The Black Keys - Just Got To Be cover

Here’s my first ever public recording of my playing. I have a weird long history with this song. I first “learned” it via the original Rocksmith game years ago and dusted it back off once my music theory learning caught up with what my fingers were doing.

In terms of me: I’ve been playing for almost 4 years now, though I’ve meandered through a variety of online learning platforms: Fender Play, some of Justin’s courses, then a long pause, then about a year with Pickup Music and now I’m back to Justin’s curriculum now that I see he’s got the intermediate levels sorted. I’m currently working on Grade 4 modules, as that’s where I started to discover gaps in my knowledge.

I love this Black Keys album because nearly all the songs are heavy on the minor pentatonic scale and are playable in one take with a single guitar playing a mix of rhythm and lead. This particular song’s solo is basically just a walk up the blues scale and I still love it even knowing how simple it is.

I was inspired to record this after I started looking at topics in this forum and noticed @deiussum had also uploaded a take on this song a few months back. Thanks for inspiring me and happy to compare notes on the song!

Oh, and in terms of the recording: I made a drummer track in GarageBand that fit the song fairly well, then used QuickTime to record myself playing over it. My Fender GTX 100 amp has a direct USB line in to my Mac so I can use it directly as an input. Then I combined the video and an export of the backing track together using iMovie. It’s pretty amazing how much you can do for free on a Mac!

Comments welcome!

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Nice groove and great tone Jeff :slight_smile:

Congrats on your first AVYP recording !

Keep them coming ! :guitar: :guitar: :guitar:

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Thanks! The tone is a combination the Hiwatt sim on my amp (called “British Watts”) with a cheapo Azor overdrive pedal in front of it. With the drive turned up on the pedal, it almost starts to sound like a vintage fuzz, at least when I run this guitar with P90s through it.

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Sounds great, Jeff! Love your version of it. I think this and a couple other Black Keys songs were probably my most played songs in Rocksmith.

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Hi Jeff,
Congratulations on your first AVOYP :sunglasses: :partying_face: :clap:, that’s an important step…sounded pretty good and groovy :sunglasses:… A different thing than the Boom Baas you were just watching/commenting , I’m looking forward to how you’ll deliver that also :smiley:, I just finished the last of three :sweat_smile:, have fun

Greetings,Rogier

Great job! You can tell you were having fun there! Makes me wanna check out this song as well. Any other Black Keys songs you been playing?

I scored a 90 via the MatchMySound thing doing the 2nd of the Steady Thumb Blues and haven’t circled back around to try and master the last one yet.

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To different extents, I can play along with a bunch of the songs from their Magic Potion album. These are all mainly riffs based around the minor pentatonic:

  • Your Touch
  • Just A Little Heat
  • Give Your Heart Away
  • Strange Desire
  • Modern Times
  • Elevator

Also from their Attack and Release album, this one is arpeggios + some minor pentatonic riffing:

  • So He Won’t Break

Good one …i think :smile: , I don`t know it :roll_eyes:

I didn’t do a match my sound thing all three times and I don’t expect to ever do that … If it goes well and I get the suffle and it feels right then at some point I will do… "Match with Justin " …and if I do and I can play along in tempo and hear him as little as possible, I know I’m in the right point … :sunglasses:

Greetings and see you with a blues soon :smiley: :sunglasses:

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I enjoyed that! At the end, you made me smile! You did really well.

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That’s great, thanks! I really like their sound, and your recommendation and performance is inspiring

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