Covers

Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame

Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame

New member
So there are two ways to do covers, right?

1) Make it your own. Use the lyrics and chord changes, but change the instrumentation, voicing, tempo, rhythms, etc to make the song fresh/new/different...

2) Try to make it sound as close to the original as possible, including using the same guitar tone, drum sounds, and vocal stylings.

A cover band that wants to do a lot of gigs will usually lean more towards the second, right?

Whereas an established band looking to have fun making music would tend to the former, I think.

So I'm not established, and I'm not in a cover band. I have a bunch of songs I like, and would enjoy performing.

I want to make music, but I'm having problems completing a song of my own.

So if I want to start making recordings to post here, would y'all be more interested in hearing the first or the second?

I've been thinking about trying to split the difference: use guitars as much as I can to replace keyboards and horns, do my own solos, but still try to do all the guitar riffs and fills as close to the recorded version as I can.

I figure that would give me a chance to show my musicality and skills, really delve deeply into how the original band made the song, more deeply understand the choices they made, but also let me not stress out about whether or not my DAW has the right drum kit or not, or if I got all the drum fills correct.

Thoughts?

What would you do?

What have you done?

 
Covers are great and a lot of fun!

I personally use covers to absorb my influences and inject them via repetition into my own repertoire. You can start with the ripped isolated drum tracks that Guitar Hero or Rock Band included in their games... they are all available online and are scattered all over the place. Youtube has lots of them and you could use a youtube downloader to rip the MP3 from the FLV.

 
I tend to learn a cover getting as much as possible as the original...then i make it my own. It's a bit of both, given your technical means and your guitar skills.

The most important: have fun!

Best cover i know of: Billy Jean, by Chris Cornell

 
zenmindbeginner said:
Covers are great and a lot of fun!

I personally use covers to absorb my influences and inject them via repetition into my own repertoire. You can start with the ripped isolated drum tracks that Guitar Hero or Rock Band included in their games... they are all available online and are scattered all over the place. Youtube has lots of them and you could use a youtube downloader to rip the MP3 from the FLV.
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Huh. That's great news.

I love drum tracks, but entering them into a DAW is so tedious. But I don't have room to set up my electronic drum set, nor the mic set to capably record.

I'll search those out.

 
the first make, it your own , copying some one to the t is a sure fire fail IMHO . How does one ever hope to out do or even come close to something done by people who are the very best at what they do ? I once had a drummer say to me that if one couldnt copy a tune exactly one had no buisiness preforming ( obviously I thought he had greatly over estimated his own talent ) So my response was " you can teach a parrot to whistle a tune , that dont make it a musician " /emoticons/default_laugh.png/emoticons/default_ph34r.png/emoticons/default_laugh.png ( just my take on it do which ever feels right )

 
There are three ways to do covers...

1) Make it your own. Use the lyrics and chord changes, but change the...

2) Try to make it sound as close to the original as possible...

3) Something in the middle (I hate this and it just makes the song sound wrong)

1 or 2 IMHO

 
dragan said:
the first make, it your own , copying some one to the t is a sure fire fail IMHO . How does one ever hope to out do or even come close to something done by people who are the very best at what they do ? I once had a drummer say to me that if one couldnt copy a tune exactly one had no buisiness preforming ( obviously I thought he had greatly over estimated his own talent ) So my response was " you can teach a parrot to whistle a tune , that dont make it a musician " /emoticons/default_laugh.png/emoticons/default_ph34r.png/emoticons/default_laugh.png ( just my take on it do which ever feels right )
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I understand and agree, mostly.

On the other hand, since I'm recording just for myself/family/friends, being able to play solos and riffs note-for-note is an element of showing off...my voice will already be different enough from the original, so maybe it would be easier for them to enjoy the closer I get?

On yet another hand, to take this hypothetical to an extreme: take "Frankenstein" for example. I'm not going to learn saxophone, and I'm not going to get the same synthesizer Edgar had, so to learn and play all those parts on guitar would be fun, difficult, and impressive (at least to me). So since just trying to do it justice with my skill set is already going to make it clearly different, shouldn't I try to make it as close to the original as I can? If I try to make that song "my own", I risk ending up with an unrecognizable instrumental.

 
My last band was a mix of covers and originals. We were able to take the cover songs and change them how we wanted to (which was good since we were a power trio and our covers included Frankentstein and The William Tell Overture). If you are a dedicated cover band, then people expect the songs to be relatively close to the originals. I say relatively because most of the audience wouldn't know if you had a different sound or were playing in a different key /emoticons/default_wink.png

If you want to learn from it, learn it "as recorded" and then modify however far you want. I was working up some songs as a solo singer playing a 12 string bass. You know anything I played was going to be modified /emoticons/default_tongue.png

 
Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame said:
On yet another hand, to take this hypothetical to an extreme: take "Frankenstein" for example. I'm not going to learn saxophone, and I'm not going to get the same synthesizer Edgar had, so to learn and play all those parts on guitar would be fun, difficult, and impressive (at least to me). So since just trying to do it justice with my skill set is already going to make it clearly different, shouldn't I try to make it as close to the original as I can? If I try to make that song "my own", I risk ending up with an unrecognizable instrumental.
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You posted this as I was typing mine up. Most people can't remember off the top of their head what instruments were used in that song or what any of the break sections are. Do it your own way, baby. We covered that synth solo with a guitar and people loved it, but they went REALLY nuts when our guitarist did it playing the guitar behind his head /emoticons/default_wink.png

 
Armitage said:
There are three ways to do covers...

1) Make it your own. Use the lyrics and chord changes, but change the...

2) Try to make it sound as close to the original as possible...

3) Something in the middle (I hate this and it just makes the song sound wrong)

1 or 2 IMHO
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One of the things I face is that some of the songs I want to do are NOT in my vocal range.

So I was thinking about trying to do, say, Radar Love an octave down. In that case, I was thinking maybe I should try to do every other part as close to the original as possible.

The question is, when you hear "Radar Love", do you expect to hear those exact licks? Or would it be okay to completely redo the guitar solo as long as the drums/bass/rhythm guitar were close to the original?

Now, one that is going to get all-original treatment is when I change "Little Red Riding Hood" into a surf song...

 
Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame said:
Tres Aardvarks said:
I was working up some songs as a solo singer playing a 12 string bass. You know anything I played was going to be modified /emoticons/default_tongue.png
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I'd like to hear some of those!
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So would I. I was working on it a couple months ago and have been trying to placate the spouse since (leaving not much time for practice). I need her to go on a trip so I can spend some time with the bass /emoticons/default_wink.png

As for the Radar Love question, you can either play everything straight with just singing an octave lower OR would it work better to drop it a 4th or 5th? Trust me, almost no-one will notice the shift. A lot of touring acts will play a cover they throw into their set in a different key, especially if they segue in from one of their own songs.

 
Hi Nathan -- great topic. I think you can do both. What Zen said about drum files or multitracks from Guitar Hero or Rockband is true --- and it's a great way to start building and recording cover versions for fun. I posted a few examples at some point and would be happy to point you in the direction of some .moog files (rockband multitrack files) should you be interested.

I'll point you to a link to a guy on youtube that does a lot of covers as well as originals -- but his covers are all his own doing - complete different arrangements that showcase him and his unique voice. As a musician I think that's something you'd probably want to work yourself towards, but similarly there's nothing that really sells a cover to an audience than when you really nail it - particularly the signature stuff. Here's a few links to the guy I'm talking about. His youtube channel is worth listening to to see how his style is applied to the cover arrangements.

Mike Gubisch Youtube Channel

The Battle of Evermore

Mystery Tour

Black Dog

Revolution

Let Me Roll It

 
Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame said:
Tres Aardvarks said:
I was working up some songs as a solo singer playing a 12 string bass. You know anything I played was going to be modified /emoticons/default_tongue.png
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I'd like to hear some of those!
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A buddy of mine does this. VERY cool stuff for the most part-sometimes he gigs with just himself and a drummer. He sings the lyrics for the stuff he's playing-both originals and covers.Then there's this:

http://youtu.be/mX-yYFqRoMQ

 
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I would love to hear #1 - spiced with your own creativity. To me, that intangible that is human creativity is the most interesting and enjoyable part of art.

 
Stella said:
I would love to hear #1 - spiced with your own creativity. To me, that intangible that is human creativity is the most interesting and enjoyable part of art.
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This. If you're not playing at a sports bar, go with #1.

 
I've always sorta made covers my own when I am alone playing. But over the last few years I decided to learn some of the old songs of my youth that I never took the time to learn. I used the backing tracks for a while and sometimes tried to match the drums and play bass and guitar. But since I found the .mogg files from the guitar hero and those other games I decided to try to really copy the cover tune. Match the sound, find the amps and pedals that were used and find matches in my Amplitube guitar sim and see how close I could get to the cover. It was as much a mixing challenge as a playing challenge.

I wanted to learn to get the guitar sounds that sound good in the mix. Listening to the individual tracks on the .mogg files help me understand mixing a bit better. The hard thing is taking a great guitar or bass sound and blending them in the mix so they don't sit on each other or conflict with each other. Finding the frequencies to cut or boost is a skill I wanted to learn. So I wanted to mix the cover track to get as close as I could by blending multiple guitar tracks to achieve the recorded sound.

I've only done a few so far. Takes time. My cars cover I posted earlier turned out really good I think.

I'll post again just because! /emoticons/default_wink.png

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/88221982/byebye%20love%20cars%20-final%20cover.mp3

 
This cars cover is really fun -- ready for release! Ive been spending some time at recording.org for mix help

 
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