Figured Out Randy Rhoads Tone

[Myaccount876]

Re: Figured Out Randy Rhoads Tone

Nice playing. You did a fairly good job on matching the solo.

 

[Kamanda~SD]

Re: Figured Out Randy Rhoads Tone

Wow, that's certainly a step further my friend!

 

[LLL]

Re: Figured Out Randy Rhoads Tone

Thanks - turns out I didn't have the particular AMS setting on the Soundtoys plugin (HAH - it was an Eventide H3000 setting)... still the stereo imaging was great.

I'm gonna use the correct AMS setting and see how that works (although there may hardly be any difference; we'll see).
I've also gotta try triple-tracking everything.

The AMS was also supposed to provide a "shimmer" and/or "brightness"... and adds "grind".

The AMS 15-80s:



For anyone interested, here's what Max Norman had to say to Jas Obrecht in 1982 about "Blizzard of Ozz" (a la Woodytone.com):

(original Jas Obrecht interview: http://jasobrecht.com/randy-rhoads-max-norman-interview/ )


...

http://www.woodytone.com/2011/05/04/a-few-belated-rhoads-insights-pt-1/

Max: On that album [Blizzard, but also used on Diary], the thing I used a great deal was an AMS 1580, which is a very clean British digital delay with a VCO [voltage-controlled oscillator] on it, so you can slightly flange and stuff like that. I used that for a lot of things. It’s got a real good sound.

Jas: Can you think of any cuts where the AMS 1580 stands out?

Max: If you listen to those rhythms on “Crazy Train,” you’ll hear there’s a real grind to them. That particular sound comes from the AMS. It’s almost like a flange, but not quite. It does these strange grindy things if you get it at the right setting. Plus, you can get this kind of hollow, tubey effect too – that’s the same kind of deal.

(Max)A lot of those tracks – especially the lead guitar tracks – are triple-tracked, in fact. So he would play them three times. He would play the whole solo three times.

> A lot of the reason for Randy’s particular guitar sound is the fact that he triple-tracked a lot of it, and that just made it huge. So I believe “Little Dolls” may have been one of the ones where we didn’t do that, and it may have suffered somewhat.

> Crazy Train solo – This is one of them that was triple tracked. If you listen to that track real close, you’ll hear there’s one main guitar around the center, as I remember, and there are two other guitars playing exactly the same thing, panned to the left and right, but back somewhat. And actually what happens is you don’t hear them – you just hear it as one guitar. He was the best guy at overdubbing solos and tracking them that I’ve ever seen. I mean, he used to blow me away. So on a lot of those things, when you hear a guitar that really comes out, that’s because there are three of them there. And it’s not like an ADT – he’s actually playing them three times, which means you get a very stable image. It really does sit there, rather than shift left or right, depending on where the delay is. That’s really the reason for that. Plus it’s a Charvel – they have an extraordinary top end.

> “I Don’t Know” solo – That was all doubled, that guitar. I think most of that was pretty much one take. We patched it up a little, and he went back and redid it once he had it down. See, the thing is, he would rip one down, and there would be a couple of little mistakes there. So instead of going back and patching those, he would go back and do the whole thing again once he knew what he was doing. He was extraordinary. He would know exactly what he played. I was really blown away by a lot of the stuff that he did. He’d play something, and I’d say, “Well, you want to try again?,” not really meaning it, and he’d go, “Yeah, I’ll do again.” And he’d play the same thing, but a little bit better! He was a very astute player like that.

> “You Can’t Kill Rock and Roll” – On that sort of slow-tempo thing, there’d be quite a few rhythm tracks there, apart from playing parts. There’d be a couple of power chord tracks, maybe one steel-string acoustic, and probably two or three other guitars playing parts.

Also mentioned in the interview:

> The “Flying High Again” solo was triple-tracked.

> “Steal Away the Night” – Rhythm and solo were double-tracked.

> “Dee” and “Diary of a Madman” acoustics were double-tracked, one with a steel-string acoustic and the other a nylon-string.

Interview continued:
http://www.woodytone.com/2011/05/06/belated-rhoads-insights-pt-2/

 

[LLL]

Re: Figured Out Randy Rhoads Tone

Here's a quick change doing the AMS setting on Soundtoy's Microshift plugin.

Also tweaked EQ ever so slightly and added a touch of EMT140 plate reverb.

BIAS Rhoads EQ Reaper Test 2 (AMS)

Next I'll do triple tracking with the above settings.