My quest to play like Randy Rhoads

[Bg]

here you go....

Awesome, warming up the marshall right now.
I couldn't find that on the web anywhere with full backing.
Thanks.

Haven't listened to it so don't thank me yet

[szukalski]

To offer my 2c; there are a few pieces of advice I can offer.

Tone:

You're falling into the trap of scooped mids. It's a fake metal trap. (Run). Listening to RR's tone you can clearly hear a rich mid and upper mid mix, you almost lose the bass altogether. That's a huge clue. Most of the tone in a guitar is contained in the mids, that's why they fight in the mix with the vocals, and by cutting them out you are relying on boosted highs to accentuate the mid frequencies (which they are octaves of) but you end up with too many highs. Conversely, by having too much bass you muffle other frequencies in your tone and lose clarity.
By establishing the right level of mids, your finger noise is increased and you have to pay more attention to where you are fretting with the tips of your finger in order to maintain consistency as well as general string muting, but the rewards are huge.
Especially in metal, people gravitate towards the scooped mid sound but this is a fake god and blinds you from reaching the elusive tone equilibrium where you are maximising the sound of your wood, which ultimately brings the greatest low-end (as well as the best mix for your band, everyone likes to feel the kick after all). The effects of tone maximisation in metal tone can be clearly heard in the progression of Opeth's sound through their albums. They started with a scooped mid sound, but by Deliverance had found a great balance and are getting amazing mixes with loads of balls.
RR has the classic Marshall mid-range crunch (esp in Crazy Train, MrCrowley is almost the same tone with the bass turned up more but still with loads of mids) and sounds like his solos have a treble based booster (tube screamer or something like it?), try turning your mids up and lowering your bass. It's hard with effects units as they don't have the mid richness of tubes driving a speaker, but I'm sure there's something in there for you.
And best of all. More mids = more sustain.

Technique:

I'm not sure what your practice regime is like, but I can tell you that RR was classical in training (as mentioned prior) and as such, he would have practiced patterns and fingering in different keys to a metronome. This affords two key attributes, you keep in time efficiently with others (one of my weaknesses), and you can practice them slowly enough to establish the optimal technique. Approach it like a weights routine, keeping notes on progress is helpful, and practice against the metronome with the fastest speed at which you can perform the pattern clearly and perfectly. It has to be of professional quality, else speed down a little, and that is your established base point. You practice at that speed and gain fluency with your patterns then bump the speed up and try to do the same thing. You won't be able to play it faster with the same clarity, but you need to push yourself in order to get better, and you often find that after you wind the metronome down a tad, you're playing fluently and cleanly at a higher base point than you started. You do that over many patterns, put the patterns together, and you have your solos!
You really want to be playing below your maximum clean speed level so that you can concentrate on other aspects of your playing without having to play note catch-up.

You're coming along nicely, unfortunately, with shredding comes practice, and for RR you need to adhere to traditional shred learning standards. Break the solos down into their respective patterns (tapping, upwards run, downwards run, pentatonic patterns, etc) and work on the patterns individually until they are works of art in themselves, piece them together and you'll be this years' NZ RR Idol!

[Aquila Rossa]

To offer my 2c; there are a few pieces of advice I can offer.

That is all on the money,thanks.
I'll need time to digest all of that!
You're advice is a good summary of the whole thread really.
It's time for me to put it all in practice.

I recorded all of those clips with the EVH preset on a v-amp, not ideal for getting RR tone, I always let the mids sound out with my DSL 100, so the tone will get better when I start recording with my real amp. I will be getting a ZW overdrive should be OK even if RR used a distortion+. they both have that MXR sound. Front end eq maybe too. One new gadget a week.

One thing about RR if you watch his live clips, he made the odd mistakes and often he didn't play solos the same way live as in the studio, lots of the licks are often different from the studio version, a bit out of time in places and even sometimes his tone was pretty rough.
It seems to me that he reached those amazing heights you hear on the records only on those magic days where everything would just click into place and then somebody would record it.
So are you all expecting too much from me? lol!

[crowbgood1]

WOW sounds so complicated.

I just like playing and watching the people dance.

But then I think Keith Richard is a good gat player

[szukalski]

It seems to me that he reached those amazing heights you hear on the records only on those magic days where everything would just click into place and then somebody would record it.
So are you all expecting too much from me? lol!

Just trying to push you harder.

I don't think that was the case with RR, I believe he had the skills even when live, but there's a huge difference between sitting down in a studio with options for multiple takes, and having to do the same thing whilst strutting your stuff on stage with your axe strung low (your technique changes a lot between standing up and sitting). You see this with many artists, even John Petucci makes the odd mistake live and mixes it up, it's just part of the game, but it's much more obvious if the player is improv'ing his solos and especially if he's pushing his limits and not 'playing it safe'.

Buckethead is a great example of a live player who really pushes himself, he makes a lot of mistakes if you listen, but he also comes out with some of his better runs/phrases that you just can't capture if you're not putting yourself in the position where you can improvise. I have a great bootleg of Buckethead playing Binge and Grab where he starts the solo and really messes it up, you can hear his fingers slip off the string on a bend, but then he seems to be taken back by it and concentrates hard because the upwards run he does next is possibly the best I've ever heard, a sublime legato merging into staccato that is the fastest and cleanest in my memory. To me, that's the mark of a great guitarist, not afraid to push themselves (and make the mistakes that come with it) in there interest of creating something truly unique.

In any case, my posts are always too long! Looking forward to hearing your progress!

[Some Bozo]

but there's a huge difference between sitting down in a studio with options for multiple takes, and having to do the same thing whilst strutting your stuff on stage with your axe strung low (your technique changes a lot between standing up and sitting).

Satch still needs to bust out a chair for the solo in Crushing Day http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=WJO_18sTbhA

Personally I think it would've been more rock and roll to leap in the air and land sliding down to one knee and prop the guitar up on the other one but ya can't have everything....

[dayl]

Haha... well keep it up Aquila, you are sounding very close to being spot on and the advice being given here is very sound.

I wish that my quest to sound like Dayl was going as well

[Bg]

Shit, I'm sure Randy didn't want to play the solo's the same way twice. Who does???? It makes it boring for the player and even more boring for the listener. And sometimes you get in the 'zone' and go to different places, and sometimes you fuck up a note or two that you can't recover from and you end up somewhere else So don't concentrate on learning note for note, get his style, feel and rhythm and add your own spice

[Some Bozo]

Shit, I'm sure Randy didn't want to play the solo's the same way twice.

Actually all his solos are played the same way twice when he double tracks them

[Aquila Rossa]

I've been playing really crap for the last few days.
The "Zone" feels like a million miles away.
If I'm feeling knackered I just don't play as well.
Being fit, healthy and keeping the energy levels up would help musicians achieve peak performance (on the guitar)more often.
Just look at Jake E Lee. He was some kind of Karate Kid champ. It worked for him. RR was a healthy living type as well.
Then you look at ZW trying to demo the new RR marshall really wasted and lookin really run down, he couldn't play shit compared to his live'n'loud standards: http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=ej2616GLzRI
I think EVH is a shadow of his former self too because of his chain smoking and hard drinking taking it's toll on his playing.

My health is pretty average after many years of smoking and partying hard and I also have a serious back injury that will be operated on soon. All this adds up to me having lots of off days where I can't play very well at all, then on days I feel great, I'll learn several songs over a weekend and my soloing is on fire.
So part of this years mission and "the quest" is to be commited to a healthier lifestyle so I can play more like RR, more often, for years to come.

[twistedthoughts]

maximising the sound of your wood

Just trying to push you harder.

practiced patterns and fingering

Wait, what?

[szukalski]

maximising the sound of your wood

Just trying to push you harder.

practiced patterns and fingering

Wait, what?

Not sure what your question is..

[sgt mukuzi]

one thing we havnt noticed


the backing tracks are out of time

[rob_on_guitar]

I may have some old ozzy backing tracks, Ill have a look when i get home.

Thanks,

I get backing tracks from here: http://www.guitarbackingtrack.com/
Free backing tracks uploaded by members, some are really good, some are pretty average.
I use Gpro 5.2 alot as well, because the new version allows more tweaking so you can get quite good backing for practice as long as the tab is good.
There's a link here on ths forum for the original studio tracks to crazy train and mr crowley also. I havn't downloaded them yet.

If you have really good bt's I would want to use them for sure.
One song that I've had a hard time finding a bt or complete gpro of is 16th century greensleaves by rainbow. I learnt that a coulpe of weeks ago and it would be nice to play that song with drums and bass.
I notice that if you want to pay the $s the net has loads of backing track sites that may be really high quality.

I've been a bit slack this week with my "quest", only playing about 1 hr a day. Really sore and tired atm. I see the spinal surgeon on tuesday, can't wait.

Good site that one, I have a few more but cant be arse uploading them at the moment, net connection seems to suck today

[slash-ed]

To offer my 2c; there are a few pieces of advice I can offer.

That is all on the money,thanks.
I'll need time to digest all of that!
You're advice is a good summary of the whole thread really.
It's time for me to put it all in practice.

I recorded all of those clips with the EVH preset on a v-amp, not ideal for getting RR tone, I always let the mids sound out with my DSL 100, so the tone will get better when I start recording with my real amp. I will be getting a ZW overdrive should be OK even if RR used a distortion+. they both have that MXR sound. Front end eq maybe too. One new gadget a week.

One thing about RR if you watch his live clips, he made the odd mistakes and often he didn't play solos the same way live as in the studio, lots of the licks are often different from the studio version, a bit out of time in places and even sometimes his tone was pretty rough.
It seems to me that he reached those amazing heights you hear on the records only on those magic days where everything would just click into place and then somebody would record it.
So are you all expecting too much from me? lol!

Hmmm, if you ask me RR's tone on studio records has never been anything to shout about. On the other hand, his tone live - listen to the Tribute album (I'm sure you already have!). So imho playing like Randy is not so much about chasing his tone, but accomplishing that fluidity and sorta classical-player crossover mindset that he used when composing licks and solos.

And no, I don't think we are expecting too much from you Like BG said, it's the feel that's more important. Landing "right" notes at the right time will make you sound more like Rhoads than landing the exact right notes, but off-timing.

Also, one other funny thing, I remember earlier in the thread you say you got upset when someone said you sounded like Zakk Wylde?? Granted they are totally different players, but ZW was the heir to the Rhoads throne... he knows all the solos pretty much note for note, and has a much more aggressive high-gain tone (others may of course disagree) than RR ever had.. His playing maybe wanky and boring as now, but back in the early days he was pretty damn cool... So not a cringe-worthy comparison imo