Tabbed "Epic Metal" solo in the style of Vinnie Moore with mixed escape licks

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#1

Let’s go back to some actual guitar talk :slight_smile:

I’ve been recently asked to record a guest solo for Chernobyl Studios (a metal mixing & production channel by Scott Elliott):

Soundslice tab:

Original version:

The progression is fairly common in metal (roughly Dm - C - Dm - C - F/C), so I did what I could to keep things interesting by having a contrast of fast / slow parts as well as emphasising chord tones VS extensions. The melodic parts also use a quarter-triplet feel to sort of pull down the energy before going bananas with the 16th notes. Tempo is 180bpm, which is still doable for me but defo feels like fast territory.

As usual I’m obsessed with multitracking: The two backing gtrs (double and harmony) are stereo-widened with a chorus, so they are on the sides and this way it sounds like I’m soloing everywhere in the stereo image. Also, I’m too shy to play alone :smiley:

Scott was looking for something “flashy” so I did a few over-the top harmonised fast licks, essentially based on a generalisation of the “Pepsi Lick” pattern: the basic “picking unit” is 8 16th notes arranged as the following inside picking pattern:

DUD on the high E string + UDUDU on the B

It’s basically a mixed escape pattern that breaks away just a little from the over-used “fixed number of notes per string” cliches of shred guitar.

You can of course make this pattern outside picking if you start on an upstroke, and you can even make it single-escape with strategic pulloffs and/or sweeps (details are left as an exercise to the reader, but I am happy to provide them if there’s interest :slight_smile: )

Note Re: timing of the final arpeggio: the notation is totally approximate, and the timing of the arpeggio is kinda loose too. I just tried to squeeze the notes in the available time in a way that sounded good to me.

Hope some of you will have fun playing this and/ or using these ideas to come up with your own solo :slight_smile:

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#2

Harmonies!! Killer harmonies! Who doesn’t love lots of harmonies!?
Great work! I may attempt to learn this :love_you_gesture:

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#3

Killer playing as per the usual :metal: :metal: :metal:

I’ve been meaning to ask you about some ‘process’ stuff with your videos. Let me gather my thoughts and I’ll report back.

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#4

Nice Tommo! I like the sweep to finish that shredding

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#5

Sounded like a really clean take(s)! What’s the 3rd guitar doing during the harmony? Center for one, hard panned either side with unison harmony?

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#6

Tried more than a few times :wink:

Correct! The role of the 3rd guitar is to “widen” the main lead: it goes into a stereo chorus at lower volume so it “surrounds” the main lead.

PS: Also, the 3rd guitar uses the bridge pickup which would be too bright / harsh for the main voice, but as a secondary, lower-volume voice it adds a nice bite to the lick (methinks).

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#7

That very last note.

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#8

… could have been better :sweat_smile:

#9

Well subjectively of course.

I’m not sure it’s the note itself, or what you chose to harmonize with it. I didn’t listen closely enough to see if you used a mixture of 3rds 5ths 6ths and octaves at various points or just stuck with thirds. It’s certainly memorable, but it tends to overpower all that great awesome playing you did right in front of it a little. In that sense It becomes the most memorable part for me.

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#10

Thank you :slight_smile:

The solo ends by sliding on a D (main) and F (harmony) over a D power chord. So they tend to make the chord more obviously minor and a bit less power-chordy, which I agree can sound a bit weird / out of place in a metal context.

But what bugs me the most after you pointed my attention to it is that I’m not really satisfied with the phrasing / vibrato of that last note, and I think I bent it just a little sharp.

Oh well… I anyway listened to this so many times that I should just move on to something else :smiley: Maybe I’ll ask Scott to do a little auto-tune on that last note when he mixes the song, and/or remove the harmony on that last note.

#11

Pfft it’s rock 'n roll, you say “sharp” I say “attitude”.

And wow that’s the first time in recent memory I’ve used the full term “rock 'n roll”.

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#12

It could be that. but it also could be that even though you harmonized it with a chord tone, contextually it may not have been the right choice. Possibly if you had slid that ending root note up an octave, or harmonized it with something else. I dunno, a lot of possibilities with that one.

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#13

Sounds great, cool solo!

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#14

Thanks for taking the time to do this because it can be quite a challenge putting all of that together inside of soundslice. Tabbing it is one thing, but to add in video takes the extra bit of effort that really makes your content shine.

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#15

That is a part of soundslice I’ve never even tried doing. From what I remember hearing it’s just like ‘points’ you have to line up or something???

But yeah in general I second this, great work all around, the synced tabs are a great bonus

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#16

Well from the few times I did it, I had to sorta go section by section because it didnt align to some grid. It isn’t to hard, but it requires some work. Once you figure out how to do it, it goes quicker.

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#17

Very cool @tommo, and the tab is great, damn I need to go back to square one and learn my arpeggios properly.

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#18

Better version for the actual song (that took a bit :slight_smile: ). I also became better at filming & editing tabs directly into the video:

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