Where Were you - Jeff Beck Cover

tgorycki

tgorycki

Inspired
One of my very best friends, Stefan Kalman, recently died mysteriously. A core group of musician friends got together to hold an informal memorial on the beach in South Florida where people brought pictures and shared stories about our friend. Prior to the memorial, I was listening to Jeff Beck’s Guitar Shop and heard the track, Where Were You. I thought, “This is something I’d like to perform at the memorial.” So I programmed the MIDI keyboard parts, learned the guitar parts and recorded it in Cubase.

Rather than do a tone match on this one, I tried some of the Axe-Fx II stock presets to start with and found the Screamin’ Plexi to be a good starting point since I read that Beck used an old Plexi with a Rat distortion pedal. I used an Ibanez RG1570 with a brass tone block mod (my apologies to Strat purists). I did however play most of it without a plectrum. I found that playing this piece was largely a balancing act between playing clean and using a ton of vibrato. There’s no way I could play this like Jeff since he’s one of a kind (and a hell of a lot better player), so I backed off the vibrato quite a bit.

I’ve attached the preset for anyone interested. Actually, it makes a pretty good “Guitar Solo” preset (as most stock guitar solo presets have a ton of echo and reverb).

 

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  • Where Were You .syx
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Great cover -- this is one that's very daunting to even attempt and you did a great job with it. Thanks for sharing the tune and your story. Sorry for your loss - this tune definitely evokes a lot of emotions so I'm sure it wasn't easy to perform.
 
This is the best Jeff Beck cover I have ever heard. Seriously, to pull this off this good is amazing. Almost better than the original! :shock

I'm truly sorry for your loss... :(
 
well done, sir

i saw Beck perform this at the hammersmith odeon on the guitar shop tour. there was a lot of talk prior to the gig about whether he would even attempt it, considering the problems he had recording it. but he did it...and it was absolutely phenomenal. certainly much more difficult than it sounds on first listen. i remember beck saying in an interview done at the time that he had to drop in almost every phrase, because the trem springs would keep clanking, or some other thing would go wrong. he ended up shouting "this has got to sound like the voice of god!" in his frustration. so well done for even attempting it and i think a very nice tribute to your friend.
 
Condolences for your loss, and gratulations on your playing. I´d like to leave this place with that sound around me...
 
Thank you gentlemen for all the great feedback! I alternated between 2 guitar tracks since there was no way I would get 1 good continuous take.
 
I'm terribly sorry for your loss. My prayers with you and his family. And this is an amazing rendition. Job well done! I tried the patch last night and it sounded phenomenal, as well. Thank you.
 
I'm a huge beck fan and this is probably one of the hardest ones to play because of the vibrato part and this "voice of god" feel. Congratulations, it's really good. I'm going to try the patch right away but not even try tp play the song !
 
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