RUSH Cover, YyZ

  • Thread starter Thread starter metalhead28
  • Start date Start date
metalhead28

metalhead28

Hates Raymond
Something I started a long time ago and decided to finish last night. Unfortunately I mixed it on headphones while everyone was asleep...so the mix isn't too great. Too much bass guitar, and not enough guitar at parts.

Also, I have mangled the bass with everything trying to get it grinding like Geddy Lee, and what I had to start with just isn't working. I may redo that one of these days.

The drums are of course DFHS, which was by far the funnest part of doing this song.

http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/file.php?fid=9217

If anybody has any good ideas for achieving that cracking sound during the solo I'm all ears. I couldn't come up with anything good last night. I just used a china cymbal on the drum kit to get part of it. If you know the song I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. It sounds like something breaking in two. Maybe I should try breaking something in two?
 
Dude, that's kick ass! YYZ is by far my favorite Rush song.

The bass sounds kind of weird. Is it tuned super low or something? I can't put my finger on it exactly. It almost doesn't sound real. The guitars, playing and effects, sound pretty right on. There's a tiny little flub at 2:55, but other than that they sound fantastic. Great job there. The most impressive part is the drums. I know they're not real, but damn, how do you program them so close to the real thing?
 
I'm not a RUSH fan but tackling this piece with DKFH has seen you do nicely on the programming here Metalhead!
The guitar playing is very smooth here and I agree with you in that the guitar could fill out the mix more along the way and maybe some reverb on the drums (???) just to liven them up a tad. I quite enjoyed listening to this seeing as I am not a RUSH fan!

Great Stuff!

Thanx for sharing Metalhead.
 
Greg_L said:
Dude, that's kick ass! YYZ is by far my favorite Rush song.

The bass sounds kind of weird. Is it tuned super low or something? I can't put my finger on it exactly. It almost doesn't sound real. The guitars, playing and effects, sound pretty right on. There's a tiny little flub at 2:55, but other than that they sound fantastic. Great job there. The most impressive part is the drums. I know they're not real, but damn, how do you program them so close to the real thing?
Click to expand...


Yeah, the little flub at the end of the solo? I wish that was the only one. :p

I agree the bass sounds wierd, I started with a sort of thin sound. There is an exciter on there adding some sort of a bass subharmonic. I just went overboard with it last night trying to get something that sounded cool.

The drums were the focal point for me. I may redo the guitar and bass one of these days. To answer your question about the programming, I have no idea. I just ripped the song into my DAW and broke it down bar by bar trying to emulate every hit.

Glad you dug it.
 
metalhead28 said:
Yeah, the little flub at the end of the solo? I wish that was the only one. :p

I agree the bass sounds wierd, I started with a sort of thin sound. There is an exciter on there adding some sort of a bass subharmonic. I just went overboard with it last night trying to get something that sounded cool.

The drums were the focal point for me. I may redo the guitar and bass one of these days. To answer your question about the programming, I have no idea. I just ripped the song into my DAW and broke it down bar by bar trying to emulate every hit.

Glad you dug it.
Click to expand...

Yeah but how? Do you draw each snare, tom, and kick hit in a MIDI track or something? How does that work?
 
Greg_L said:
Yeah but how? Do you draw each snare, tom, and kick hit in a MIDI track or something? How does that work?
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, I draw in each hit in a midi track. You ever used the piano roll in a DAW for midi? Well, I use that, but instead of piano keys there is a list of all the drums (with DFHS there is also left and right hand and various articulations for each drum). First I figure out the tempo and the time signatures, and just start clicking in all the hits. Of course I have to move some of them around alot and experiment to get the fills and stuff to sound the same. It might be tedious to some people, but it's fun to me.

By the way, doing that for a Rush cover song is a labor of love. I don't do many cover songs, I'm just a big Peart fan.
 
metalhead28 said:
Oh yeah, I draw in each hit in a midi track. You ever used the piano roll in a DAW for midi? Well, I use that, but instead of piano keys there is a list of all the drums (with DFHS there is also left and right hand and various articulations for each drum). First I figure out the tempo and the time signatures, and just start clicking in all the hits. Of course I have to move some of them around alot and experiment to get the fills and stuff to sound the same. It might be tedious to some people, but it's fun to me.

By the way, doing that for a Rush cover song is a labor of love. I don't do many cover songs, I'm just a big Peart fan.
Click to expand...

Man that sounds labor intensive. I've never touched MIDI anything. I don't know the first thing about it. I don't even know what a "piano-roll" is. Sounds tasy though. :o :p

Do you have to have some kind of MIDI controller to use that stuff?
 
Greg_L said:
Man that sounds labor intensive. I've never touched MIDI anything. I don't know the first thing about it. I don't even know what a "piano-roll" is. Sounds tasy though. :o :p

Do you have to have some kind of MIDI controller to use that stuff?
Click to expand...

The piano roll is called that because it sort of looks like the roll on a player piano. The keyboard shows up along the left side of the screen (or a drum map), and along the length of the screen is the progression of the song, so you have a grid showing the note divisions in each bar and that's what I go by when I'm drawing in all the hits. There is a snap function that snaps them to certain note values if you want it to. Here's a screen shot of Sonar, which is what I use, and there is the piano roll view with a percussion track. (imagine the whole drum kit being listed out instead of what's there in this exapmple) The lower pane is the velocity of each note, so that is of course adjustable. The velocity just represents how hard you hit the drum in DFHS.
I have a couple midi controllers, but I don't use em for stuff like this. Of course, I don't do anything in real time. I just go a measure at a time, drawing in the beat the way I hear it, then I listen back to the song and tweak it if I need to. This isn't EXACTLY the same, but it's about as close as I could get. It was labor intensive. But since I can't play the drums that good - it's the only way I'll ever accomplish such a thing.

sonartechdrumgrid.l.jpg
 
Sounds great !

Gonna have to listen again later when I can turn up the volume a little more, Can't rock the office out, people get suspicious....:D
 
metalhead28 said:
The piano roll is called that because it sort of looks like the roll on a player piano. The keyboard shows up along the left side of the screen (or a drum map), and along the length of the screen is the progression of the song, so you have a grid showing the note divisions in each bar and that's what I go by when I'm drawing in all the hits. There is a snap function that snaps them to certain note values if you want it to. Here's a screen shot of Sonar, which is what I use, and there is the piano roll view with a percussion track. (imagine the whole drum kit being listed out instead of what's there in this exapmple) The lower pane is the velocity of each note, so that is of course adjustable. The velocity just represents how hard you hit the drum in DFHS.
I have a couple midi controllers, but I don't use em for stuff like this. Of course, I don't do anything in real time. I just go a measure at a time, drawing in the beat the way I hear it, then I listen back to the song and tweak it if I need to. This isn't EXACTLY the same, but it's about as close as I could get. It was labor intensive. But since I can't play the drums that good - it's the only way I'll ever accomplish such a thing.

sonartechdrumgrid.l.jpg
Click to expand...

Cool thanks for the explanation.

So, that drum software works without a MIDI controller?
 
Greg_L said:
Cool thanks for the explanation.

So, that drum software works without a MIDI controller?
Click to expand...


Yeah, it just needs MIDI to trigger the samples. Any way you have of creating the MIDI data will work. I just use the mouse and click it in one hit at at time. Plus, you can copy and paste sections that repeat.
 
I agree with slowrider - if you're gonna tackle rush, why not challenge yourself and try one of their hard ones...not one that everyone can do...

/sarcasm

great job metal. enjoyed it.
 
Good job, MH. I'm not so into the drums, but I can see you took a lot of time trying to get them right.

Bass sounds pretty good, if maybe a little quiet.

Great playing, bro.
 
Supercreep said:
Good job, MH. I'm not so into the drums, but I can see you took a lot of time trying to get them right.

Bass sounds pretty good, if maybe a little quiet.

Great playing, bro.
Click to expand...


Thanks Supercreep. There are just all sorts of things wrong with this mix, drums included. I'm probably going to redo the bass and remix this thing totally when I get the chance. (Probably gonna redo the guitars also to be honest :p )
I've got to stop mixing all of my stuff at 11pm on headphones! :o
 
  • Like
Reactions: NL5
Very well done

Very well done and fun to listen to. This is one of my favorite Rush tunes.

Great job on the guitar solo. The bass part is well performed but sounds almost like you are playing an octave below Geddy's part.

You win the patience award on programming those drums. Good work man.

Bart
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top