Going Unplugged

Nirvana did it. Eric Clapton did it too. So did Pearl Jam, Jimmy Page, Bob Dylan, KISS, R.E.M. and Springsteen. These artists and many others, who are known more for their electric performances than they are acoustic, have all at some point unplugged and gone bare bones with their music.

Now, we're not talking "unplugged" in the literal sense, as in no amplification. What we're referring to here is when a musician plays a stripped-down version of their electric repertoire on an acoustic instrument that is amplified, but to a lesser degree. If you remember MTV Unplugged, you'll recall the series wasn't actually a showcase for artists playing their instruments without amplification, but rather for bands performing their songs on acoustic instruments that were plugged in to smaller, less powerful amps.

Going unplugged adds a degree of intimacy to a song that approximates playing in one's living room or around a campfire. It can sometimes feel a little too personal for comfort though, like Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven," which he wrote to cope with the pain of the tragic loss of his four-year-old son, Conor, and Nirvana's haunting, legendary Unplugged in New York performance, which was recorded four months prior to Kurt Cobain's death. Especially poignant is Cobain's rendition of Lead Belly's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night."

When you take a song unplugged, you can't simply play the same song, note for note, on a different instrument and expect it to sound as good as or even better than the original. In most cases, it won't. Average will be as good as it gets. The challenge in going unplugged then doesn't concern trying to be heard, but involves the ability to take an electric song and make it translate as an acoustic one. Compare the plugged-in version of Eric Clapton's signature song "Layla" with the unplugged version, which he completely reinvented. Same song, very different sound.

The key to reworking heavier songs as acoustic numbers without sacrificing the power and passion of the song is to keep in mind the differences between electric and acoustic guitars as well as the context of the original song. Are you playing unplugged as part of a band or in a solo situation? If you are creating a solo acoustic version of a song that's played by a whole band, you'll need to compensate for what the band provides.

The following are some tips to help you adapt an electric piece to an acoustic guitar and make it every bit as compelling as the song it's based on:

Add bass lines to your chord progressions. Learn the existing bass line to the song you're creating the acoustic version from and include elements of it in your arrangement, especially if you are creating a solo version where it's just you, your guitar, and a vocal. This will help fill out the sound more and create movement within your chord progressions.

Swap out power chords for open and barre chords. For a bigger, fuller sound on your unplugged song, replace the power chords in the electric version with open and/or barre chords. This can be a great way to build the intensity and dynamics in your acoustic song when you don't have the distortion of the electric guitar at your disposal. You don't necessarily have to replace every power chord, it really depends on the context of the song. Whether you go with open or barre chords will also depend on the situation in regard to chord picking, embellishments, strumming approaches, etc.

Strum more. Another way to compensate for the loss of distortion, sustain, and lack of other instruments (assuming you're playing without a band backing you) is to strum more in your acoustic version. Strumming can have a very percussive effect on your acoustic guitar, providing you with a cool groove, and can be a great tool for compensating for the lack of other instruments if you are playing solo. It's also great for building intensity and dynamics in your song.

Add bits of melody to chord progressions. A very effective way to round out and add interest to your sound, especially if you are creating a solo acoustic version, is to include hints of the song's melody in your chord progressions. In doing so you will end up with some really sweet embellishments and extensions to your chords. This approach will fill out the progressions of your acoustic song more, and can even provide a nice instrumental break within the song.

Try fingerpicking. Fingerpicking allows you to play more than one note simultaneously. Using your fingers also provides a different tone compared to that of a pick. It comes in especially handy at times when you're walking the bass line and want to put in the chords on the upbeat, and when adding melody lines to the song. Fingerpicking is also useful for arpeggios and embellishment techniques such as hammer-ons and pull-offs, all of which help beef up your sound and make it more captivating.

Incorporate percussive elements. By introducing slaps, knocks, raps and other hands-on-wood effects into your playing, you can enliven and add greater sonic interest to your unplugged performance. Percussive elements are a great technique to emulate the feel of a rhythm section in a solo acoustic song.

Use slides. Certain techniques are harder to execute on an acoustic guitar than they are an electric. String bending is one of them. Due to the extra tension in the strings of an acoustic, it can be difficult to bend them. Sliding is a good substitute. Sliding to your note instead of bending to it will provide a slightly different sound. It's nuances like this that will give your unplugged song that acoustic sound.

Try double stops. Double stops are a great tool to consider when it comes to soloing on your acoustic guitar. Double stops are when you play two notes together at the same time. They help to add intensity to your solo lines. A nice contrast is created between the double stops and your single notes when you use them, and they also thicken up the sound of a riff. This provides you with yet another way to compensate for the lack of distortion and sustain of the electric guitar.

These are just a few ideas to help you get started stripping down your songs. If you play a lot of solos, be sure to dig deeper into the techniques for soloing unplugged.

Have fun experimenting and retooling some of your old favorites. Of course, while you are learning to rework your electric songs as acoustic numbers, it helps to carefully listen to some artists who have done it. Compare their unplugged songs to the original versions to see what those artists have done, then take those ideas and implement them into your own unique takes of songs on your acoustic. 

The Guess Who "American Women" Isolated Percussion Track Read more: http://bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-guess-who-american-women-isolated.html#ixzz407SkE7su Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Follow us: @bobbyowsinski on Twitter | bobby.owsinski on Facebook

Percussion is the secret weapon that producers use to give motion to a song. Sometimes the percussion is obvious in a mix, and sometimes it's almost imperceptible (like the shaker on Tom Petty and the Heatbreaker's big hit "Refugee"), but it almost always makes a big difference how the song feels.

For decades now garage bands have been playing The Guess Who's "American Women" and wondering why it didn't sound like the record, and the reason is they're not playing the percussion that's an integral part of the song.

Take a close listen to the following video and you'll realize why it's almost a different song without the conga and  tom hit.

Note that they're not playing totally in the pocket, but that was the state of production for the era, when timing wasn't scrutinized as closely as it is today.

George Massenburg On Recording Drums

George Massenburg is not only a legendary engineer, but he's one that likes to experiment.

Here's a video where George breaks from the norm when recording drums and tries some different and interesting techniques.

As always, there's a lot of thought behind everything that he's attempting to do.

Introducing Guitar Hero Live, Coming This Fall

A lot has changed since Guitar Hero first launched nearly 10 years ago. We’re playing on a new generation of game consoles, music is streaming and more readily accessible than ever, and smartphones and tablets are practically household items. With Guitar Hero Live, Activision and developers FreeStyleGames (DJ Hero, DJ Hero 2) are reimagining the series for the modern era, introducing live-action audiences and band mates that react dynamically to how you play, the world's first 24-hour playable music video network, a completely redesigned guitar controller, and support for both consoles and mobile devices alike.

In a sense, Guitar Hero Live is two games in one—GH Live and GHTV. GH Live is all about living out your dreams of rock stardom with vivid realism. You take a first-person view as you join real bands and perform for real crowds, whether it be for small clubs or headlining massive music festivals. From getting hyped with your band backstage to closing out your set to a sold out venue, you’ll see and hear it all. But it’s more than just about the sights and sounds, it’s about feeding off the crowd and band as they react in real-time as you play. You’ll see everything from fans cheering along to your perfect note streak to worried glances from your band as you start to lag behind.

While GH Live focuses on the thrill of the performance, GHTV is all about discovering new music. With a network of playable music video stations, you can fire up GHTV and play along with official music videos from a broad range of genres. Across both modes, Guitar Hero Live will feature hundreds of songs from a diverse array of artists, including The Black Keys, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Gary Clark, Jr., Green Day, Ed Sheeran, The War on Drugs, The Killers, Skrillex, The Rolling Stones, The Lumineers, Carrie Underwood, Pierce the Veil and Blitz Kids, with many more bands to be announced in the coming months. It's also designed to be a social experience. In GHTV, you can compete for the highest score with your friends in the same room or online, while also completing challenges.

At the center of it all, however, is the new Guitar Hero Live controller. The guitar controller has been redesigned to both look and feel more authentic. With two rows of three buttons, it’s easier than ever to pick up and play, but offers more complexity as your skills evolve. The new button configuration lets you form chord shapes and note combinations as you increase the difficulty. Best of all, we’re bringing Guitar Hero Live—guitar controller and all—to mobile. For the first time ever, fans will be able to get the full console experience on their tablet or smartphone, including both the full GH Live and GHTV modes.

Click the arrows to see more of Guitar Hero Live

Guitar Hero Live is coming to PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Wii U, and select mobile devices this fall with an MSRP of $99.99. However, you may not have to wait that long to try it out. Today, fans are invited to come check out the game at the Best Buy Theatre in New York City from 6pm ET to 9pm ET.  We’ll also be bringing it to several other retail locations in later this week, so check out GuitarHero.com for more details.

We can’t wait to share more about Guitar Hero Live. To keep up to-date, stay tuned to the Activision Games Blog and follow @Activision on Twitter. You can also find Guitar Hero on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and other social platforms.

New Scale The Summit Album Finished

Scale The Summit has just posted this on their Facebook: “Our new shreddin’ album will be titled “V”, due out this summer via Prosthetic Records. We wrapped up the recording process a few days ago and now will have the amazing Jamie King mix this bad boy. Can’t put into words how excited we are about this material! Artwork reveal coming soon!” 

See more at: http://iheartguitarblog.com/2015/03/new-scale-the-summit-album-finished.html#sthash.dRjnABdA.dpuf

Periphery's Misha Mansoor Explains Why He Hates Guitar Solos

Courtesy of Periphery

Periphery

Periphery is one of those bands that are difficult to forget. It's not because they are constantly in the mainstream, shoved in your face by way of radio play, music videos or non-stop festival headlining. Although I'm sure they wouldn't turn down any of that.

No -- you remember Periphery because of the musical prowess. The heavy yet delicate mix of poly-rhythmic patterns and climactic melodies. The unexpected tumultuous flow of the music, and variation between raw screams and soaring vocals. The members, vocalist Spencer Sotelo, guitarists Misha Mansoor, Mark Halcomb and Jake Bowen, bassist Adam "Nolly" Getgood, and drummer Matt Halpern, are actually progressive in every sense of the word.

Periphery is a djent movement pioneer, often compared to a younger, heavier Dream Theater. The members self-produce everything they do, and since the self-titled debut five years ago, have created two other albums. The third, a double concept album calledJuggernaut, comes out on January 27.

Juggernaut is two whole albums worth of material released as two separate discs, one called Alpha and the other Omega.

See also: 15 Best Guitarists in the Phoenix Metal Scene Right Now

The story is cryptic, but a lot of the concept is revealed when the physical bundle is purchased, complete with a booklet and killer album artwork. Instead of heavy riffage and growls, the listener encounters elements that are all about the theatrical, from slow atmospheric builds and dark riffs, to ethereal soaring vocal melodies.

Periphery will perform in Mesa at Club Red on January 21, along with Nothing More, Wovenwar and Thank You Scientist.

New Times talked with guitarist Misha Mansoor on the band's day off in Panama City, Panama, where they went for the beach but found 50-degree rainy weather.

So tell me a bit about the concept of the double album, Juggernaut: Alphaand Juggernaut: Omega that's coming out January 27.

Misha Mansoor: Well let's start of this interview with an awesome answer. I can't answer that question, but it's for a good reason. We put a lot of work into the concept and the music, especially taking a lot of time with the artwork. It's solely to be able to convey the story as best we could without spelling it out to people. But with that said, we really want to see how people interpret it first, and let them go into it blind. Instead of them reading this interview, checking it out and then having a notion of what we said about it. Everyone in the band is excited to see what people make of it and eventually we will reveal the actual story. It will also be interesting to see how well we will have told the story.

You've said the band is encouraging fans to buy the booklet and the full double album and the artwork, because the physical copy tells the story.

Yes that combined with the artwork; it's all very deliberate. You're absolutely right. We know digital is very popular and convenient, but for the full experience for those who really care about the story, I strongly encourage them to get the physical copy. It will be really interesting to see what people think it's about.

The band has been discussing a project called Juggernaut as far back as 2006, which consisted of demos recorded by you, but you guys decided to scrap that from this album because the material was too dated?

Well it's a number of things. We really just wanted to write a new album, and "Juggernaut" is almost like a project name or code word for our concept albums. We wanted to take the time to craft and create you know? And after Periphery II, which is really upbeat and playful and note-y, the band was on this kick of writing something dark and cinematic and theatrical. These were adjectives we were all throwing around. We were all on the same page with that. And all the sudden that original concept didn't fit the type of music we wanted to write, and those older ideas were suited to the old concept. So writing this new story required new music. We wanted to re-appropriate the ideas instead of use the old songs. They were specifically written for the story. 

Well especially for something written back in 2006 -- that's a long time in the evolution of a band's skill set and sound.

Absolutely. Absolutely. But as I said, Juggernaut is more an idea. Here, I'll tell you why we called it Juggernaut. It was something all of our fans knew we were releasing something called "Juggernaut." Literally after every release, fans would be like, "Cool. But hey when isJuggernaut coming out?" And I guarantee you we couldn't said that the album was likeJuggernaut and that term is just an "idea," people would still ask when the album was coming out. [Laughter.] You know? And in a sense that's what it really is for us. This is our attempt at actually doing this concept album once and for all. A very ambitious and challenging project for us.

You can hear that in the music a lot. The writing process was one the band has never done before: a full band concept. How do you think that changed the voice of the album? Was it stressful?

No it was honestly a really great thing. I think a lot of people view my role in the band a bit differently rather than it's been or what I've wanted it to be. In the beginning I did everything but that was out of necessity. I started the band and wanted to find members I could work with, but now we have members that are fantastic musicians and creative individuals. I just wanted to be a guitarist; 1/6 of the band. No special role but working with musicians that I respect and create a good album.

If I don't have a complete song idea now it isn't the end of the world because the rest of the guys make it a complete song. We focused more than anything on the songwriting in this album, and the arrangements. If there's a criticism I have of my own music in the past it's that things get crowded and things can't breath. Everything loses its impact then. I already know having competed this album that there's a bunch of things we've learned for next time. That's the nature of this band; you're always learning and getting better.

Did you have to do any restructuring of your guitar work and themes to connect the story between both discs?

Yeah, we all realized it's not about personal ego on any of this stuff; it's about doing the best song. There were some instrumental arrangements that were awesome riffs, but when vocals came in, it didn't fit. One person would be stoked but the other wouldn't. You have to learn how to get not emotionally attached.

We wanted to self-produce, but since we're all very strong-headed and have visions and all produce, it can get very messy. Given that our band is a democracy, it's very difficult for any one person in the band to have the producer role, you know? It required us to really communicate with each other, and open ourselves up to compromising. But we still self-produced and I'm really glad we did. I think everyone was ready for it to be a lot harder. 

It had the potential for disaster. It's all about having the best results for the album. And that perspective really goes a long way.

In the behind the scenes videos, Spencer said you definitely want to work with a producer for the next album, which would be the first time ever that Periphery would've worked with one, right?

Yeah, but you know Spencer also handles his vocals stuff well, and there were logistical things on his end that made his job really hard. Whether or not he works with a producer on next album is up in the air, that's something we would talk about when next album comes around. But if he feels it would make him better then no one would have a problem, I don't think.

We all write music, including Spencer, but he's the only one who writes vocals and lyrics. So I can understand his stress. We can't give advice on things we can't give advice on.

It seems there's a lot more singing rather than screaming on this album, but it works nicely with the instrumental tension and dark melodies. What outside things were really influencing you?

I don't think there were too many outside things for me. I think the main influence for all of us, and we spoke about it going into what we wanted this album to sound like, is those words like dark, cinematic and theatrical as a reaction to our last album. We're always demoing and writing stuff, so when we were working on Periphery II it was a few years of writing this upbeat playful fast stuff and very colorful. And after two years of doing that we were just ready for something different, dark, slow and brooding.

What's your proudest moment on the record?

I really hate writing solos. They are a real pain in the ass and I hate playing them live. I hate having to compose them. They are so much work and it doesn't come naturally to me. Big sigh. Sometimes I'll get lucky and something good will come out. There's a song called "Rainbow Gravity," and I wanted there to be a solo. It actually came together really fast and I was really stressed out writing it. That's where I feel the pressure is. I pretty much hated it when I wrote it, but when I took a step back and made some tweaks, I'm actually really proud of that solo. So that's why I'm proud of it because I usually hate it. I am not looking forward to playing it live though.

So you'll have that in your set list every show?

We probably will because it'll be one of those songs that works really well live, so I'm mentally preparing. I just gotta suck It up and do it.

And I heard there might be a graphic novel in the works that goes along with the album?

We've toyed around with it as a way of telling the story more concretely, but it hasn't been set in stone. I'd really like for it to happen; it would be awesome. But we don't want to do something half-assed so there will be lots of talk leading up to an idea and execution of it. I think what will help it materialize is finding artists and writers that can really make it amazing.

You're always working on side projects, so as of 2015 is there anything on the horizon for you this year that's new?

All those projects are literally for fun. It's an outlet that's fun for us you know? So we have a full year of touring ahead of us so... whatever free time we have we will have to see if anything gets done. I wanted to do my solo album just for myself because there's a bunch of cool ideas that don't or will never make it into Periphery and won't see the light of day otherwise, but they are always kinda lingering. If I put them on a solo album they are accounted for.

It's my main reason; not money or ego or a separate outlet. It's just these ideas that you have for awhile that will stop bugging m e if they are recorded. But since these are silly goals, there's no timeline or desperate need.