Hi All, for those of you who missed my last Community OM performance here is a polished up version of my favourite guitar instrumental called Before the Beginning, almost 10min bliss from one and only John Frusciane.
I recorded the song using my Boss Katana 100 amp with footswitch, expression pedal, Boss looper and feedback pedal Boss-FB1. Screen of my setup below. BT was recorded during the video recording, and went okay unlike on OM where I lost one bit and on a loop it went tits up (thankfully I had prerecorded version back then on 2nd channel )!
As for FX, I did have 3 effects in total - 1 clean and 2 dirty. 2 dirty ones were exactly the same, only expression pedal from volume became a wah wah. Based on FX here is exact chain signal for dirty fx:
Gain at 50
Volume 100
Bass 0
Mid 72
Treble 10
EQ boosting mids and cutting off lows
Boss FB-1 → Tube Scream → Compressor with 61 sustain → Digital Delay → Room reverb
When Wah applied it was on the input, Fat Wah type.
Guitar I mostly played with switch in position no 2 counting from the neck. Mostly because at some point when loosing myself into the vibe I was switching it down by 2 clicks accidentally!
Guitar is American Pro strat and comparing to my earlier budget strat its like swapping from pumice to a cube of butter on a playability scale if you ever are in comfortable financial situation, then spending a bit more is definitely worth it!
Anyway here it is, a bit lenghthy one but in my opinion my best cover so far! So I definitely encourage you to battle through it feedback as always most appreciated (and present in the video :pun.intended:).
Thanks Jen, so kind to watch it twice! Really appreciate it
I want to sound hip and say no it was partially improvised, but I am nowhere near being hip - playing it over and over for like 6 months does help in memorizing it to be fair the song circles constantly around minor pentatonic shapes 1 and 2 with some extra chromatic notes here and there thrown in, so whenever I was forgetting the order while learning it wasn’t too easy to pick up if its different to original or not. Heck, my cover is off someone else’s cover and not too close to original in terms of note by note!
Wow, Adi, that was a treat! I haven’t seen the OM yet (yeah I know I should’ve by now! ) so that was new to me and thoroughly enjoyed it! Loving the feedback and use of whammy, so good! Also that little moment where it seemed like you did the pre-bend and brought it in using the volume pedal (FX must’ve been on “dirty” 1)? Thought that sounded great My PRS has a whammy bar but I’ve never used it as I took out the bar and “locked down” the bridge (using the ol’ coin trick) because it was just easier to restring and gave better tuning stability. How do you find stability on that (gorgeous! ) strat when using the whammy?
Also, what are you using as your camera mate? The flickering effect on the video is commonly caused by a lack of synchronisation between powerline frequency and what Hz rate is set on the camera, especially if you have florescent lights on in your room? Being in the UK, the electrical frequency of the lighting will be 50Hz (same as in NZ) so if your camera’s not set to 50Hz (PAL) then you get the flickering. We have to change most of our cameras at work as they’re set for the US’s 60Hz (NTSC). You can typically change it in the camera’s software or even just using the built-in camera app on a Windows machine. Hope that’s helpful!
Such an incredible performance! Super impressed with your ability to hit those bends and nail the timing! Really well done, buddy!!
Super impressive playing, Adrian. You really have grown tremendously as a player over the years in the Community and are in a different class now.
I shall call out the vibrato played and sustain achieved. With so much gain in the amp keeping in clean (as in nothing unwanted or unintended) is also worth noting.
Now you can move on to on of Gilmour’s epics, and then graduate to Blackmore in full cry
Super enjoyable listen, Adrian. The techniques and gear discussed are so far removed from my knowledge of electric guitars that I’ll leave all that aside. Suffice it to say it was brilliant!
Hi Jeff thanks for watching the video and enjoying it! Glad you had a chance to catch up on my video as you were not around for OM
Thanks for the advice about the camera! I just used Microsoft webcam from work as couldn’t be fussed with sorting out my phone (more like my tripod which is terrible, reminds me I need to order new one)! Didn’t know about issues with frequency and that I can tweak settings anywhere in Microsoft camera app. I did tweak autofocus as it was driving me mad, but frequency I wasn’t aware of! Lighting around the house is LED (would be bad if elec engineer still had fluorescents ), so most likely its the camera’s frequency causing issues. Again thank you for pointing it out, although I hope soon its back to phone recordings
I enjoyed this version as much as I did the OM-live-performance, Adi!
It’s just impressive and incredible, what you are doing and how you are doing it. And you seem to be so relaxed and at ease, it’s just a pleasure to listen and watch. Tone choice was top notch and that sustain! Great stuff, thanks for sharing it again!
Wow…there’s really a lot of technique there you’re mastering Adi…I’m most impressed! It sounds awesome! Congrats on this one!
By the way Before the begininng…I might call it a Prelude
Adi, that was 8 minutes and 12 seconds of pure enjoyment, not only listening to a very remarkable piece of music being well played, but watching you play it from the heart.
Man, that was excellent!!! You said you thought it was your best cover yet. I believe it’s the most impressive piece I’ve heard from you, and you have set your bar very high with this one.
Great performance.
That was super Adi. A very impressive and enjoyable performance. As Dave says you’ve raised the bar high but the way you keep going you just keep raising it with the next performance.
@adi_mrok
I saw your OM version a few days ago and I’ve been meaning to comment. I was just waiting for the sustain to finish ;).
All joking aside - such a fantastic job. There is a lot of great technical skills going on here. But rather than the skills being the showcase, they instead seamlessly contribute to the emotion of the song. For me that is the ideal.
There was a time in my life I had this album on repeat, so I know the song well. What I didn’t know was that it was a cover/homage. So I appreciate that musical education. I have been re-acquainting myself with Funkadelic ever since.
I also appreciate you providing your setup details. I’ve never been happy with my own attempt at a feedback patch, but I’m inspired to play with my chain order and see what other results I get.
Hey Adi,
Way to set your personal benchmark up there a few notches! Great tone, sustain and overall goodness mate! You are ready to take on bigger guitar roles and maybe down the road we can find you one that is a challenge!
Lisa, Molly, Silvia, James, LB- many thanks for warm words of encouragement, always very grateful for support!
Dave many thanks for your compliments, especially loved that you mentioned the above, I really did my best to put some more emotions into the performance! And glad you feel the same way about it being most impressive so far!
Haha badum tss!
Thanks very much Dale, a fan of John Frusciante is always my friend! Glad I provided some interesting story to the song, original is also pretty awesome but still, I have a weak spot for John!
I think even without sustain pedal you are still able to get a more natural sustain that will last long enough for most songs. For me compressor and bit of delay usually works best, and I kick off FB-1 when I really need it to be looooong. Which is also super fun. Thanks for listening!
That was fantastic Adi, even better than open mic for me. I could only imagine the practice required to fully memorise 8 min piece, especially in terms of timing. Well done, I look forward to your next project.
)!
if you ever are in comfortable financial situation, then spending a bit more is definitely worth it!
I haven’t seen the OM yet (yeah I know I should’ve by now! 
Also that little moment where it seemed like you did the pre-bend and brought it in using the volume pedal (FX must’ve been on “dirty” 1)? Thought that sounded great 
My PRS has a whammy bar but I’ve never used it 
) strat when using the whammy?
? or WOW ?
And you seem to be so relaxed and at ease, it’s just a pleasure to listen and watch. Tone choice was top notch and that sustain! 
