Akhlys - Breath and Levitation cover

Been trying to learn and play this for a while now.
There was always something off, but I said to myself “nah, screw it”, and so I recorded the best I could.

Learned a lot about mixing in the process, first time ever I used automations and synths.
I decided to keep a tiny bit of original intro though, after that though it’s all me playing, except for midi drums, midi bass, and midi synths.
Guitars are quad (sextuple [?] in some spots) tracked.

The point was to:
a) learn and play by ear as close as I can
b) replicate the tone as close as I can.

Let me know what you think and be brutally honest, please.

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I think it sounds pretty great!
There are some very interesting tremolo passages that would be nice to hear without the backing track.
Especially those you played in the higher register.

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Good timing, I was just about to clean the project folder.

Isolated lead guitars, split in two due to size:

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So great to see Akhlys get some well deserved love. Such a creative project by one genius of a man. Excellent work, man!

What tuning do they use btw? in the event that I dare try to throw my hat into the tremolo picking carpal tunnel championship :laughing:

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B standard.

Come on, it’s not even that fast, this track is in 122BPM, Tides of Oneiric Darkness is 120BPM and so is Consummation and The Dreaming Eye.
At least that’s what I get tapping the tempo to drums.

Best thing is their drummer liked the post and followed me on Instagram. I feel so special now.

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Its usually not the speed that gets me its the duration but its gotten alot better over time. Ive covered some mayhem & Marduk to address this & seems to be helping.

& yea youre pretty rad for having the drummer follow you :metal:

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Well, I’m no master either, but as far as I can tell it’s mostly about relaxation and practice.
I could do 120 pretty much indefinitely, 180 and above is what I struggle with. Then after some practice I do a whole track at 190 and leave my drummer and myself astonished in the end, like “how did I just pulled that off”.
Warmups are essential, but if you wear yourself out during warmup, then you won’t be able to go even at 60% your normal speed.

Yeah, I’ve found that learning challenging songs helps both with technique and creativity. As in, I’m “stealing” some riffs for my own tracks. In the end that’s how creativity works, you get inspired, you copy, you add something of your own… and the world keeps spinnin’.

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My biggest struggle with the tremolo is crossing strings at the moment. Im working on the song necropolis by Black Dahlia Murder & that chorus is tripping me up so bad. Im gonna post some clips in my own thread because im totally stumped on why I get so caught up when doing 3-4nps picking exercises im getting continuously better over time. Im gonna use you as inspiration to put in that extra time with it :+1:

Most of the time you’ll find string changes on downbeat.

I too were struggling with string changes when I was holding the pick so it pointed downwards. When I switched to pick pointing upwards and using downpick motion to escape the string it changed everything.

Neat!
You are good at keeping the rhythm!
I really liked the guitar sound on these tracks.

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Props to you sir!

Akhlys is one of my top favorite bands and this track from ‘The Dreaming I’ is beautiful and I think you nailed it!
-Jorma

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It’s the same for me, recently I caught myself playing the album on repeat for couple of days / weeks straight.
By there is no shame in it, the music is fantastic in its atmospheric simplicity.

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