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my band is doing a few new songs, one of these is owner of a lonely heart by yes.
that song has a mental pitchshifter guitar solo in it.
My questiion is should i get a pitchshifter to nail the sound or just improv a solo without one.

most songs, i'll play something that sounds near enough to the record or something in the same vein. Sometimes i'll do my own thing. I can get away with not using wah/delay etc, as it doesn't matter so much. Owner of lonely heart's solo really uses that pitchshift to give it that odd sound.

Ideas?

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Firstly - this song is fucking awesome.
Secondly - I think you can totally cop something without a pitchshifter, and I doubt anyone is going to notice that the solo is any different, especially if you just play it at the upper Octave

I say try and emulate the best you can with your gear and playing style- it's not as if you're in a Yes tribute or something. A heavy bit of chorus and lots of gain and you can get away with it, I reckon.

Any Yes fans will just be glad you rocked the song and won't care if you play it without the pitchshifting. Any non-Yes fans won't know anyway.

Do as Doog says.

i love the song too. The drummer and me chose it, rest of the band thought it was a little twee. The band wanted me to cop the solo as on record, because they were listening out for that sound.
Don't think punters will come up and say i fucked up there favourite song because i didn't use an eventide rack lol

Don't think steve howe even plays it like trevor rabin did with the pitchshifter.

maybe I'm just not an expert in what people did in the eighties, but after listening 3 times to the solo, I'm not even sure if it is all guitar what your hear ... got a keyboarder? work something out to play unisono some passages. Got none? Play it different.

Definitely a guitar.

I would just use heavy chorus. But also I would say its perfectly reasonable to do the solo with out a pitch shifter.

Whenever we do a cover, we make it our own... we never try to get exactly what the original song was. Cover the song in your style using the gear you have, I say. Make it unique rather than just a copy.

Fuck the pitchshifter that song is just horrific.

re-arrange it to your own style

Just play it towards the end of your set. People will be more drunk and won't know the difference anyway. I once had a group of guys come up to me after a show and tell me I, "rocked Bark at the moon!" We didn't even play it and never have. People + alcohol = No clue. Don't think too much about it and just play it.

this solo borders on 'signature solo' since it's very recognizable. it would be cool if you could nail it, but try it without and see if it sounds weird or not.

Do the best you can, you are not a Yes tribute band so it does'nt matter as long as it sounds decent.
If you start them games you'll be going onstage with 4 amps, 5 guitars and 30 pedals.

Fran wrote:Do the best you can, you are not a Yes tribute band so it does'nt matter as long as it sounds decent.
If you start them games you'll be going onstage with 4 amps, 5 guitars and 30 pedals.

good point, you know how i don't like heaving loads of gear and pedals.


i'll try it without and see how it sounds. if need be, i could get the keyboard player to try and double up on a few little riffs.

though he's on for leaving. so then we'll be down to guitar, bass, drums and 2 singers.

I've played in a tribute band and a covers band, to me they are different things and the crowd realise this. Its good to pull stuff off like that but like i said, at what cost and where will it end.

I would use a really short echo for the solo. I had a digital delay tha would nail that sound, im not sure if nay of my curent stuff does it though.

I personally feel the pitch shift is more important than the short echo. The Zoom GFX707 could do both, and a lot else, if you can find one cheap second-hand and are prepared to customise a patch a little. There are a couple on ebay, under £20 but 4 and 5 days to run. The Behringer US600 is £41.95 delivered from Just Add Music, still a lot of money for one song unless you can think of other fun things to do with it.

Man, that song reminds me of 6th grade, back when I thought it was Yes' "debut single" lol.

Yar, I'd drop the shifter and rather wah the solo in good ol' proggy shred fashion.