How Does Lynch Get This Sound?

Listen to the way the note at the end of the solo changes in sound from 2;56 - 3:03
It sounds incredible. Is this just him holding the same note and the feedback doing all the change in pitch, or something else?

Would it be hard even for him to recreate this because it was just a fluke in the way that the feedback did exactly that, or is it very possible to recreate it if you know what you;re doing?

1 Like

So cool! Maybe he’s tapping an artificial harmonic on the same string?

1 Like

When I used to play out I knew where to stand to get different pitches of feedback from my amp. I’m sure if I figured that out I have no doubt he can too. (Just a thought)

1 Like

im hearing 2 separate events. There is the original bent note trying to get feedback and sort of fading out and making that different noise at 2:59 and then that last note at 3:00 is somehow separate. So he either tapped a harmonic or overdubbed something or whatever. Sounds to me like whammy bar vibrato on that last note

who knows, if you peruse his live vids and/or instructional vids you might find some clues

I havent ever paid much attention to George even though I should have since he had such a unique approach. I think in a way he is sort of like Steve Vai in that when you look at them there is no one huge thing that jumps out at you. Like with Yngwie its the picking or with Eddie the tapping or sort of swinging bluesy feel. With George its just sort of a uniqueness that hits you so its a bit harder to latch on to and copy etc

2 Likes

Yeah, same here, though I’m not convinced it’s an overdub - there’s the slow bent note that breaks into harmonic feedback, and then it sounds like… God, if I had to guess, I’d say he tries to play a tapped harmonic, doesn’t get it as clearly as he wanted, and then almost instantly picks the same pitch with probably a bit of pinch harmonic applied. It’s possible that was actually his intention all along, touch the sustaining note to generate a harmonic an octave up, then pick the same note conventionally… It sounds like an octave jump either way, from the slow bend target pitch to the tapped harmonic-slash-fretted/probably partially pinch harmonic note, so I’d say it’s either off the cuff and Lynch has a nearly inhuman ability to adapt on the fly while improvising, and saved the take… Or it was something he did by design.

3 Likes

All mentioned above are possible, after the feedback note I think

1- tapped harmonic (or even picked), but the attack of the tap/pick is buried in the mix as it happens at the same time as bass and drums hit
2 - similar to the above, but natural harmonic is made on the feedback string by lightly touching the string and wammy bar waggle??
3 - as @Norseman describes - a different feedback note that comes on quick and again transition is buried in the mix.

Given the strength of the note and instant whammy vibrato, I think its more likely to be 1 or 3

1 Like

Classic Lynch. Probably my favorite player (after EVH) as a kid. I’ve always felt his style was best defined on this record and Under Lock and Key. There’s something that guys like George, Warren DeMartini, and a few others from that time had that players in the post-Paul Gilbert era sometimes lack. Not better or worse, just different. Now I’m going to put that record in my Spotify playlist :wink:

3 Likes

For me, there are two things I love about Lynch’s playing.

  1. He always sounds like he’s playing at the edge of control. I gather he improves a lot, and it kind of comes across in his playing, with this great barely-controlled tension. He’s just exciting.

  2. he seems to never land squarely on a note, either coming into it from below, or sort of prebend/releasing into it from above. It actually reminds me of Jimi’s blues playing a lot. I remember it was pretty eye opening when I caught him in a clinic and actually got to watch him play up close, in that he spent a LOT of time palming the bar of his OFR, holding it around the midpoint, and was using that to sort of dip into notes from above or below. I’ve tried to do this myself, but it just feels completely unnatural to me so it’s just something that I haven’t really been able to adopt into my own playing.

1 Like

Imo, its their vibrato /bending. So developed, controlled, expressive. it makes everything else they play stands out.

As much as I love malmsteen, his speed, intensity, etc. Its his vibrato that has impressed my playing the most. His is one of the best around

Further to this: Lynch is about a year older than Eddie Van Halen. They were young kids during Beatlemania and would have been around 13 years old when Hendrix, Clapton, The Who and others were blowing up in the late 60s. Lynch has talked about feeling lucky to have grown up in a time when Clapton, Hendrix, Beck, Page, etc. were big. As a simple matter of age, Paul Gilbert was young enough to grow up influenced by Lynch’s contemporaries (Van Halen, Randy Rhoads), so it’s perhaps not surprising that the connection back to the aesthetic of Clapton’s generation might not be as strong. But Gilbert has tried to re-embrace that in more recent years. And both Gilbert and Lynch have talked a fair bit in recent years about how important the Beatles were to them.