Soaring, Sustaining, Leads-a la Scorpions, Nightranger

symphx

symphx

Fractal Fanatic
Hi all, the other day I was listening to classic metal pandora. I was reminded of the oddly musical, soaring, sustaining, solo/leads, of Scorpions, Nightranger, some Skid Row. Im especially interested in the Scorpions given how old these songs were, how amazing their sound was, with little technology available compared to today.

It almost sounded like they had sustainers on their guitars (like Avenged 7x). Anybody have the nitty gritty on their sounds, techniques, effects to achieve these sounds. eg. were they multilayered, heavily delayed, chorus effects used? Thanks!
 
symphx said:
Hi all, the other day I was listening to classic metal pandora. I was reminded of the oddly musical, soaring, sustaining, solo/leads, of Scorpions, Nightranger, some Skid Row. Im especially interested in the Scorpions given how old these songs were, how amazing their sound was, with little technology available compared to today.

It almost sounded like they had sustainers on their guitars (like Avenged 7x). Anybody have the nitty gritty on their sounds, techniques, effects to achieve these sounds. eg. were they multilayered, heavily delayed, chorus effects used? Thanks!
Click to expand...

Click on the discography link here

http://www.michaelwagener.com/html/dtp.html

and all will be revealed :)
 
Picture of what he was using in 2016 for pedals. Can't speak for the old stuff =(

Edit: I should add he plays a pretty wicked guitar. Never played one but here is a link that's all about it. http://www.ulijonroth.com/sky-guitars
 

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Brad Gillis from Night Ranger did have a sustainer pickup in his Fernandes "Strat" guitar...
 
A lot of bands used really loud amps and physical positioning of the guitar in front of the cab back in the day. For example on the David Bowie song "Heroes", what a lot of people thought was a Heet Sound E-bow with that singing sustaining lead melody, Robert Fripp insists was produced usind a very loud amp & cab in a room and his physical positioning to get the sound. Some of those singing leads from back in the 70's & 80's are all about player, amp, drive, and brute force volume as major components.
 
symphx said:
Im especially interested in the Scorpions given how old these songs were, how amazing their sound was, with little technology available compared to today.
Click to expand...

There's a sentence that made me chuckle!!

Have you not noticed that almost every single modern audio technology product - be it hardware or software - is purely devoted to recreating the technology of yesteryear!

But yeah, as others have already stated - there are some things you can't really get via modelling / shortcuts / technology.

Take the intro guitar solo to Scorpions 'Catch your train': you can hear - indeed you can feel - the pure interaction between player, guitar and amp. It is my belief that it would be impossible to replicate that without playing in front of a steaming Plexi stack at full tilt.
 
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