Ebow #2 ‘String Skipping’
More advanced (and tricky !) use of the ebow.
Neck pickup volume up full (I never use the bridge pickup for ebow – too harsh a sound IMO).
You have to be pretty careful when skipping strings as you can get some unpleasant howls and noises when moving from string to string. I find I’m concentrating as much on the ebow positioning as I am on the fretted notes.
Vibrato 1
Vibrato makes a guitar ‘sing’. I’ve been very influenced by the vibrato techniques used by players such as Mick Ronson, Todd Rundgren and Michael Schenker. I started out learning to play the guitar using a nylon string (classical) instrument, consequently I learnt the ‘side-to-side’ vibrato technique. I later heard Mike Oldfield using this technique on the electric guitar, giving a very distinctive sound. I still use the side-to-side vibrato as well as the more standard electric guitar technique as well as fast/slow string bending vibrato (or changing speed of the vibrato). I was also rather taken with Alex Lifeson’s and David Sylvian’s use of the tremelo arm to create vibrato. In the following two videos, I play each of these techniques.
Played on my heavily modded Yamaha Pacifica 112, using the Seymour Duncan JB bridge pickup.
Vibrato 2
As per ‘Vibrato 1’, but using the JB pickup in conjunction with both Fender Lace Sensor pickups with the tone rolled off. This configuration gives a very ‘sweet’ sound.
ADT effect
ADT type effect using the (free) KeroVee pitch correction plugin http://www.g200kg.com/en/software/kerovee.html in a way I’m sure it wasn’t intended for !. In a funny way, it sounds a tad like Lyle May’s fantastic Oberheim sound he used when working with Pat Metheny.
Pinched Harmonics
Pinched (false) harmonics. Pretty tricky to do consistently, I find I have to look at the picking hand as much as the fretboard. I was always amazed by Eddie Van Halen’s use of pinched harmonics. The ‘Push comes to shove’ solo on the Fair warning album to be particularly excellent.
Volume control
It was only after years of playing that I started to appreciate the value of the volume control – prior to that, it was always on 10 !
This video shows how a heavily over-driven sound can be ‘cleaned up’ by use of the volume controls. This guitar has push-push volume pots to switch in / out a treble bleed circuit (well a capacitor !), which gives a lot of tonal variety when turning down the volume (perhaps particularly so with the neck pickup). The high frequency roll off typical with turning down the volume can be overcome by ‘engaging’ the treble bleed capacitor.