Cliffs of Dover - Full Cover by Peter C

Show and Tell
#2

Peter emailed this to our customer support box and because of it’s general awesomeness I recommended he post it on the forum. Great playing that really gets the EJ-ness happening.

I know we’ve talked about having a place for people to post covers. I don’t recall if there was a consensus on that conversation, or what we decided. Playing examples inside “Technique Critique” threads are fine if they’re there to show progress on a particular issue - like, here is what I’m doing on a certain phrase or technique, it occurs in this song, can you please check it out. But as a general “I did a cover tune” repository I don’t think “Technique Critique” is quite the right place.

For now I’ll go ahead and file this under “Techniqe Critique” since it’s referencing progress on Eric-related tedchniques. Maybe we’ll create a covers or general playing section in the future if there’s enough interest.

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#3

Thanks for the kind welcome Troy :slight_smile:

This is such a neat forum and while I’m still looking around, I am thankful I’m not the only pick-crazy guy on earth. Even made a shoddy necklace out of worn jazz iiis that look like jazz iis.

Happy picking everybody

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#4

Nice cover! Weird seeing EJ played on a Les Paul though lol

@Troy id love to see a section just for “here is a thing I did” or just to show off or “here is a cool lick I do” or whatever. Seems I remember when I read the suggestions for joining etc that those type of posts are discouraged?

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#5

Magnificent!

I had headphones on and was looking at something in another window; I forgot at several instances that this wasn’t EJ.

Well done! AND nailed the tone, too!

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#6

ah thanks for the kind words man.

This song came out when I was born- I discovered it some ten years later and saw it live for the first time in 2012. Didn’t know whether to quit or practice more. Ej is the pinnacle for me. I have so much respect for his music and artistry.

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#7

I think the main thing we want to avoid is people posting stuff that’s less discussion oriented, and comes off as more just self-promotional e.g. a link with no explanation or questions just “plz subscribe to my YouTube channel” or something like that.

The nice thing about #technique-critique is it clearly frames posts as “looking for feedback” so it gives a good starting point for a conversation. The above video may not be exactly that but as an update showing technical progress I think it can fit here. I could see similar things being a good fit for #playing-technique or #harmony-theory depending on context. Aside from the self-promotion concern, one hesitation with a more general “show off my playing” category is that it may be less clear what sort of discussion is intended. I don’t mind when this kind of thing pops up organically though, like the recent topic with everyone sharing their own music. Just not sure it needs a separate category.

Anyway we can think about this some more! I don’t want to get too off topic but we have some further thoughts here and if anyone’s interested in continuing the conversation this would be a good place: Performance videos and if / where / when they should be posted

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#8

Thanks for the explanation Brendan,

I am much better aware of the concerns on your end.

I’m sure as you can see from Troy’s post that it was actually a personal email in which I thanked him for the material which I bought years ago, in realizing my dreams to play an iconic piece, totally unaware that a great forum like this existed. I figured I’d post here based on Troy’s recommendation and more of a demonstration that his methods work :slight_smile: In fact my youtube channel is private and has never had any history of monetization or promotion so I leave that just to be more transparent.

In any case, as a sign of good faith I’ll try and be more involved in the forum and I greatly appreciate everyone’s efforts here.

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#9

Yeah for sure! I saw you’d initially emailed; glad you posted here as well! I was just responding to @JonJon’s question and referring to some stuff we’d discussed previously about how we might handle sharing various kinds of playing examples on the forum. But that’s more a general point…to be clear, no problem at all with your post here and sorry for getting a bit sidetracked w/ forum meta discussion :slight_smile:

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#10

I think there needs to be a “look how awesome I am” section to go along with the “Am I doing this shit properly?” section, but the proviso should be that anything anyone posts in it is at least as good as the OP of this thread.

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#11

Wow - what a fantastic cover! Well done! What speakers are in that cab? Greenbacks?

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#12

Thanks for that :slight_smile:

The signal is:
57 relic strat / 58 th historic (verse/chorus all strat, everything else les paul)
→ mxr fet driver at noon with bass on zero
→ catalinbread belle epoch preamp on (but delay off)
→ marshall 2061 on 10, channels jumped (only high treble channel for LP)
→ two notes torpedo captor DI/load box
→ logic x & two notes wall of sound (25w greenbacks)

  • 1 cab (4x12) close mic’d with sm57
  • 1 cab (4x12) room mic far mic’d with akg414)

→ 420 ms delay (3-4 repeats) + slight plate reverb + no eq/compression
→ Troy’s lessons

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#13

That’s impressive- very nicely done! Can I ask how long it took to get the whole tune sounding that good? Not that it matters- I’m just curious.

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#14

Thanks for the kind words Lewis.

The recording process itself from start to finish took about a month, but at least 3 weeks were spent just listening and listening- every day.

It was a double take between the 57 strat and the 58 paul. I selected the best parts, did a separate video take with the paul only and did a sync. With this setup, the strat and LP sound identical (and I’m really picky about the sound).

As for the technique- I had actually been trying to play EJ’s stuff for a long while, without the technical knowhow so it was a brute force process that took way too long. Once I got troy’s lessons a year and a half ago, it all made sense and I see/hear/pick it up right away so the leads are not as difficult as they used to be- and gives me license to play the runs in my own little ways. For example Bonamassa does a variant of EJ’s descending runs which aren’t gypsy-picked but more alternated.

The song itself, including all the little inflections and figuring out what i wanted to do to play this part differently I’d say it was a good 3 months before I felt confident enough to even think about putting it on tape.

I have stage and studio experience but i’m by default very shy and perfectionist so it tends to drag on for a bit. I don’t like looking back at older videos and as of today I can’t watch this video because it’s unbearable to hear only the mistakes; it’s a curse that I can’t get over.

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#15

This was very inspirational!

Oh that’s a great idea! So you mean that the audio is not uniquely from the video performance, but you selected the best bits from 2 audio tracks and mixed them into a single video? Or is the video a totally different performance from the 2 audio tracks? (sorry I am being a bit thick, just wanted to make sure I understood properly).

This is very interesting to me as I often have the (probably unrealistic?) goal of getting everything perfect within a single take, which makes the recording process very frustrating at times! So many times I recorded good takes where some tiny bits went wrong - I guess I could have just recorded new audio over these bits :sweat_smile: If the motions/ timing of the video are compatible with the sound, I guess the result would be good.

I wonder if many pro youtubers use this technique?

I totally know the feeling, but I can tell you that for an outsider (but still an obsessive listener of guitar) this sounds awesome! Perhaps some parts don’t sound exactly how you wanted them in your head, but everything still came out sounding good. I think as guitarists (especially in shreddy genres) we have to learn to live with tiny imperfections, otherwise there is a high risk of going mad!

Also, if you want to feel better, watch any live performance of a guitarist virtuoso - stuff is never as clean live as it is in recordings. We may just have unrealistic expectations (talking to myself a bit here hehe).

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#16

you mean like most of them? we used to have this discussion when i was frequenting singing forums. A lot of the “pro” youtube singers arent doing it fully live if u watch closely. once you see it you get good at seeing it lol

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#17

I am quite naive about the whole thing as I am just a hobbyist - or better bedroom guitarist :smiley: - who started to play again in 2015 after watching Troy’s youtube show.

So I am genuinely curious about techniques for making good recordings! if overdubbing a little is sort of “accepted” in the industry, that makes me feel a whole lot better :slight_smile:

#18

well it just goes back to what we all know, “live” pro recordings are generally not live lol. and studio recordings?? anything goes! even the Beatles “cheated” quite a bit. The little fast lick on “Hard days night” was cheated cuz they couldnt play it that fast lol

the songs ive recorded?? omg, I dont even try to sing whole lines lol, its phrase by phrase and even 1 letter of a word can be fixed

Im not putting down the OP btw, I couldnt play COD with 50 takes

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#19

thanks tommo and JonJon (I know you’re not putting me down :))

Two separate takes compiled into one, separate video. I synced it perfectly, but youtube mobile- the video is a tad quicker than the audio- not a problem on my computer or youtube desktop.

Regarding recorded music, jonjon is absolutely right- EJ is notoriously famous for this that I hear this in so many of his tunes. CoD is actually a prime example of his punching in parts. In Venus Isle and Lonely in the Night there are multiple examples too.

But here, two audio files compiled, one separate take with video (threw the audio away for that one).

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#20

Apologies, further question :sweat_smile: - did you have to record a video with 100% perfect timing for this approach to work, or did you tweak the video in places in order for the sound to match the movements?

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#21

Video is a single take. Filmed and recorded as if I were doing a proper take. Which is why I seem more tense than usual. My vibrato/bends are wilder/wider more expressive without the red blinking lights :stuck_out_tongue:

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