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Made a backing track! Could use some feedback

Dominik Gräber

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  • Nov 11, 2019
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    Hey guys! So besides playing guitar some of you might now that I am an artist as well. Lately I recorded the process of making a leather armguard for archery. And for the video I made a 11 min backing track.
    I am really proud that I managed to do that. Especially as it only took a morning to make. Now I would be really glad for some feedback from you guys. Especially in the second half of the video as I started soloing over the backing track 🙂

    Here’s the video. Enjoy 🙂
     

    Firsty Lasty

    New Student
    Nov 11, 2019
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    The visual art is cool as hell. I found it very interesting and legitimately impressive. The music made me die of boredom. However, it could become something cool. Here’s what I would do if I wanted to steal this and make it my own:
    1: start soloing no later than 16 seconds in.
    2: more instruments, particulary soft synth chords paired with…
    3: rhythmic elements. It doesn’t have to be anything intense, just something so that some kind of rhythmic groove exists.
    4: go somewhere with it. Right now it’s kinda the same thing over and over. It sounds like you have the knowledge and skill to do more.
    5: chop it way down and add more tracks to the video. I can’t think of one guitarist on the entire planet who can make an interesting slow twelve minutes long guitar-only jam.
    I might write out some solo-specific feedback later.
     

    Dominik Gräber

    Hot Topic Tourer
    Contest Winner!
  • Nov 11, 2019
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    @Firsty Lasty really good point! But my intention really wasnt to do Something overly exciting but rather Something to fill in so you don’t hear nothing.
    Also I don’t know how to do synths or anything and this is the First time attempting a backing track.
    I totally agree that it could have way more soloing in the First Part. My Problem is that my theory knowledge goes as far as knowing one pentatonic scale.
    My Inspiration came from @hector s Song Astral Realm which is really slow as Well. I used it Last Time I did a similar Video.
    So, anyway, thanks for the honestly Feedback! I might try Something Else for the First Part 🙂
     

    Firsty Lasty

    New Student
    Nov 11, 2019
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    Ok, I’m back for more. This time I’ll go over some positive things. Three of the biggest mistakes I made when I was starting out are problems that you don’t have.
    First, my vibrato was garbage for a long time. Your vibrato sounds very promising.
    Second, I couldn’t figure out how to use slides in my playing without sounding like a retard. You have a good sense of how to musically use the technique.
    Third, I got stuck in the trap that a lot of new guitarist fall into, which was that I largely avoided ever playing the same note twice or playing a similar phrase twice. This results in solos sounding like a bunch of random notes. So embarrassing. For an example of you being smarter than me and not making this mistake, listen from about 8:20 to 8:42. Imo this is the overall strongest part of the entire track; it is the part that sounds the most like a song.
    A couple of random highlights: the thing at 7:22 sounds really cool, and the use of harmonics around 9:25 makes me happy.
    Regarding software synths, they’re easy to use and a lot of fun. A decent way to get started is grab synth1 for something free, and if your computer can handle it grab all the demos from u-he. I never had any interest in piano or keyboards, but when I started using synths for the low bass frequencies I discovered that jamming over a synth track is way more fun than jamming over a guitar track.