This is still a work in progress, but it’s been a dream of mine since junior high school to be able to play this song on an electric guitar. And although it’s still kinda rough, I feel pretty stoked about how it’s coming along and wanted to share. Would be interested in any feedback, thanks!
It’s also the first time I recorded the output of my GT-1 into my Reason DAW (for my first song, the guitar was going straight into the audio interface and I just used Reason’s effects). I started with a patch for this song from Boss’s library and swapped out the OD unit for a Lead DS to get more of an 80s sound (also kicked up the gain in the preamp). For a while, I experimented with adding a wah effect, which was interesting and fun, but I decided to get rid of that right before this recording. Yes, I added a 2nd go-through of the bridge, as it always sounded like it was missing that. Will probably mess around a bit more with the words for that.
Eventually I’ll want to learn the drum part as well, but I have plenty of work to do on the guitar still. I edited out where I forgot to get ready to turn off the distortion and other mistakes, so I know I need to clean up the picking and also do some metronome work, as well as get much more consistency on those iconic opening chords.
Incidentally, coming across Justin’s lesson on this on YouTube is how I found this whole place! I’d actually written a note to myself over a year back to check out his courses, but it wasn’t until I realized it was the same person who did that lesson that I finally did!
Hey that’s sounding really good! It’s such a great rocker. Love the tone on your guitar too. My only input would be to make sure you’re playing consistent timing, rather than slowing down on the bits you’re less sure of. One of the best ways to do that is to play along with the original, using a slow downer app to bring the tempo to a good tempo for where you’re at. Then you can start to increase the overall tempo. Sounding really really good for a work in progress!!
I meant to comment on this last night Felix after first watching it. First and foremost this:
And this:
is just awesome, you should feel stoked at getting to fulfil a dream.
Some of the strums could be a little cleaner and as Mari suggests a little work on timing but you really look and sound like you’ve pretty much got it under your fingers, now begins the work of refinement. Really pleased for you, can’t wait to hear your finished version!
Sounded super Felix. I can’t provide any feedback on the your electric guitar playing as I only play acoustic but it sounded pretty close to the original for me. Brought back some great memories of seeing Bryan Adams live back in Dublin in the 90’s. Nice job!
Great job! I agree with @Notter - you’re in the refinement phase now. To do the guitar and vocals together seems really tough, so congratulate yourself! Did you have a backing track or click track running in the headphones?
Thanks! I do really need to remember not to take such things for granted.
No, the headphones were just for monitoring. I actually haven’t done any metronome practice with this piece at all (well, until after I listened to this). This was actually the first time I recorded this song. I expect some metronome work should be enough for me to steady it, but we’ll see.
