He's a great player but, yeah, what's up with that shit tone?
The Strat into a cranked Marshall is a timeless combination but the popularizer of the Heavy Metal-Looney Tunes mashup sometimes sounds pretty bad.
I don't hate his tone as much as others do but, I'll admit, it can be pretty weedy.
It all begins with a weak picking grip.
Mr. Furious loves to proclaim that he's "self-taught" and, like a lot of players that had no formal training, they build in some bad habits such as the picking hand index finger pointing down toward the strings. It can be compensated for with a lot of hard work plus some other crutches along the way.
Pick control and stability are compromised with this grip which means that if they try to put any force into attacking the strings, the pick is pushed around. Consequently, this grip necessitates a dainty and delicate approach and very little energy is transmitted from the pick to the strings.
Players who idolize YJM often don't know any better and wind up using this grip (and some even teach it to countless thousands of unsuspecting kids). For example, here is the Ray Kroc of McShred passing on a boatload of bad advice:
Troy Grady worked his ass off just to make it to legit B-grade clone when he could have been twice as good in the same amount of time. Too bad his viewers with less commitment to practice will be hobbled by such a poor foundation.
YJM's solution to being pushed around is to string his guitars with 8s (kinda like having metal hair on your guitar) and then, on top of that, tuning down to Eb most of the time.
This all adds up to weak sauce, Bro.
The crutch to compensate for this lack of energy is a bridge pickup with a DC resistance of 25-point-something-or-other and distortion pedals.
But, again, if you practice 8+ hours per day you'll find a way to overcome this basic problem -- though, it cannot help your tone. If you have less time to work on it you might want to relearn the proper way to grip a pick; you can always modify the basics for different purposes but there's no reason to hobble yourself at the point where it counts the most, especially if it means weedy tone.
Next week we'll take our Yngwie lessons to the next level by examining his patented domestic violence chops, Yngwie's 10 best homophobic slurs, tips for staying hydrated on long flights, and the "Forkin' Fury's" favorite pork chop recipes.
The Strat into a cranked Marshall is a timeless combination but the popularizer of the Heavy Metal-Looney Tunes mashup sometimes sounds pretty bad.
I don't hate his tone as much as others do but, I'll admit, it can be pretty weedy.
It all begins with a weak picking grip.
Mr. Furious loves to proclaim that he's "self-taught" and, like a lot of players that had no formal training, they build in some bad habits such as the picking hand index finger pointing down toward the strings. It can be compensated for with a lot of hard work plus some other crutches along the way.
Pick control and stability are compromised with this grip which means that if they try to put any force into attacking the strings, the pick is pushed around. Consequently, this grip necessitates a dainty and delicate approach and very little energy is transmitted from the pick to the strings.
Players who idolize YJM often don't know any better and wind up using this grip (and some even teach it to countless thousands of unsuspecting kids). For example, here is the Ray Kroc of McShred passing on a boatload of bad advice:
Troy Grady worked his ass off just to make it to legit B-grade clone when he could have been twice as good in the same amount of time. Too bad his viewers with less commitment to practice will be hobbled by such a poor foundation.
YJM's solution to being pushed around is to string his guitars with 8s (kinda like having metal hair on your guitar) and then, on top of that, tuning down to Eb most of the time.
This all adds up to weak sauce, Bro.
The crutch to compensate for this lack of energy is a bridge pickup with a DC resistance of 25-point-something-or-other and distortion pedals.
But, again, if you practice 8+ hours per day you'll find a way to overcome this basic problem -- though, it cannot help your tone. If you have less time to work on it you might want to relearn the proper way to grip a pick; you can always modify the basics for different purposes but there's no reason to hobble yourself at the point where it counts the most, especially if it means weedy tone.
Next week we'll take our Yngwie lessons to the next level by examining his patented domestic violence chops, Yngwie's 10 best homophobic slurs, tips for staying hydrated on long flights, and the "Forkin' Fury's" favorite pork chop recipes.
