So I mentioned the other day that I might upload some improvised stuff, so here it is… What can I say? It is what it is… Nothing to write home about, but it is a HUGE step for me in many ways. The pure fact that I was able to improvise and sound somewhat musical is something that I never imagined I would be able to do. The other thing that makes it a milestone for me is that I “dared” to upload it to “Internetland” and share it with basically complete strangers in every corner of the globus. Funny things is that throughout the day I kept telling myself “Upload it, it’s cool, you should do it!” and when I was done with enhancing the original phone audio to make it audible, I almost didn’t upload it because “It sucks, why should I show this to others?”
What you’re hearing is basically an excercise related to the 7Factors course. I picked a random E Aeolian/minor backing track and set two goals: try to highlight the mode and try to play fluently across the board. Cheesy, boring, unstructured but apart from some obvious hiccups (bends, poor note choice and bad intonation) and the 3 chat notifications in the first minute, it’s not that bad… Or is it? Be RUTHLESS and SHOW NO MERCY!
The link doesn’t work unfortunately. I don’t know why. I tried copying the link and pasting it directly into YouTube… I also wrote the title in the search bar but it doesn’t work either.
… But very nice title! lol
Hmm… If I click play right here in the forum, it play formme alright, even on phone… Search will not work, as I set the video private…
I reqested a share link from youtoob studio, not much else I can think of. It works for me perfectly in every way I try… I hope it’ll work with this one:
Hey Nexion! I think is great. That’s the way you discover the sounds, intervals and feelings. The more you do it the more you will discover the places to go, the places that connects to you. Keep doing it! It’s a long journey, but it sounds awesome already.
Ok. That’s why I can’t see it. As a matter of fact, I’ve had this problem with the other videos posted here but could manage to see them by copying the link and pasting it on the YouTube search bar.
I looked for solutions with the list given by Google (“troubleshooting videos”) but besides doing a cache cleanup (which I already did) I don’t know what to do because I don’t want to lose all the playlists and everything I already stored on my Youtube account.
Perhaps I need to open a topic somewhere else to adress this issue… Didn’t mean to troll your topic. Sorry
I’ll try to watch the video on a computer in the meantime…
That title is not trolling, it’s just good sense of humor! ( Or modesty disguised with humor… Which is extremely common in Britain. Lemmy Kilmister had that kind of humor… But… Wasn’t this guy the king of trolls? Trolling hotel rooms for instance… OK, nevermind. I’m really trolling now lol)
I managed to watch the video on the computer.
From the title, I was expecting much worse . It was good ! Sure there were many wrong notes but most of it was good and followed the timing. I like your use of harmonics in particular!
And I must admit I can’t legato that much and make it sound smooth at the same time. It’s always risky to play so many legato runs in an improvisation at that speed without making some wrong notes anyway. At least, you don’t skip notes like I do, good hand synchronization
And there was some interesting musical ideas indeed. You did a good job at avoiding the mindless “up and down the scale” licks (I’m still having trouble with that when I improvise )
But what surprised me the most was your sound! I guess I had some prejudices against Jackson guitars (I only played once on a Jackson and it was something like… 20 years ago ).
Did you use a specific pedal to get that sound or is it just a good combination with the amp?
for the open string harmonics bit props go to Kiko and the harmonic series. just before that bit I took a rest and hit the three open string e, B and G and it occured to me that the 5th fret harmonics give me the E minor triad two octaves higher, so I tried to make a line with it with different ending notes (had to go back to it since I messed it up the first time around )
those fast-ish runs are mostly alternate picked… Might sound a bit legato-like because I only used the neck pickup and I believe I even rolled back the tone pot a tad. Though at times I managed to use them as a nice change of pace thing, I remeber doing them as security blankets/pauses too and for that very reson I should use them even less than I did here until I get better with my note choices when playing slowly. I’ve spent quite a lot of time right before joining Guitar Hacks on memorizing the 7 shapes and connecting them - you can see that at times I don’t even look at the guitar. Doing the alternate picking training made my right hand better, so playing the shapes in a linear fashion is way easier for me now than coming up with a tasty lick with well chosen notes and at times when I ran out of ideas or felt lost, I just tried to rip through a shape or two knowing that all of the notes will work and I don1t have to think…
as for the gear… Jackson Dinky DKMG, MIJ. Pickups are set of EMG BoneBreakers. It originally came with an 81/85 set (which I am not very fond of) but managed to fry them when trying to do some electronics mod. But I wanted to keep that guitar with active electronics and a local used ad came up with this BoneBreaker stuff, which is supposedly based on a 81/60A, but with “tweaked preamp” soudning less compressed and whatnot. PR claims true or not, I like it much better than the plain old 81/85 and I got it on the cheap. BOSS NS-2 (with a slight mod for faster gating), then the dirt comes from a KHDK Dark Blood (FYI: my Kirk fanboy days are long gone… I read that the pedal is mighty good and found a used one for below half of its MSRP , gave it a go and havent looked back. It is good, just not 300 EUR good…), for delay I have a Digitech Obscura and then a H&K Edition 1 solid state combo with a touch of reverb. Again, an old German made used one for under 100 USD… At room or maybe neighbour annoying levels, this simple chain gives me everything I want and actually sounds great. I had to do some post processing on the sound though, as I initially didn’t record it for upload and only had my phone recording the sound. So I detached the audio from the video , gave it a 20 dB boost (except for the chat notifications ) and then applied an EZ Mix mastering patch which helped reducing background noise and lift the guitar a bit . Finally with a separate EQ I filtered out some of the 200-300 Hz as the kickdrum from the backing track was booming after the 20 dB boost.
Oh, and Jackson is the shit! Seriously though, for some reason I’m a huge fanboy…This Dinky I use here is an insane workhorse. Nothing fancy, just a well built guitar that you can depend on. It’s almost 20 years old and recently got a refret and my luthier told me that there was not a single twist or kink in the neck or board to be corrected! I must admit though that the newer non-USA stuff is not always this great… You have to spend at least 1000 USD and even those ones need some work.
@nexion218 Thank you for mentioning the KHDK, I had never heard it and it does sound very good
For the rest of your comment I’ll have to look at the video again and find some time to reply. I had trouble finding some time for myself since last Thursday.
I wasn’t watching your right hand at 3:03 but yes you were picking the strings and it’s impressive! I can’t pick that fast and it does sound smooth!
For the harmonics I was thinking of all the kinds of harmonics, not just on the 5th fret but also the kind of “bending” harmonics (I know I’m clearly lacking vocabulary here ) like you do at 1:07 and at other times during the video. That’s another technique I don’t know how to do.
I use my thumb for that: I either twist my wrist a bit outwards or just hold the pick in a way that the very tip of my thumb hangs over the pick slightly and when I pick I let the string touch the tip of my thumb. Basically the same idea as with the 5th, 7th etc fret harmonics: you touch the vibrating string at half, quarter, eighth etc of it’s length thus producing the corresponding element of the overtone series. the only difference is that the harmonics come in a “mirror image” way: when produced with the left hand, the farther you move from the bridge towards the headstock , the further you go in the series, whereas doing it with the right hand above the pickup area, the closer you go to the bridge and farther away from the headstock, the further you go in the series.
You have to experiment with it though, as I found that I need to adjust the technique depending on what guitar/pickup I’m using. Some do well with the slightest of touch, some will sound better when I dig in, too much gain might make them sound quite unoleasant for me etc. Oh, and fresh strings always make it easier.
I hope it’ll work with this one:
It’s all good, no worries!
( Or modesty disguised with humor… Which is extremely common in Britain. Lemmy Kilmister had that kind of humor… But… Wasn’t this guy the king of trolls? Trolling hotel rooms for instance… 
OK, nevermind. I’m really trolling now lol)
)
just before that bit I took a rest and hit the three open string e, B and G and it occured to me that the 5th fret harmonics give me the E minor triad two octaves higher, so I tried to make a line with it with different ending notes (had to go back to it since I messed it up the first time around 
)
Might sound a bit legato-like because I only used the neck pickup and I believe I even rolled back the tone pot a tad. Though at times I managed to use them as a nice change of pace thing, I remeber doing them as security blankets/pauses too and for that very reson I should use them even less than I did here until I get better with my note choices when playing slowly. I’ve spent quite a lot of time right before joining Guitar Hacks on memorizing the 7 shapes and connecting them - you can see that at times I don’t even look at the guitar. Doing the alternate picking training made my right hand better, so playing the shapes in a linear fashion is way easier for me now than coming up with a tasty lick with well chosen notes and at times when I ran out of ideas or felt lost, I just tried to rip through a shape or two knowing that all of the notes will work and I don1t have to think… 
I can’t pick that fast and it does sound smooth!