How Can I Get This Sound?

[Lizard_King]

It's a high squel and I'm not sure how to get it. I've heard it in alot of songs but can't seem to figure out how the players do it. Done by an effects pedal or what? Alot of gain or overdrive? Thanks in advance

[spirit]

Sounds like a pinched harmonic. Can you give an example of a song?

[Primal]

Is it that squel that Zakk Wilde always plays (too often, imo)? If so, yes, its a pinched harmonic/pick squel, etc.

[Lizard_King]

Yeah it's that sound. Also in Breakaway by ZZ Top and many many other songs. But how can i get that sound? lol

[spirit]

www.cyberfret.com

It's explained on there.

[1nf1d3l]

hold the pick near the tip, and let your thumb brush the string as you pick, you have to do it over a harmonic place though. then vibrato it a bit

[Lizard_King]

Thank you for the advice. I'll work on it a little bit and master it. You've both been very helpful.

[Saber]

Also, use the bridge pickup and plenty of gain.

[ikke_998]

I just got into it myself ,I used to get some pinch harmonics by accident when playing with high gain, now I starting to be able to do it on command!

I can only do it on the 4-5 highest strings and unless you have emg's and and enough gain you won't be able to make your low E string squell like a piggy

[GuitarMaestro]

and unless you have emg's and and enough gain you won't be able to make your low E string squell like a piggy

I guess you meant that only half-serious. Still I want to stress that if you really have mastered pinch harmonics you can play them even on an acoustic. I can play them clean and with most every guitar. Granted though they only sound impressive with a massive amount of gain.

[westhemann]

one other thing...emgs are not as harmonically rich as say,a dimebucker...or other good passives...

emgs strong suit is elsewhere...although obviously pinch harmonics are still easily pulled on them.but they are not the be all/end all for everything...just for some things.like note seperation at high gain for example

[LukeR]

Another tip I have learned over the years is that Compression makes them ALOT louder. If you ride your compressor during your playing it will make a difference. (That is, for big, long sustained AHs.) A disrtorted tone should be fine for most stuff you will generally come across riffing.

It will take ALOT of practice to get it, sadly.

Good luck,

Luke

[GuitarMaestro]

It will take ALOT of practice to get it, sadly.

Very true. I remember when I first heard Steve Morse playing, who does alot of pinch harmonics. I know he is not associated with them like let's say Zakk Wylde, but he still uses them in very cool places. Anway....after hearing him play I practised pinch harmonics like a maniac for month and swapped gear, etc. to achieve them perfectly. Know that I can pull them off easily I realized that gear plays only a minor role in achieving them.

[ikke_998]

guess you meant that only half-serious

yeah , I didn't mean specificly emg's, but that does help people like zakk to pinch that easy!

I think you can even play pinch harmonics on single coils but that doesn't just sound too well!

[GuitarMaestro]

Just wanted to add that although playing pinch harmonics is quite possible with most gear it is still way easier to learn with high output pu's and a hi-gain amp.

[Drak]

I'm not trying to swim against the tide here, but I disagree with some of what's been said.

My guitar 'hero' was Roy Buchanan, and Roy has been credited by most knowledgable sources with pretty much -INVENTING- the freakin' pinched harmonic, they can even quote it's very first appearance on record to some old 45 Roy did, I think it was called 'Potato Peeler'. He used to call them 'whistlers'.

And Roy played Telecasters. OLD Telecasters. You know, uhhh, like in COUNTRY.

Using OLD, WEAK, SINGLE COIL PKPS.

Thru an OLD CLEAN Fender 2-10 Vibrolux amp.

So all the talk about high gain this and that and bridge HB's is a bunch of nonsense.

Now, it HELPS to make it sound 'metallish' by increasing gain and all that, but if you're a guitar player, you should, as GM said, be able to pull it off anywhere, anytime, anyplace, with any setup. It's in your fingers, not in an amp or a gain setting. If you need a lot of extra gain to pull it off, you need to work at it some more.

I will say that the guitar needs to be set up nicely to get the best effect, but I have guitars I can pretty much play every single note for 10 minutes straight pinched.

Billy Gibbons carried it into the rock world pretty much with La Grange and his Mexican pesos as picks, hot damn if that serrated edge peso wouldn't send a screamin' pinch!

After all, Roy was 'my guy' and I practiced that effect until I could do it at will.

If you're even going to play ONE Buchanan song, simply out of respect, you'd better be able to pull some pinches off, hehehe.

Arlen Roth once did a floppy disc in Guitar Player called 'pickin' on the bends' (if I remember right) where he took pinched harmonics and took them somewhere else. I wish I still had that stupid floppy disc, it was a really great little tune he did full of pinchers and crazy bends and stuff. Very Buchanan-y, but with Arlen's own stamp.

PS, I'm sure you all know already that Zakk bends it up behind the nut when he does it on the LP.

[Saber]

Yeah, Roy Buchanan was real talented but it's still a much more efficient way of getting pinch harmonics from a bridge pickup in the area where most of the string's harmonics are the strongest, and with a high gain amp or pedals to naturally compress the signal to boost the low-level harmonics.

[Drak]

I agree, I was just saying that you need to be a good enough guitarist to provide a good fundamental 'whistler' in the first place for the bridge pkp to amplify.

If you're using the pkp/gain to 'help' you, then you're using it as a crutch for poor technique, that was my point in a nutshell.

[Saber]

Well... you have to learn to walk before you can run.

[ikke_998]

Today I bought guitar techniques magazine and straight from the magazine:

Pro Tip: One of the main features of Zakk Wylde's style is his use of pinched harmonics. These can be quit difficult to achieve especially on the lower strings to preform a pinched harmonic, you have to touch the side of the picking hand tumb on the string directly after you have picked the note.

To do this you must pop the pick past the strings so that the tumb makes contact.

Make shure the tumb does not remain on the string as this would result in a muted note.I would also suggest using a generous help of gain.

This says it all, try to learn it with the help of gain and when you really want to master the technique start using less and less gain or even clean.

[Saber]

This says it all, try to learn it with the help of gain and when you really want to master the technique start using less and less gain or even clean.

Like I said just 2 posts above.

[Drak]

Whatever.

Actually, as GM mentioned, you don't even need to be amped to learn how to do it, and once you learn how to do it, you'll understand why gain doesn't matter, the technique is all in your picking, not in an amp setting.

But I guess however way you get there doesn't matter much, as long as you get there.

But amps, gain, and pkps make no difference at all. Either you can do it, or you can't do it. The amp is just going to enhance/amplify whatever your picking is doing.

[Lizard_King]

Alright I've been working on it like non-stop lol. And I've found that it doesn't have to be the bridge pickup. I play a Tele style guitar custom built myself. I can pull the pinches off with the bridge pickup, but once I got to where I could do it fairly accurately I decided to try it with the neck pickup. It works, doesn't squell as much as the bridge but it can be done. You all probably already know that though lol.

As far as amp goes, well I'm using a late 60's model Kustom 4 channel powered board. But I also have an original Fender '65 Twin Reverb (not a reproduction).

Just wanted to thank everyone for all the information and help.

[GuitarMaestro]

I can pull the pinches off with the bridge pickup, but once I got to where I could do it fairly accurately I decided to try it with the neck pickup. It works, doesn't squell as much as the bridge but it can be done. You all probably already know that though lol.

Depends on where the neck pu is located. On a Strat for example the neck pu is at an harmonic node, so that even most common harmonics cannot be heard let alone pinch harmonics. On a Tele the neck pu is at a different location, but I never tried it on a Tele. Interesting!

[JohnnyG]

i played about with pinched harmonicswhen i was starting out playing and was in my SOAD phase lol. the first thing i started learning them for was the cover they did of snowblind. the entire verse is a bouncy little pinched harmonic riff and its damn cool.....but also pretty tricky.

the best thing to do is just experiment and work out where you pinch it for different harmonics when playing different frets.

its good fun when you can do it tho, i should probablly practise them again. recentlly ive just been making funny noises