RIP EMTY AHB3...

Rex_Rocker said:
I love Unearth, LOL. And KSE. And Shadows Fall. And some All that Remains. And As I Lay Dying before Tim went crazy, LOL. I just love anything Gothenburg-related. As long as the band sounds more Metal than Core, I like it.

I mean, when I first started listening to Metal, Nu Metal was the thing. I then got into In Flames and Cradle of Filth, and realized how bad Nu Metal really was, LOL. Then Nu Metal died, and Metalcore came in, and for a while, I just thought that's what Metal sounded like until I discovered like the heavier stuff. I do, however, have a big vain fixation for good production, so anything that's not mixed well, I really have a hard time getting into unless it's really really good.

It's just the Metalcore that's borderline Emo like Bullet for My Valentine or Atreyu that I dislike. And even then, Bullet for My Valentine and Trivium at least have the production factor going for them. I hate that Matt Heafy guy, tho. He's like the modern Dave Mustaine who swears his band is the best thing to ever happen to Metal ever, LOL.

I do love when Soilwork used to sound kinda like At the Gates, just crazier. But I also like their Pop Metal stuff. Really catchy. They're not my favorite band, but I don't mind listening to them.

But for me, it's At the Gates that was the apex of the Gothenburg sound. And contrary to what someone else before said, I think their come back record was fantastic, and from there, they've not really topped it off. I'm excited now that Anders is back in the band, tho. Let's see.

Also, I don't join in the Metallica/James Hetfield worship personally. I mean, I get the significance of their old stuff. I liked it when I first started listening to Metal, but at this time, it's getting borderline Dad-Rock-y to me. After that, I enjoy some of their songs, but I mean... objectically speaking, they're "the biggest Metal band ever" when they have like 3 good records out of the like 20 they've put out. Some of the later stuff is decent, but most of that stuff is terrible, and nowadays, they're just living off the same uninspired riffs that appeal to nostalgia from the time they were good. And their tone nowadays is terrible, TBH. JMO, of course.
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Generally, whenever I refer to Hetfield positively, it's from 1983-88. I grew up on THAT stuff via my older brother. I have a lot of Ratt/Dokken etc, in my veins, but mainly for structural solos and harmonies. Queensryche is similar as well in their use of various types of dyads and inversions. You can do a minor third instead of a power chord? You can stack 5ths or put 5ths in the bass? Wow.

I was 20 in 2000. So a lot of these bands who are big now (as big as the current music industry permits) are my age. They are copying the 80s-90s but trying to put modern production on it. I get it. But it's been formulaic for me since 2005 or so.

Matt Heafy, like Dave Grohl, is well liked among the metal musician community. I think that's how he gets spots and opportunities.

A few bands, among them Slipknot, were able to get out of the nu metal thing on their later records. Deftones and Korn started nu metal but Deftones was always more than that. Korn thoroughly owns the genre.

Mudvayne, Mushroohead, Drowning Pool, Puddle of Mudd, a lot of these Pantera inspired groove metal bands that later fed into commercial bands like Disturbed--meh.

I hated metalcore because I could tell dude singing spent more time listening to Pantera than 1200 year old Swedish folk music.

I mean take this Swedish folk music:

https://youtu.be/vyrZLWXxSKY

And compare it with IF doing Everlost Part 2:

https://youtu.be/3PzM46KZ45w

Also, early IF and DT had black metal tinges that At the Gates didn't have by Slaughter of the Soul.

I'd say ATG is THE Gothenburg sound, but once you've heard Blinded by Fear, that's that sound encapsulated in a few mins. Other Gburg bands offer more, but that's because ATG was inactive for a long time.

Meanwhile, they can still do the folk thing when they want.

Bjorn without Jesper, in Bb.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGZ1_ouh2sw

Jesper without Bjorn, C or Db. (Some DZ songs like "End" are in Db).

https://youtu.be/LM_LKAQSbBI

They belong together, but sadly aren't.

They're trying to again on the new album but it sounds awkward and forced:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOq9-vrclfI

Something like this shows the beauty of their old work. Everything done acoustic, even distorted parts. The arrangements are still so solid, because they were writing with 3 guitar players (Glenn, Bjorn, and Jesper). Jesper's sound is all over it. By the later albums Glenn was long gone and it was mostly Bjorn.

https://youtu.be/jSsO2RdOHAc
 
Fans do tend to start drama between all the bands, though. In reality, they are all friends. They have to be.

Why? Bjorn and Anders own the 2112 bar in Gothenburg. Great guitarists like Mattias IA Eklundh stop by there on occasion (he contributed to early Soilwork).

Who supplies the alcohol to 2112? Odd Island Brewery, owned by Peter Iwers and Daniel Svensson.

So Anders is right when he says they're all good for the most part. It's Jesper he doesn't get along with, and rarely Jesper will trash Anders on social media for new IF's creative direction.
 
I was actually going to say Mudvayne is the one Nu Metal band I can stand, LOL. The bassist actually made me want to pick bass up.

Well, some Machine Head as well. And Sepultura. But that's because they're just Nu Metal-ish, but not full-on Nu Metal, IMO. Fear Factory too. Many bands were under the Nu Metla umbrella but weren't all that Nu Metal.

Korn and Slipknot... nah. Not for me. And agreed, Disturbed and Godsmack are the stereotypical 2-note riffs Nu Metal bands that I hate the most. Slipknot would be borderline enjoyable for me if it weren't for the whole gimmick. Or at least Modern-ish Slipknot, where they're getting past the whole odd rap but with edgy vocals in the songs.

The thing about the Metalcore bands that I like is that they were almost At the Gates meets Pantera... and those two are my favorite bands, LOL. So yeah.

Funny story, the kick sample from Slaughter of the Soul is actually stolen from Far Beyond Driven.

And about Matt Heafy, I mean... he's talented. He's not bad. It's just his music I'm not into, and his whole know-it-all attitude.
 
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Thank you for not saying Machine Head is nu metal. Usually people I know who say that were born in 1990 and after and didn't remember when Robb Flynn was in Oakland thrash band Vio-lence.

Machine Head, in my view, was just updating thrash for the 90s, as was Sepultura, but they were always a little more death metal. They were stripping down their playing and adding in the tribal drum stuff to compensate. Pantera did as well. Late Dime sucks solo wise compared to their glam days. Power Metal is full of tasty solo ideas.

You'll see a very young Robb Flynn and Phil Demmel here about 1990. To me, Machine Head (especially Through the Ashes of Empires and after) is just this updated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZiuGmdpW4M
 
I really liked The Blackening and Unto the Locust, personally. I thought Locust even got NWOBH-ish at times. Cool stuff.

Not really into Thrash myself. Not that it's bad. It's just not my thing. I'm more into the downtuned stuff.

I mean, I like Testament. Killer tones too, but overall, not my usual go-to.
 
Thrash makes you a better player, though, I think. Playing that fast with all the string tension of standard tuning on 25.5" guitars? No wonder we used mostly 9s back then...

It's a style that does make your hands very strong. New detuned stuff--strings are like butter.
 
Rex_Rocker said:
I really liked The Blackening and Unto the Locust, personally. I thought Locust even got NWOBH-ish at times. Cool stuff.

Not really into Thrash myself. Not that it's bad. It's just not my thing. I'm more into the downtuned stuff.

I mean, I like Testament. Killer tones too, but overall, not my usual go-to.
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If you don't like thrash for its own sake, try to take some inspiration from the solos.

This is one of the best structured solos I have ever heard. Alex Skolnick was something like 21 at the time and he was using diminished licks, jazz ideas from Pat Martino, just all sorts of cool stuff--like he had been playing for 30 years. I would like to hear more of this in modern Gburg.

Greg Christian's bass is also mixed interestingly for the time. Lots of clank, a la Overkill. I also believe Greg was a finger player at this time.

https://youtu.be/AHOJVINZVR0?t=130
 
Inflames626 said:
3) The main drawback with more traditional makers like SD and DiMarzio is they seem resistant to a modular design for passive pickups. My Duncans wired to Triple Shots, independent volume knobs, a phase switch, a killswitch, and a tone knob are always a pain in the ass to wire up relative to my EMGs, but the tonal flexibility I get from the Duncans is worth it. The downside is once they are installed I don't want to go back through that ^&(& again so they stay there.

I strongly advise Seymour Duncan to *consider* a modular passive pickup design, especially for people who use all 4 conductors for split/parallel voicings, and not see modularity as some unacceptable concession to modernity. You can always offer the traditional designs to purists. I guess the Liberator was a step in the right direction but I don't consider it as easy as putting quick connects on pins (simply doing this from the Triple Shot to pins on the back of a passive pickup would sell a lot more Triple Shots, IMO). You can always cut the connects off for non-Duncan brands.

That said, most people aren't going to go for the complicated wiring setups I tend to favor like something that would be on an old school BC Rich Bich. They just want the thing to be wired up simply and to work, if they even know how to solder at all.

Don't get me wrong. If you gave Fluences to me I'd use them. But I don't see much use in buying them new with the setup I currently have.
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I've done hundreds of pickup swaps for people over the years and maybe 10-15% of people have wanted a coil split. Way under 5% wanted anything more complex than that. I'm not saying my experience exactly reflects the overall market, but most of the other guys I know have had fairly similar experiences.
 
chadd said:
I've done hundreds of pickup swaps for people over the years and maybe 10-15% of people have wanted a coil split. Way under 5% wanted anything more complex than that. I'm not saying my experience exactly reflects the overall market, but most of the other guys I know have had fairly similar experiences.
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chadd , I don't doubt it. All the more reason for me to want diverse wiring options because it isn't commonly done.

I mean look at this--Jackson Dinky with Graphtech Ghost system and a Sustainiac. For some of us, more is more. We don't just want the pickups in there to do power chords on. If 95% of them want simplicity, I'd say that's a problem of the 95%.

https://youtu.be/GdFLT7LH-H8

At any rate, modular passive pickups would encourage people to experiment with passives in the same way they do with EMGs and Blackouts. Any time a variant of those comes out, I know it's a matter of plug and play. The simplicity of it all encourages me to buy more pickups.

If a new passive comes out and I'm taping off unused conductors, I'm losing the functionality of half of the pickup at least--75% if one considers a Triple Shot allows four modes and you want series only. Again, I'd say that's their problem for being limited in expectation.

With EMGs, you get a problem, but from another aspect. In order to simulate basic functions of a passive pickup, you have to buy special switches and what not to make the pickups sound out of phase, and it just isn't worth it. Or you have to buy an entire different pickup just to get split coil functionality.

Split/parallel isn't going to sound great on all pickups. But it can tame something like a Distortion, and for pickup models like the Custom line, you are losing a lot of tonal colors by choosing not to have more diverse wiring options.

I get where you're coming from--it's all about demand. But this is my complaint again with most players. They want something simple that works so they can play power chords and have it sound good.
 
Inflames626 said:
chadd , I don't doubt it. All the more reason for me to want diverse wiring options because it isn't commonly done.

I mean look at this--Jackson Dinky with Graphtech Ghost system and a Sustainiac. For some of us, more is more. We don't just want the pickups in there to do power chords on. If 95% of them want simplicity, I'd say that's a problem of the 95%.

https://youtu.be/GdFLT7LH-H8

At any rate, modular passive pickups would encourage people to experiment with passives in the same way they do with EMGs and Blackouts. Any time a variant of those comes out, I know it's a matter of plug and play. The simplicity of it all encourages me to buy more pickups.

If a new passive comes out and I'm taping off unused conductors, I'm losing the functionality of half of the pickup at least--75% if one considers a Triple Shot allows four modes and you want series only. Again, I'd say that's their problem for being limited in expectation.

With EMGs, you get a problem, but from another aspect. In order to simulate basic functions of a passive pickup, you have to buy special switches and what not to make the pickups sound out of phase, and it just isn't worth it. Or you have to buy an entire different pickup just to get split coil functionality.

Split/parallel isn't going to sound great on all pickups. But it can tame something like a Distortion, and for pickup models like the Custom line, you are losing a lot of tonal colors by choosing not to have more diverse wiring options.

I get where you're coming from--it's all about demand. But this is my complaint again with most players. They want something simple that works so they can play power chords and have it sound good.
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My point is simply that manufacturers aren't likely to go the route of adding cost to products. Not only would the cost increase (slightly), they would have to market the new feature that most people don't currently desire. Now you've added costs in two areas with only the hope of generating additional sales. Meanwhile, there is constant pressure on price from the bottom of the market thanks to import pickups as well as established brands at the higher end.

If 95% of them want simplicity, I'd say that's a problem of the 95%.
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That attitude explains a lot. A major manufacturer can't afford to be dismissive of the general public.
 
chadd said:
My point is simply that manufacturers aren't likely to go the route of adding cost to products. Not only would the cost increase (slightly), they would have to market the new feature that most people don't currently desire. Now you've added costs in two areas with only the hope of generating additional sales. Meanwhile, there is constant pressure on price from the bottom of the market thanks to import pickups as well as established brands at the higher end.


That attitude explains a lot. A major manufacturer can't afford to be dismissive of the general public.
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Valid points, but now "power users" like me are forced to go custom shop for what should be standard features, inflate price, and put more voodoo into the marketing machine for musical gear. It's a self-defeating cycle.

It's to the point where I nearly have to order the pre-painted body and parts and just do the electronics installation myself because what the market is offering is boring.

Meanwhile, Evertune bridges and Fishman pickups were "premium" things. Now because they are popular they are put on everything, bringing the cost down and making them a commodity due to how common they've become.

And although "power users" like me may seem extreme in our expectation, a $2-3k guitar with the features we expect will last a lifetime.

Meanwhile people will pay 1/3rd to 1/2 of that for a smartphone or other portable device that will be outdated in 5-10 years.

It's all about priorities. With that in mind, I double down on my comment.

If 95% of them want simplicity, I'd say that's a problem of the 95%.

More features, less cost, less marketing bs. Send me the parts and I'll build it myself. I'd paint it too, but I don't have a booth for it.
 
Also: "A major manufacturer can't afford to be dismissive of the general public."

Aka, "We can't do what you want and aren't willing to do so."

Me: "You aren't good enough. You lost a customer and so I am taking myself elsewhere."

In the event that what I seek can't be done, Sweetwater will most likely do the mods for me at less cost than what MSRP would be on a brand new guitar that did have said features.
 
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