? Pretty great.

00:14:18
[laughs] - Nice! - I don't think you need delay.

00:14:21
- Yeah, no.

00:14:22
- So I'm gonna turn this..

00:14:25
down here..

00:14:26
so that's up there.

00:14:27
And if we just find a tone that sort of fits in the middle and that other thing can fit around it..

00:14:32
- Why don't I mess around with the Waffle? - Yeah, that'd be good. - Yeah.

00:14:35
- Especially if we get that EQ thing where it kinda breaks the amps a bit, you know what I mean? But not harsh..

00:14:42
- Yeah. It can be a little harsh.

00:14:44
- Oh yeah. - So I'll pull back on the volume..

00:14:48
on the Waffle, 'cause I think that's where..

00:14:50
- That's probably so. Alright cool, let's do it! - Alright, sweet.

00:15:24
- Yeah that's pretty cool! So one of the things you saw me doing over on the console, the console has high and low pass filters and I use the hipass filters, I basically took everything over 3k out and everything down the low side, here about 100, so..

00:15:39
I am gonna kinda bandwidth limit, these..

00:15:42
these guitars, real quick.

00:15:44
Alright, cool, play a little bit for me? - Hey man, yeah, little bit? That's pretty cool! That's a sound, for sure! - Yeah. - Let's try it! - Cool! - Here we go! Too crazy! - We're getting there! - Yeah, it's alright.

00:16:45
- Cool, here we go! Did you hear that little thing at the end? It was cool! A little reverb tail at the end? - On me? - I did it, check this out.

00:17:31
- Yeah, let's do that and I'm gonna end with the leading melody note that the chorus is so that'd would be this really cool transition.

00:17:41
- Yeah and I can do that in here by..

00:17:44
I'm just turning on the echo blend on that flanger thing, so. - Oh nice.

00:17:49
OK cool. - OK, here we go! - Yeah! - Lemme do it again, I want to bridge the gap between..

00:18:31
I don't wanna step on any of that [sings] but..

00:18:35
I wanna hold this note that the vocals are gonna come in on a little bit early - OK! - ..and I'm just trying to get there.

00:18:41
- Cool, here we go! - Alright, well, the ending was kinda cool! - Yeah, that's a little more where I'm going, I wanna be up here and have that ring out.. but..

00:19:30
let's give it another go..

00:19:32
- Lemme listen to the end, real quick, a'ight? - See what I've got going on, on the end, there? - Yeah, it sounds great.

00:19:47
- A'ight, Jake lemme show you how to do it, alright? So I can concentrate on the take.

00:19:53
Yeah, it's this guy right here.

00:19:55
So right there when he goes to that [sings] you just turn that all the way up.

00:20:00
- Sure, got it. - Pretty easy.

00:20:01
- Cool? Here we go! - That was great! - Yeah, can I do one more like that? - That was pretty good, the one before was better! - OK, if I do those hits..

00:21:19
[sings] on that note..

00:21:22
is that gonna sound really..

00:21:23
- I wouldn't.. - OK.

00:21:25
- I wouldn't do that.

00:21:26
- Lemme just go .. - Hey, Jeff, your build into that one felt pretty cool, like the way..

00:21:30
'cause you landed on the right note but you kinda walked up into it and it's kind of in-between keys, it's pretty weird but it was cool! - OK! You want me to give one more like that? - One more - Yeah! - I think between all these, we got it.

00:22:12
- While we're here..

00:22:13
why don't I just..

00:22:15
I'm gonna be throwing this on the outro, as well..

00:22:19
so you want to just hit that.. it's gonna be real straight, it's not gonna anything like.. riffin', it's just gonna be that line..

00:22:24
- Yeah, here we go! - Ahh..

00:22:45
- I think that was great! - Yeah? I thought that was kinda corny! - Oh, really? - [sings] - Hey, Jeff! - Yeah? - What if you do the kind of ending of the demo where you just go insane, just try one take where the last, like.. two..

00:22:58
seconds of it just go leave it all *blablabla* and then it cuts. - OK, cool! - Yeah! - Too bleepy? - Yeah, it was an idea.. - ..kinda bleepy! - But, yeah..

00:23:28
- I'm trying to get this hook back in a way that makes sense - Yeah.

00:23:32
- ..but I'm realizing that it's..

00:23:33
- What if in the last two bars of it you just bend in the hell out of it, you know what I mean? - Yeah.

00:23:38
- Really wanking that around.

00:23:41
- Lemme try.. I'll try something.

00:24:01
[laughs] - I like how it's almost there.

00:24:05
- It was good. It was cool.

00:24:07
- Yeah, it's that it? - I think between what we've got and..

00:24:11
all, that's it.

00:24:12
- Cool. - Come take a listen.

00:24:13
- Thanks. - Yeah.

00:24:15
I'm gonna try to explain sort of what's going on, here.

00:24:17
The amps are coming in to these microphones, coming in to this desk.

00:24:20
I'm sending out to one of my EXTC modules, over here, these Radial EXTCs.

00:24:28
That goes to a pedal..

00:24:29
it goes to a Klon clone pedal, the red Klon, the red one up there..

00:24:35
up there, that one! Yeah, that one.

00:24:37
That comes down and goes into a..

00:24:41
Kilobyte delay pedal Caroline Industries Kilobyte pedal..

00:24:46
I have that all dry at this point.

00:24:50
It comes out of there and into the flanger doubler and then back into a fader, right down here.

00:24:57
While this track was happening I was having Jake at the very end of that solo part, have him turn up the..

00:25:07
..the wet/dry. - Yeah.

00:25:08
- ..so he went all wet, - On the delay! - And then I'll have the delay kind of long and that's feeding the flanger, so it kinda goes [sings] and then I was just trying to concentrate on the take and then at the end, when he adds the delay in it adds some gain, so I'm using the sub master fader here, for these four faders, to turn it down.

00:25:30
So I'm sort of riding the gain of the wet and dry a little bit to tape.

00:25:36
And even then, if you look at our Pro Tools session, you can see at the end there's a little bit of gain so, I'm gonna fix that.

00:25:41
We're gonna probably just do a fade..

00:25:43
and then at the end we didn't have it on at all but that's what is happening at the end of this solo and you can hear it, I'm gonna solo it here..

00:26:04
And because there's so much gain on the pedal, there's a little bit of bleed from one of the other tracks somewhere..

00:26:10
but you hear a little bit of that drum/echo/flange thing happening - Dude, that's probably from my headphone mix in that room blasting as loud as possible.. - And there you go! - ..and hitting the guitar mic. - Don't do that! - Yeah. - Don't do that.

00:26:23
- Yeah don't do that. - Don't do that.

00:26:24
- Alright, cool, so now we're going to comp this, together.

00:26:27
So here's that little end piece..

00:26:40
But yeah, it didn't quite get there.

00:26:41
Lemme show you the other one, there was one where you kinda just went kinda crazy..

00:26:51
It's just kinda charming in its own way.

00:27:02
See, I don't mind that one, you thought that was cheesy but I don't..

00:27:05
I don't mind that one..

00:27:14
I kinda like what this is doing.

00:27:16
- I just got off all the strings and let it feedback.

00:27:19
- Yeah, what we could do here is..

00:27:39
- Kinda cool, I mean..

00:27:40
- Kinda cool, kinda wrong..

00:27:41
Let's leave that for now, let's go back to our solo section, here.

00:27:45
Back here, about 16, there was one that was pretty great.

00:28:05
That one, for me.. this part is cool.

00:28:09
- Yeah, that's what I wanted the bridge to gap.

00:28:13
That's gonna have the vocals coming in on top of that on the same lyric.

00:28:33
So that's the ending, so now we just gotta get..

00:28:36
let's do this here, let's go..

00:28:47
old playlist! Let's listen here, through here, 'cause some of these are pretty good, man! See, the cool thing is, this would work, like let's say that we flew this up in here..

00:29:37
You know what I mean? - Yeah.

00:29:38
That's a pretty well-played solo, you know..

00:29:41
Let's see if we get anything else, if there's anything else that's any more interesting, a'ight? Cool spot, right here.

00:29:57
That little..

00:30:00
You know what I mean? Let's see if I put it in this..

00:30:15
Yeah, I figured we'd get the gross part, we get the bulk of it..

00:30:20
make sure that we've got the best parts of that and then we'll get them together.

00:30:23
- Is that cool? - Yeah, totally.

00:30:38
That was actually pretty good, man! Yeah, that was pretty cool! Like, to right here? - Yeah.

00:30:43
- So now let's see if I fly that up into this what happens..

00:31:11
When it runs across this..

00:31:13
that's kinda like, there's kinda like something wrong there..

00:31:17
that's kind cool.. let's see, here.

00:31:31
[unintelligible] - Yeah, in 16? [unintelligible] And then let's go here.

00:31:54
I kinda like that down here, though..

00:32:01
- Yeah that's cool. - Yeah that sounds cool! - Yeah I'm putting the proverbial lipstick on the pig, here..

00:32:28
- Must be that whole piece, eh? - Maybe you got the whole thing? That's crazy talking.

00:32:58
One little note in there that's kinda like..

00:33:19
Let's try out this one little note, right here..

00:33:27
It's so weird that it might be great! Pretty cool! - That's pretty cool, man! Yeah, it's definitely wrong..

00:33:48
- That's the part! - Ok, cool, now we need the feedback intro..

00:33:51
- Yeah we've gotta fill that.

00:33:55
- Pretty great.

00:33:58
Too long.

00:34:05
So, like.. that's pretty cool, that can go in there and it's just a little thing..

00:34:43
Yes! - Dude, that's great! - Let's go eat some hot chicken! - My ears are really..

00:34:49
- Yeah! - Hot chicken, tonight! Well, it's not tonight really..

00:34:54
- Right now.. - it's definitely.. it's 4 o'clock.

00:34:57
- Lunch! - Lunch! - Jake and I have got a little idea about a little snare treatment that's involving this broken, well it's not broken but it's inside-out splash cymbal, I bought a splash at a yard sale for $5 and then I stomped on it because I was like: 'I hate splash cymbals, the stupidest cymbal ever' the only thing stupider is a ping, but whatever..

00:35:19
that's just my opinion..

00:35:21
this splash cymbal is on top of the snare and he's gonna hit it, and that's it..

00:35:25
it doesn't make a lot of sound but it is kind of a cool sound and then there's a couple of cymbal stacks, like really bad cymbals stacked on top of each other, he's gonna hit a couple those and then I'm having him hit a long one..

00:35:37
and I'm gonna record every track so I'm gonna record all the drum tracks to get these samples.

00:35:43
I'm also recording, while we're doing this, the 2-mix of it.

00:35:47
Because most likely, that's what I'll use on the samples.

00:35:52
Most likely.

00:35:53
I'll use the 2-mix.

00:35:54
So let's see what we get here.

00:35:56
Alright man, gimme a few stray hits of the snare, ping cymbal thing..

00:36:01
- Alright.

00:36:03
- Cymbaly thing on the snare.

00:36:24
- Cool, now the really short, little pop snare thing..

00:36:38
Alright, it's cool, the first one was great.

00:36:39
- OK. - Alright now: smashed cymbal.

00:36:42
- Cool, I've got two cymbal stacks, just so you know.

00:36:44
Here's the first one.

00:36:57
Here's the other one. - Now the first one long..

00:37:00
let it ring.

00:37:14
Alright, now the second stack.

00:37:16
- Short! Here's the long! - Let it go longer.

00:37:37
- Yeah, sorry: here it comes! - OK! Gimme the hi-hat.

00:38:05
- Do you want..

00:38:06
- Just a couple single hits.

00:38:12
Way out on the edge.

00:38:16
Like, in other words, like..

00:38:19
you know, hit right out on the edge.

00:38:21
Really light.. more of a 'ts' than a 'thsunk'.

00:38:29
Perfect.

00:38:30
Alright, cool! Yeah, just right now.. I'm just exporting these samples out to a folder.

00:38:36
A couple of these for right now, things I just want to hear now.

00:38:48
We took a little break, here.

00:38:50
A couple things happened, one: it got cold.

00:38:53
So I put on a sweatshirt.

00:38:54
Secondly, we had done some samples, earlier of I'd say non-traditional sort of drum samples..

00:39:01
snare drum with a splash cymbal on it, some stacked cymbals..

00:39:06
metallic sort of sounds and I got this little idea of what I kinda wanted to do, so..

00:39:14
I've put these samples in on all the snare hits and one of the things that's just putting it under the snare hits it didn't really do anything, but..

00:39:24
I have an Eventide 910, an original one, back here..

00:39:28
and it works and we kinda used this on Illiterate Light's record, when we were mixing..

00:39:33
I sort of just used it as a kind of a weird snare drum effect through the whole record and..

00:39:41
basically what I'm doing is I'm pitching these samples down and then adding some feedback and a little bit of a delay so..

00:39:49
they kinda go 'plooow' I wanna just play a little bit of the track here, so you can kinda hear what is happening here so you can pick it up then I'll show you the track and then I'll show you what's going on.

00:40:13
Here's what's actually happening, there: Sounds kinda dumb but strangely when you put it with the snare drum..

00:40:30
or with just the snare drum..

00:40:36
so it's giving it an illusion of depth, here a little bit..

00:40:40
Now lemme hear just the drums, again.

00:40:53
It's kinda got that little 'POW' after the snare, just a little bit afterwards, it's a super subtle little effect, and this means I don't have to add any reverb and I'm not going to.. I'm gonna..

00:41:03
when we mix this track I am seriously confident I am not gonna input any more reverb on these drums.

00:41:09
I've added a little bit of the Distressor to the taste mic, here..

00:41:15
Maybe I'd say I added a lot of Distressor, so..

00:41:17
here's without it.

00:41:29
And I wanted it up in that drum mix a little bit.

00:41:33
I probably under-recorded it a little bit because I just wasn't quite, completely sure like how it was gonna fit..

00:41:39
a little bit of after the recording, a little bit of compression, kinda makes it sort of extended a little bit, it kinda makes it kinda cool.

00:41:47
So what I'm gonna do is I'm actually just gonna take this track and I am gonna commit it.

00:41:52
I'll let this render up.

00:41:53
It was a good idea, it was Jake's idea..

00:41:56
kind of this little idea..

00:41:57
and I sorta could hear what he wanted but maybe not and then we just kinda nerded out a little bit, here, a little off camera..

00:42:06
sorry about that, and came up with this.

00:42:08
So..

00:42:09
It was lunch time.. we had hot chicken! It was awesome.