Author Topic: Crawlers of Epic Doom (Read 7391 times)

carlaz · « **on:** February 18, 2007, 07:26:34 PM »

I was messing about for the first time in a long time with the geetar (been busy!), and after a while came up with the attached. It's just a brief riff-sketch, really, but I have it in mind to turn it into a bombastic doom metal epic (I've probably been thinking too much about the upcoming "Heaven & Hell Live" thing! :)).

It's pretty simple: My Crawler equipped LP Std, tuned to drop-C#, double-tracked with the bridge pup on one side and the neck pickup doubling it on the other, all played straight into my ol' G4 iBook (via a Tascam US-122) running GarageBand 3. Amp simulation is a setting I tweaked up and have used on a bunch of other clips uploaded here.

Beneath the guitar runs a Betamonkey drum loop, with a few cymbal samples chucked in here and there, and (inevitably for me ;)) a bunch of random atmospheric synths. No bass yet.

The missus and I are off for an Eastern Mediterranean cruise this summer, so I've been refreshing my knowledge of cool stuff in the area, and for no better reason this track thereby acquires a suitably overblown Homeric title, "Over the Wine Dark Sea". Eventually I'll write some epic-metal lyrics to go with it! Eventually ....

BloodMountain · « **Reply #1 on:** February 18, 2007, 07:37:15 PM »

HOLY UNHOLINESS!

that's amazing dude! love the whole thing! if you add lyrics, you have to give me the finished track! love the background guitar/instrument too.... flanger?

REAL heavy tone... from a Crawler? surprising.

BM

99_not_out · « **Reply #2 on:** February 18, 2007, 07:59:53 PM »

Superb! real heavy dark tone, unmistakably BKP!
You feel like sharing your Garage Band settings? I'm currently trying to getr a similkar tone out of Garage band and would be interested to know your set up :)

Machek · « **Reply #3 on:** February 18, 2007, 10:57:57 PM »

Hey! loved this one again dude. :D

That's it, I gotta speed up my money-finding process
and get a set of Crawlers now. :x

Ratrod · « **Reply #4 on:** February 19, 2007, 11:46:56 AM »

Crawlers have a dark side that reveals itself with low tunings. In stock tuning they're great blues n' rock pickups. When tuned down low they'll scare off Tony Iommi's SG.

If any of you want to hear more of this stuff, look for Carlaz' 'Crawlers of Doom' clip.

Excellent stuff again, mate!

carlaz · « **Reply #5 on:** February 19, 2007, 11:56:56 AM »

Thanks, all! :)

The clip is (obviously) pretty minimal: just a riff that came out of a few hours of messing about. :) But those Crawlers .... They're very versatile pickups! Ratrod has it right: tweak your tuning and your amp and they'll sing vintage or bring on the metal, as you like. I think they've almost become a bit underrated after the advent of so many BKP models that are aimed at more specific vibes ....

Anyway, yeah, I'm gonna grow this into a real song eventually. I'm imagining a pretentious acousticky intro with a kinda "Children of the Sea"/"Sign of the Southern Cross" vibe (though the initial ideas trickling through my head are acquiring a vaguely Ennio Morricone vibe!). Not sure how I'll do this, as I totally suck at things requiring skill and technique, like clean-toned picking :oops:, but I'll post the results if they're vaguely listenable.

As for the background drone: Alas! It isn't guitar at all -- though I thought about doing some flangey guitar noise there, and might yet, eventually. Right now, it's just two slightly different GarageBand synth voices playing one note each. :lol:

I'm more than happy to share my GarageBand settings -- I only wish Apple would provide an easy way to do it! Until then ....

The rest of this post is the GarageBand amp sim info:
I tweaked up an Amp Sim preset (stored as a .pst file) using Apple's "British Gain" generator that I call "El Sabado". :twisted: I've posted a screenshot of it at http://www.carlaz.com/music/GB/El_Sabado.jpg, and a .zip file with the actual .pst file at http://www.carlaz.com/music/GB/El_Sabado.pst.zip. If you download that, you need to put it in the appropriate place in your GarageBand install, which I think should be "[PATH-TO-"Instrument Library"]/Instrument Library/Plug-In Settings/Amp Simulation/El Sabado.pst".

That .pst file is the important bit. I've also created a Real Instrument track setting (.cst file) that uses the "El Sabado" preset, called "Fusion Reactor". Admittedly, this has little purpose except to conveniently show up in the list of Real Instrument track effect presets and (almost incidentally) add a little reverb. Here's a screenshot http://www.carlaz.com/music/GB/Fusion_Reactor.jpg and a .zip of the .cst file http://www.carlaz.com/music/GB/Fusion_Reactor.cst.zip. Again, you would need to put this .cst file in the right place for your GarageBand install, which I think should be "[PATH-TO-"Instrument Library"]/Instrument Library/Track Settings/Real/Guitars/Fusion Reactor.cst".

Alternatively, you can just look at my screenshots and manually mimic my settings! :) I've done a few presets for bass amp simulation as well, and would love to see other people's GarageBand presets. Apple's software ain't bad (especially for the price!) and some of their stock presets are OK, but but I find it's worth messing about to create your own, since you can actual squeeze some pretty decent tones out of GB without too much effort. :)

_tom_ · « **Reply #6 on:** February 19, 2007, 01:24:28 PM »

Sounds tighter and more evil than how I thought in my head the Crawler would sound.. Tim recommended it to me for the bridge position of my Charvel, so I have a feeling I'll like it.

Great clip, would be nice to hear a bit more riffage though :twisted: Just my personal preference though I guess..

carlaz · « **Reply #7 on:** February 19, 2007, 04:41:04 PM »

Quote from: _tom_

Sounds tighter and more evil than how I thought in my head the Crawler would sound.. Tim recommended it to me for the bridge position of my Charvel, so I have a feeling I'll like it.

Mmm, yes, I expect Crawlers would likely bring some meat to a Charvel's tone.

Apropos of nothing, I'm increasingly interested to hear Holy Diver/Crawler comparisons. The HD has a slightly higher DC rating, but they're not a million miles apart .... I'd love to upgrade my little ol' Charvel Charvette HSS with an HD in the H position. I bet a Crawler would be good too, but I've already got Crawlers, so clearly I would need a different BKP next time around. :)

Quote from: _tom_

Great clip, would be nice to hear a bit more riffage though :twisted: Just my personal preference though I guess..

Nah, I acknowledge the overall riffage is -- as yet -- fairly limited a this stage. Sure, a lot of the song will just reuse these big monolithic riffs in best Iommi stylee 8) but, besides the pretentious intro, I will need to come up with extra riffing for a verse-end and/or a mini-chorus ....

Most of the verse singing will happen in the empty space currently occupied by "drum'n'drone", but there will need to be something with some extra riffage leading up to the main riff showcased in this short clip. And though that will do for the bulk of the song, there should probably be an separate instrumental section with its own riffs (possibly double-time?) between a second verse and a final verse ....

Mmm, just sort of "composing aloud" here! :lol: I think I ought to try to write a verse's worth of lyrics and try to sort out the final "verse > big riff" structure from that .....

BloodMountain · « **Reply #8 on:** February 19, 2007, 05:28:48 PM »

sounds like it's an album that i would buy... 8)

seriously though, it's top quality. the "big riff" sounds very exciting!!

BM

carlaz · « **Reply #9 on:** February 26, 2007, 11:58:16 AM »

Quote from: 99_not_out

Superb! real heavy dark tone, unmistakably BKP!
You feel like sharing your Garage Band settings? I'm currently trying to getr a similkar tone out of Garage band and would be interested to know your set up :)

Just for the record, I've made a page to collect my hombrewed GarageBand settings: http://www.carlaz.com/music/gb_presets.html
There's just my "Sabbathoid" guitar presets there now, like I used on this clip, but I'll stick others up there in time. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be any centralized site dedicated to sharing user-defined GarageBand presets.

metal_god · « **Reply #10 on:** February 27, 2007, 01:57:31 AM »

Hey Carlaz, where did you get your betamonkey from and is it good? ive been after it for awhile but i cant ermmmmm "get it easily" lets say the double bass one looks awesome

carlaz · « **Reply #11 on:** February 27, 2007, 02:32:06 PM »

Quote from: metal_god

where did you get your betamonkey from and is it good? ive been after it for awhile but i cant ermmmmm "get it easily" lets say the double bass one looks awesome

I ordered direct from http://www.betamonkeymusic.com/. They came pretty quickly, without any hassle, even though I'm on the other side of the Atlantic.

I can think of ways to improve the Betamonkey loop packs I've got, but I think they're excellent value for the money. I'd like to compare them head-to-head against the Drums on Demand "Upbeat & Aggressive" pack (promising no double-bass metal insanity, but probably OK for general hard/heavy rock stuff), but I haven't been ready to drop 80 bucks on that yet. (At 80 bucks for 2 discs, the DoD samples are only slightly more expensive, but I would want to be really sure I wanted 2 discs of them!).

Toms' anominous · « **Reply #12 on:** February 27, 2007, 04:24:19 PM »

um it sounds good but you could make it a bit more exciting (sp?).

carlaz · « **Reply #13 on:** February 27, 2007, 05:39:32 PM »

All in good time, all in good time!

It's just a clip designed to show how these pickups sound in a specific environment as an aide towards giving potential buyers a sense of the pickups, and not a fist-pumping, crowd-chanting, arena-pleaser ... yet! ;)

BloodMountain · « **Reply #14 on:** February 27, 2007, 06:21:06 PM »

dude, how can you say "make it more interesting"?
i think it sounds awesome, REALLY dark, gloomy, overall AWESOME!

dude, you have to make an album!