Dio Tribute "Stargazer" Song Discussion

[DanLights]

This thread is for discussion of all matters relevant to the song "Stargazer" to be recorded by a team of Sneap forum members as part of the Sneap Forum Dio Tribute album. Here the team members (preferably the team members only please, unless some cool idea is given by an external person) are to decide tuning/arrangements/whatever and trade the links to finished tracks, scratch tracks, tabs, etc. The person who will mix the final song is to be decided between the team members, be it a member already or not


StarGazer
----
Bass: DanLights
All guitars: 88mph
Vocals: Vespiz's friend
Drums: Bormoleos Van Drill

 

[DanLights]

I will start by proposing tuning in D standard, if it's cool with you guys, just for commodity but I can do other tunings too

 

[Max Morton]

Ok, so let's begin with the drums?
For programming them, I'll take the original record as a starting point. I'll need three-four days to do it.
Any suggestions, gentlemen?

 

[DanLights]

No problem on taking 3/4 days, I'm still concentrated on Children of the sea before I get into this song.

About arrangements, I think this song could use a big change in the drums (which of course will affect all instruments) like making it more metal, maybe adding some double-bass parts, some cool fills, just a suggestion of course you go how you feel like it, but I think it could benefit by a more modern metal approach to it

 

[Max Morton]

Definitely, we can do it more modern, and here's where programming becomes even more useful.
On stage 1 i'll do the drums as i see them
Then we can lay some riff drafts on it. and it will be clear where we can change the drums, and i'll do it while we're recording the good takes of riffs.

 

[vespiz]

I just talked to Simo (singer) and he'd like to sing it in the original tuning.

 

[DanLights]

Very well original tuning then, E standard shall it be, we need our star guitarist to chime in on this

 

[88mph]

No problems for me in standart E. Though, it will be a little fingertip-slicing

About the drums. I think we should stick to the original tempo and style. Double bass drumming might not work on this particular song.

 

[DanLights]

well I said double bass as an example, like a way of modernizing it up a bit, the main riff is very bluesy and I think the contrast could work well.

Check this midi example I did in GP over a tab I found, the E is palmmuted and the guitar does a harmony to the original, and the last part has a different drum fill, a bit more noticeable.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/954292/Stargazer%20Chuggy%20arrangement.mid

It's ok if you don't like my suggestion, but we should find a way to change the original up a bit, IMO doing the song the exact same way as the original is a bit pointless, I'm sure there's something we can do about it printing our own style into it

 

[88mph]

that sounds fine

 

[DanLights]

well that's just an example of my idea of modernizing it up a bit, with some harmonies and some more metal-ish drum fills on some parts. I think the ending which is very long, could be spiced up with the drums going progressively more agressive, until ending in fade out with like a long tom-fill or a doublebass part or something similar, with some long fast (shreddy?) guitar solo above it while it fades out? What do you think?

Btw I don't know you guys so I would like to know your real names if that's ok, I'm Daniel

 

[88mph]

I'm Deniz btw. We could put some bombastic orchestral parts to the end. It could be more symphonic than the original one. Like all the strings and shit

 

[Max Morton]

I think the ending which is very long, could be spiced up with the drums going progressively more agressive, until ending in fade out with like a long tom-fill or a doublebass part or something similar, with some long fast (shreddy?) guitar solo above it while it fades out? What do you think?

Great idea, I'll do that in coda!

I'm Max

 

[DanLights]

I'm Deniz btw. We could put some bombastic orchestral parts to the end. It could be more symphonic than the original one. Like all the strings and shit

I like this idea a lot, maybe at the end the instruments fade out while the orchestra stays for one or two more repetitions all by itself?

 

[Max Morton]

I like this idea a lot, maybe at the end the instruments fade out while the orchestra stays for one or two more repetitions all by itself?

Oh yes. It's the sexiest way for an epic song to fade out But it must be the kickass orchestration or something, to complete the image that appears on the coda words "my eyes are bleeding and my heart is weeping".

 

[88mph]

Definetely! And speaking of orchestration, who's gonna do it?

 

[DanLights]

well, does anybody have a good orchestra vtsi? I'm a freebie guy, for strings I use Dsk's stuff which is pretty cool and light for doing some normal strings stuff, but for a full on orchestration it definitely isn't good enough

 

[88mph]

If someone can do the midi orchestration, I think we can find a kind person to run them through a nice vsti

 

[Max Morton]

I've got a licensed EWQL Platinum pro ^_^
Let's keep orchestration as the last element, and if we'll have time and so on (as Dan Lights already told, i'm already participating at too many positions) - i'll help.

 

[Paulie!]

I could join on a program them, but my plugins aren't good enough for something like this so someone else would have to run them through theres, but I'd love to program it...

-Paul