Michael Schenker Solo Cover

I love the old UFO stuff (on a side note, so cool that Vinnie Moore has been their guitarist for the past 15 years or so), and Only You Can Rock Me is one of my favorite songs, and Schenker solos.

It’s not particularly fast or technical, but it’s melodic as hell, has Michael’s trademark bends, vibrato and his cool use of pentatonics. I did this cover a while ago, hope you enjoy.

Charvel San Dimas into Yamaha THR10X, Boss SD1 out front, guitarless backing track.

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Great playing and tone! How did you record the sound?

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love Schenker even if I dont listen to him as much lately. I know the old Schenker/UFO nice work!

and Schenker solo stuff inside and out from a fans point of view…though I havent tried to play much of it

If u had to name ONE ultimately melodic player u gotta go with Schenker.

this solo here. crazy good. that first note with that crazy little crunchy pick sound. the way the intro chords subtly set up the vibe of the song. 4 minor chords…as we know there are only 3 minor chords in a typical diatonic scale setup etc

he was either 22 or 23 here

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Thank you! Just backing track thru my PC speakers, shot with my phone.

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Yea, I love his playing. So much great stuff, I saw him last year at Royal Oak Music Theater here in Michigan. He was amazing, Schenkerfest with Graham Bonnet, Robin Mcauley, Gary Barden. Incredible show!

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yeah the dude who helped me get started playing was a huge schenker fan. Then at the same time I was dating this girl and she had a cassette with “Obsession” on one side and “No Place to Run” on the other side lol

So that was in my ears when I first started playing 31 years ago

hard to top the dudes melodic sense

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Very nice! I have a Yamaha thrx10 as well, it sounds great. What kind of boss pedal is that?

Great job.

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Thank you! I love the Yamaha, great little amp.

A SD1 Super Overdrive. Level is set halfway, with drive at about three quarters.

Cool. Can I ask why you put an additional OD pedal on an amp with so much gain?

Have you created any custom patches?

Do you know if they make a foot pedal for this amp, to go from clean to dirty?

Sure. Basically to me there’s something about an OD pedal out front that just adds a huge amount of sustain and saturation, that I wouldn’t get by just pinning the gain on the amp. The overdrive pedal isn’t at full drive, and the gain on the amp is only about 1 o’clock. To me, that fully saturated sound (like Lynch’s tone on Under Lock and Key, or Paul’s tone on Second Heat) is the pinnacle of rock tones to me, and I also use a Decimator noise gate pedal, dialed back as tight as I can get it without killing sustain, to clean it up. The tighter I can get the gate, I get more clarity and note definition, while keeping that really gorgeous, saturated tone. It’s a fine line between huge tone that has separation and clarity, without that shitty, fizzy kind of sound you get with gain totally pinned on everything.

It seems counterintuitive, like, why not just pin the amp gain and leave out the OD? But it’s just not the same tone. You’ll see that set up with a lot of players, it just works. I don’t know if the amp is foot-switchable, it doesn’t come with one.

I haven’t done any custom patches, but there’s a ton you can do with it.

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I agree 100 % on the tone. I’m a huge fan of George Lynch, EVh, dimartini.

Being that the Yamaha is such a hi gain amp, I wouldn’t think to add to it, but I can see your point and it makes sense. Most importantly it sounds great. I tried using a looper with the Yamaha but without an effects loop it sounds bad on playback

My primary amp is my evh 5150. Is has a great sound, but unfortunately I can’t get a pure clean tone out of it. And its loud and noisy.

What other amps do you use?

Thanks for the explanation! Did you ever try / manage to get that style of tone solely with amp simulators? If so how?

I’m asking because I don’t have a real amp. I can only play in stealth mode in the evening plugged into my pc & with headphones - plus I’m still very inexperienced in tone chasing :slight_smile:

I have an early model (1996) EVH 5150 head (which sounds great) that was my main for years, but I got a Friedman BE100 head about 3 years ago. It’s amazing. I run it into my Marshall 4x12, the tone is literally the best sounding hot-rodded Marshall Plexi tone I’ve ever heard. It’s the centerpiece of my live rig pretty much forever from here on out!! :grin:

Back in the 80s I had two heads - a late seventies Marshall Plexi and a JCM800, and I had both of them modded with an extra gain stage by a local Long Island guy who did an amazing job. In the style of the Lee Jackson mods that were so popular back then. But I sold them off years ago, so when I heard the Friedman and finally played thru one at my local shop, I was sold.

Prior to that I was considering a Boogie Triple Rectifier, I have loved the tone of that head for years. But once I heard the Friedman and played through it, that was that. Actually have a short clip from the first time I tried it.

Even with the shitty phone mic, you can hear what amazing tone it has! Straight into the head, no effects.

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Yes, I have a Line 6 UX1 that’s actually really good. Direct into my PC with some monitors for output.

Of course you can use it with headphones as well. As for the chain, it’s virtual, but I just set it up like my physical rig. A head and cab (I use an emulated Marshall JCM) and effects out front, including an OD, Delay/Reverb and a noise suppressor, and I just dial it all in the same as the real thing.

Cool thanks! If you get the chance to post a screenshot of your virtual signal chain it would be great, I also have a st dimas and might be able to get quite close to that sound by copying you :slight_smile:

That amp sound incredible

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Sykes is just incredible

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yeah, one of my faves. I have listened to that CD more than any other in my lifetime. (perhaps VH2 in 2nd place)

hands down best combo singer-lead player-writer

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Unfortunately I can’t, I don’t even have it set up right now, and I’m not even sure where the disk is for the software. I haven’t used it in a while, and I switched from a desktop that took a dump on me, to a laptop that I have not loaded the software on yet. Ever since I got the Yamaha I’ve been pretty exclusively playing through that and you can go direct into PC with that as well.

It’s a pretty simple chain though. Pick any high-gain head, a 4x12 cabinet, overdrive, reverb/delay and noise gate. An overdive or you could even try a tube screamer, whatever your emulator has available.

I would crank everything up on the gain and then see how it feels and then start to incrementally back it off on both the amp head, and the overdrive, until it continues to feel good, but you can clean up as much of the fizz and bring the gain down as much as you can without losing the tone or the feel. Also adjust the gate as tight as you can without clipping off notes.

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