Song 1 - "Another Brick in the Wall" by Pink Floyd

Hi @Anderson,
Great job of putting your self out there and sharing your first cover.
You are absolutely correct in doing this as a baseline to compare your progress.
I think if you put the sheet music on your left side so you can read it while looking at the fretboard you will instantly see a big improvement.
Great effort, keep up the good work :+1:
Cheers Brian

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Hey @Anderson nice job!
I think you know your timing issues based on your ‘Mensa-mensa’ sign mid way. That’s what this is all about. Videoing ourselves ain’t easy.

You are doing great! I think we will all get more comfortable with the video/bass/audio thing as we go and settle into the groove.

I recorded Bad Moon Rising tonight and did the ‘one finger pluck’ through most of it, which I don’t normally do, but felt comfortable. Whatever works I say!

keep up the good work!!

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Congrats on your first cover video and well done! Sure, it wasn’t perfect, but there wasn’t anything fundamentally wrong with it. As in, the things you missed were simply things all beginners need to practice as we aren’t bass playing masters out of the womb. Having to watch the tab and your fretting hand at the same time is not easy! That’s why I do recommend memorizing any songs where time allows it, because then you have one less thing to worry about. I appreciate not everyone has the time or desire to do that though.

What I think was excellent to see is that you recognized when you did something wrong. Awareness of mistakes and intentionally practicing those elements is the key to getting better. I have no doubt that you will quickly progress on all of these things.

As I did mention on Discord though, one-finger plucking might work for slow songs, but it will become a barrier when we get into the faster songs later on. Just imagine running on one leg instead of two. You just can’t go as fast and it’s a hell of a lot more tiring. So, that’s something I would try to work on when you can. I know getting fingers to do what you want is hard sometimes though. I’ve been playing various instruments for over 30 years and my pinky still acts like a stubborn teenager. :stuck_out_tongue:

Again though, great job on your first cover and thanks for taking the plunge and sharing your playing with us. First one is always the hardest.

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Great effort there @Anderson ! Don’t worry about flubs, just keep on going. You’re lightyears ahead of me :sweat_smile::sweat_smile::sweat_smile:

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I actually thought by one finger plucking the slow driving beat came out better vs. the slight variability in two fingers and keeping things sounding even beat by beat. Yes, this is due to my technique not being consistent across two fingers. That said, Jamerson used one finger and it worked out “sorta ok” for him. :rofl:

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Well, I finally decided to give this a go as well. I’m about six months into the B2B course, currently at Module 12, and the only feedback I’ve gotten so far is Josh telling me I’ve done an awesome job. Thing is, he even says that when I know I didn’t do an awesome job at all :smile:

So I’m putting myself out there, in many different ways all at the same time. This is the first time ever that anyone can hear or see me play. This is the first time ever that I’ve recorded myself using my telephone, DAI and DAW. This is the first time I’ve mixed my own recorded track with a backing track (which I “created” using Moises), and then with a video.

Plenty of opportunities to make mistakes, and I’m sure I made a few. For instance, the bass track is probably a bit too loud. Recording myself took quite a couple of takes until I had one that I was reasonably satisfied with. I know there’s still a couple of mistakes in there, but I’ve decided that this is as good as it’s going to get. Hope you like it; looking forward to some constructive criticism!

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I think you should trust your trusted Bass teacher with that! :wink:

As far as I’m concerned, you did a fantastic job on this one and I really enjoyed listening and watching you play. I honestly don’t know which mistakes you are talking about.

What I love most about this entire challenge so far is that people (myself included) feel encouraged and comfortable enough to put themselves out there, many for the first time. That’s wonderful to see and says a lot about this community. :heart:

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Sometimes people have super-human abilities, but most of us don’t unfortunately. :slight_smile:

A cheat for what you are talking about is to use a compressor, though I’d recommend trying to work on getting even volume and not relying on a compressor to fix that for you. It does help though if that’s what you are after.

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You totally smashed that! I couldn’t really tell any difference from the original and didn’t hear any mistakes. Your fingers are all doing what they should be doing. Your left hand is parallel to the frets, which I really struggle with. The sound is even volume through the entirety of the song. Didn’t hear any fret buzz or undesired noises. Sorry, I’m afraid I can’t find anything to criticize for you this time around. Maybe next time! :stuck_out_tongue:

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Fantastic!! I think the mix is really good. I struggle with that too. I think when you listen to yourself over and over you start to doubt everything (at least that’s me). What I try doing is playing it back and go do something else like I’m just listening to a song and see if anything pops out at me as odd Vs the original.

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Hi @Mike_NL,
Great job, hit every point, the bass was perfectly mixed.
Only thing I think you could add is a description of your bass and strings etc.
Cheers Brian

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Hi @John_E,

I agree with you on this point, we are always more self critical of our own performance, sometimes you just got to go with what you finally settle with,
Cheers Brian

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OK - here’s my attempt:

It’s not perfect, but if I wait for perfect, I’ll never post anything. I know the notes - I know where they go - sometimes my fingers just don’t seem to listen to my brain. precisely enough:-)

ESP Ltd-B-334 with Rotosound SS Rounds through a Wine Cellar pre-amp and Behringer UMC22 DAI into Reaper recorded via OBS.

Most of the challenge in this, for me, was learning how to record myself. I’ve never played a cover to a backing track (well, Rocksmith, I guess), never videoed myself playing, never worked with a DAI or DAW, and most certainly never shared a video of my playing with anyone… So many firsts. Just getting the DAW and OBS to play nice together took me quite a bit of effort… Effort that maybe should have gone into actually playing the song better. :slight_smile:

Thanks @JT for putting it together - always appreciate an opportunity to learn new things.
And thanks to those who shared tabs/backing track/tips - much appreciated.

Great job to all who have posted their versions! I’ve enjoyed seeing them all…

Open to critiques… Thanks!

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Great job on this! I think I could tell by the dancing and knowing some of the lyrics that you enjoyed this one, which is great to see. And yeah, I see the shirt. :wink:

I really like some of the little magic you added here and there. Like the intro slide into the first note and using the volume knob to fade out that first note instead of a hard mute (which is what I’ve been doing). Sounds a lot more authentic. Very clever!

I think it’s great that you and others are learning about recording music doing this as well. Such a useful skill to have until we are all big time and others do it for us. :stuck_out_tongue:

The only constructive criticism I have is that sometimes the tone went a bit wonky. Almost like a speaker that couldn’t handle the low bass frequencies. At first I thought it was fret buzz, but I don’t think it is. You can hear this happen around 50s-53s for example. Be good if you can figure out what is causing that to happen. Could be a software thing, I’m not sure.

Anyway, awesome job on this! :metal:

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Thanks for the kind words, @regina, @JT, @John_E and @TNKA36 :heart:

Good point! Well, it’s a Cort Action PJ, neck pickup only, tone rolled down almost all the way, with the strings that were on it when I bought it. Supposedly these are D’Addario strings, but I have my doubts about that. As far as I know, D’Addario strings have color coded ball ends, and mine don’t have those. They also feel somewhat rougher to the touch than the D’Addarios I put on my other bass.

Anyway, I recorded myself using a Behringer UMC22 DAI into Cakewalk, with the Cakewalk TH3 amp/cab sim set to a Classic Rock preset. To my ear, the result fitted the tone of the original recording quite nicely.

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Hi @skydvr,
I think you did an awesome job on your first cover, well done.
Great to see you putting yourself out there,
Cheers Brian

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Great tone on your bass, @skydvr . . . I really like it . . . :slight_smile:

Well played, too!

Cheers
Joe

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Alright here’s my attempt, never did anything like this before, I wouldn’t do it without the challenge and this forum.
Recorded with Bass, amp and cellphone while playing the YouTube video on the built in PC speakers, hit record, hit play and go…
I didn’t realize how far I move my right thumb (aware of my left hand high kicks) some missed notes plus other stuff, but here got through the whole thing :grinning:

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Great job on your first video! You did pretty well. The timing on the last note of the first big repeat was off and the solo timing was a bit off, but I overall you did good! Thanks for sharing!

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Here it goes!

Not 100% happy, some issues, especially in that last segment. But as you can see by my face, I’m tired of recording and re-recording :sweat_smile:. I’m just glad to join all of you guys in this adventure. It’s actually my first recorded cover since 12 years now (my experience doesn’t reflect those 12 years though)

Recorded with my Frankenjazz (JMS Vintage Master) with LaBella’s Deep Talkin’ flats. I meant to record only with the neck pickup but I totally forgot about it… Recorded the bass directly into Behringer UMC204HD using Reaper, used a bit of compression and a bit of eq. Video recorded with my phone and synced everything on Premiere.

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