Aludog

Btw, I wanted to tell you guys that there's gonna be a new Grateful Dead song book from Hal Leonard which I plan on getting as soon as I can order it from Amazon. It has quite an attractive selection and some songs I haven't seen in any of the other song books and wanted to do for quite a while (China Cat Sunflower, St. Stephen, Althea). Also, it's Hal Leonard and not Alfred Publishing which doesn't have the best rep. I already have this anthology and this one that has all of Workingman's Dead so if you ever want a tab from either of these two (or three, respectively, once I get the new one), just ask me and I'll scan it for you. There's no bass transcriptions but I can do those myself and if I have the time, I'll gladly help you out there. We certainly need some more GD in RS. :D

Yeah, I'd feel angry as hell as well. I haven't been mugged yet (thankfully) but I can imagine how it must have felt, especially being in a foreign country. Did you go to the police afterward or did you just go back home?

@@jbroch Woah, you're a badass, man. :D Shitty you got mugged but at least you got one of them. Also, too bad about that fracture. How long before you can start playing again?

@@albatross213 The only way you can mark arpeggios in GP is with the "Let Ring" marker but that won't import into EoF, so you'll have to do it manually anyway.

Nice. Blood Ceremony is a great band. I thought about doing a track of theirs but didn't want to make one with bass only and wasn't really interested in the ones that have available GP files. Hopefully I'll be able to do a full transcription of "Witchwood" one of these days. :D

Apart from Symphony X I know none of these bands but it all sounds like some really hardcore stuff, so I guess that's why. :)

Lefties for life! :lol: Also, great work. Now I just need to find the time to work through that. ;) Thanks, Berneer.

I still have to finish Part 1 of Tubular Bells, I'll be on vacation next week and I wanted to do Sea And Sand first, so … Yeah, eventually. :D

Happens to me constantly actually and I'm not sure why. Probably because I can't focus the same a second time around and mess up more often. <_< Anyway, I also wanted to mention that "To Cry You A Song" has a bonus lead arrangement as well that's a bit different and which contains the other solo sections of the lead guitar. It doesn't have the last solo though (the one played through a leslie speaker) so it's probably not the one we wanna play for the CS. I just thought some of you may want to try that as well. And I should really try do make at least one run on this, so I can say, I participated this week. :unsure:

@@GetTheLedOut If I already had tabs for the guitar parts I'd sure love you to help me out but someone would have to transcribe them first. :( You won't find any tabs for Part 2 and Part 1 doesn't have complete tabs either. And yeah, Mike Oldfield did some mind blowing stuff and you're probably right, Part 2 is more consistent and has some really great parts but I like Part 1 as well. Definitely listen to more Oldfield. "Hergest Ridge", "Ommadawn", "Incantations", "Amarok" are all great lengthy compositions like this one and more interesting than most of his more commercial, better know recordings.

This topic is both for testing and discussing collaboration on both Parts of "Tubular Bells" by Mike Oldfield. I have now finished transcribing (the bass) and syncing "Part 1" and will try to get a test version done soon. Here is the GP file for anyone interested in working out the guitar parts: https://www.dropbox.com/s/33hq98nt017fpvm/Mike%20Oldfield%20-%20Tubular%20Bells%20%28Part%201%29.gpx?dl=0 Just let me know in the comments if you want to help out. Maybe some of you can work together and transcribe different parts of the track. I can also try my hand on some of the easier guitar sections. You'll definitely need some patience to work on this because time signatures are constantly shifting, different rhythm and melody patterns are overlapping and even though there's quite a bit of repetition in the individual themes, none of the 14 themes is ever repeated. The longest sections is the last one, by far, because it's slowly building and introducing different instruments that play the melody. There's a rhythmic pattern in that sections that kind of sounds like it also has bass but I'm not really sure; it might just be a guitar recorded at double speed or put through some effect. I opted for the easier bass line but I could transcribe that pattern as well and make a bonus arrangement, though the pattern fades out with time and it might sound strange to keep playing it and awkward to suddenly change it, so I don't know. I'll work on "Part 2" as soon as I'm happy with this one and it's ready for release. Help on "Part 2" would be great as well.

I just finished my bass transcription for Part 1 because the long outro is just a simple repeated pattern, so that was five minutes of the track done immediately. I'm going to build a test version and post it tomorrow. :D

@@albatross213 I'll try to give all of your test versions a run soon. Hopefully some others are willing to help out with testing as well. Maybe put them in the Test Forum under a new topic if you want not only charters but all group members to see and test them.

The only issue with long songs is that you need to have a lot of sections and that bugs out the section display, so selecting the section you want gets really difficult. :( I think I'll try and do both, one big combi version and two separate versions for the individual parts.

Small update: I'm at the ten minute mark now with my bass transcription for "Tubular Bells (Part 1)". As soon as Part 1 is done, I'm going to create a test version and let you guys have at it. I'm also going to post the GP file in case anyone wants to transcribe the guitar parts. I'm not sure yet if I want to combine Part 1 and 2 into one long custom or if I want to keep them separate. There's no real need to combine them but it would be cool to play the whole thing all at once. :D What do you guys think?

Hmm, interesting. I thought it sounded like D Standard but it seems I'm wrong. :D Also, great concert. Being that close to musicians like that is awesome. Small venues for great artists are the best. :lol:

@@albatross213 What tunings are these Riverside tracks in? Doesn't sound like E Standard. I'll try them the next time I start up RS.

Sarcasm is a hard one to recognize with just written text. That's why we have :P . Anyway, I didn't want to sound preachy but I did, so I apologized for that just in case. Not worth angering anyone by stating the obvious. :P

I've invited quite of bunch of charters today and some have already accepted the invite (thanks, guys), so hopefully we'll increase our member count with that. Don't forget to invite anyone who could be interested. The more the merrier. :)

I thought I just mention it, shouldn't it be clear: the Test Forum is for group internal testing. If you only want it to be tested by charters, then you can post in the Custom Testing topic of the Charter Forum. :D Also, thanks for being the first to open up a thread here. I'll do it once I have something to test. :D

This is gonna be a long list because I'll try to really mention all my favorites and I'll also included the classics for completions sake. I'll be saying a few words about each of the artists (why I like them; their style; who they can be compared to; favorite albums; favorite songs; etc) and give links to their page on progarchives.com. While some are quite high profile, there's also a lot of them who you may have never heard of before. To get to know them better, I have created a playlist on 8track you can listen to: https://8tracks.com/ilexor/favorite-prog# There's shorter and longer tracks but only one from each artist; it still runs up to 7 hours though, so you'll need to take your time to get through it all. So, let's get this started. I'll update this post with new entries ever so often until I'm done but because of time constraints, I can't write all of them at once: Al Di Meola - Wow! Off to a great start with one of the best fusion guitarists in the world. If Al Di Meola isn't a genius, I don't know who is. Not only is he an amazing guitar player (who played with Return To Forever before going solo), he's also one of the greatest songwriters I know. His compositions are fascinating and exhilarating and full of imagination and great virtuosity. His style is very prone to spanish and latin american music, Paco De Lucia being a big influence (with whom he recorded one of the best acoustic live albums of all time: "Friday Night In San Francisco"), but there's also a very classic rocky side to his music, especially on the early records and you can hear a lot of Santana in it as well. My favorite album has to be the famous "Elegant Gypsy" which showcases his diverse style very well and with a bass player like Anthony Jackson you also get amazing bass lines from one of the best fusion bass players of all time. My (current) favorite song is on the previous album though and that's the first track "The Wizard". Al Di Meola at his best and very much in the vein of Santana but a lot more experimental. Aphrodite's Child - Well, this one's a bit tough because the only progressive album is "666" but what an album it is. Led by the (in)famous Vangelis the group put out a double album based on the book of revelations that was so vastly different from what they did before and what others did at the time that it still blows my mind a little when I hear it. It doesn't sound that revolutionary anymore but it stands the test of time and combines great musicianship with even greater songwriting that takes you on quite a trip through the end of times. Their style is still very unique and I don't think I know another artist that sounds quite like Aphrodite's Child does on "666". Favorite track: "The Four Horsemen". Arjen Anthony Lucassen/Ayreon - No matter under which name Lucassen releases his albums, they are sure to please and I love it. Lucassen is a fantastic songwriter and a great multi-instrumentalist. He takes his time and develops fully fledged narrations presented very much like a musical with different singer for different roles and he doesn't shy away from experimentation. He can write sweetly soft (almost kitschy) ballads as well as hard hitting heavy metal tunes and he almost always manages to make it work in a cohesive manner. Even the lyrics can be quite excellent and the underlying stories are usually very interesting, although not always well developed and inventive. His style is nothing extraordinary and he sound very much like classic Dream Theater with equal parts of synth melodies and heavy riffs, but his approach is usually more refined, more narrative and lyrical. My favorite album is without a doubt "The Human Equation"; it's the total package and delivers greatness on all fronts but you have to listen to it from beginning to end, to enjoy it fully. Ark - Very short lived band but their self titled debut is fantastic (though the mix on my release is really flat and liveless). The songwriting is fantastic, fluently shifting between soft and hard, quiet and loud, slow and fast, simple and intricate. It can be bare bone, head banging trash metal one minute, jazz-fusion noodling, acoustic flamenco guitar shredding or overladen symphonic epicness the next. The elegant mix of genres is definitely the biggest draw for me and if that sounds good to you as well, then you gotta give this a listen. Favorite track: "The Hunchback Of Notre Dame". Atomic Rooster - One of the forgotten early greats of Prog Rock. Their debut wasn't anything genius (despite having Carl Palmer on drums) but their following three albums delivered extremely strong material that always stayed very accessible through their strong use of very poppy piano rhythms and melodies. They could still rock your socks off and usually did so, right after they charmed you into your seat with exquisitely composed ballads or got you moving to very danceable, funky rhythms. When they got hard, they got very hard, but when they went soft, they went soft as melting butter. The genius thing about Atomic Rooster was the ability to do both very convincingly and combine them to accessible but still intricately composed tunes. Favorite track (and one of my favorite songs of all time): "Nobody Else". Beardfish - Well, what to say about a band called "Beardfish"? They're around for 15 years now and have just released their newest album which is their best in quite a while and probably my second favorite album of theirs. Nothing can beat "Sleeping In Traffic: Part Two" though. It's not only my favorite Beardfish album, it's one of my favorite Prog albums of all time. It got masterly crafted tunes that keep you on your toes, are pleasing to the ears and can even be quite fun at times. Many of the songs are very playful, having a child like innocence one moment and a devious nature the next, similar to many of Zappa's best tunes. Musically they shift a lot between all kinds of sounds that Prog Rock has established over the years, often reminding me of the best parts of Camel, Caravan, Zappa, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Genesis, Yes, etc. On later albums they tried to establish a harder sound but that didn't work out so well and they have returned to their roots with the newest release. Favorite track: The epic 35 min "Sleeping In Traffic". :D Camel - A classic act of the genre, so I don't think, I need to say much about them. Like many of my favorites, Camel put an emphasis on narration and tunes with a clear concept but despite the fact that they really started to do that with their second album, the first one is actually my favorite. I really like the first four (after that it get's gradually worse) but their debut is so extremely solid and the tracks on it are so memorable and pleasing to my ears that I can't honestly say, I like one of the others more; at best I'd say they are equally good, even though "Snow Goose" never did it for me. Favorite track: "Separation".

I guess it was, wasn't it? :D Sorry bout that.

@@manchot66 Don't you usually do a search beforehand? I always start by making a search in Ignition to check if there's already a custom of a particular song, I want to do. If there is, then I usually refrain from working on it but if I really want to do it, I check it out and see if it's well done; if not, then I can still work on it without any bad feelings.

I have been thinking a while now about what I want to do next and I'm kind of itching to do another big project but I'm definitely gonna need some help with this. I want to work on Part 1 & 2 of Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bell". It's such a classic and one of the albums that got me into Progressive Rock, especially the one that works with extended, slowly developing compositions. For now, I'll work on transcribing the bass for Part 1 but I hope that someone is interested in working on the guitar arrangement. There's a midi file for all of Part 1 that could be of use (and I plan on using it whenever necessary) but it's going to be quite some work nonetheless. If someone wants to help out, then just let me know and we can talk about the process in detail.

The Aristocrats sound really interesting, I have to admit. When I saw the album cover I wasn't sure what to expect but their style is very unique, no doubt about it. Regarding BarockProject: Does the following say it all? http://i.imgur.com/ch4jikHl.png That's what I got for buying "Skyline". :D So, I agree; awesome album, awesome band. "Spinning Away" and "Overture" are already on my list for future transcription projects. It'll be five string bass arrangements but that's ok with me.