Songs to improve rhythm playing

[MDV]

My advice is this:  Record yourself as often as possible making sure to DOUBLE TRACK THE RHYTHM PARTS.  Play the music that you like and want to play, but play along with a metronome or a CD or backing track if your metronome isn't handy.

An exceedingly good point which hadn't yet been raised! Picking any riff you like and doing 4 takes of it, getting it spot on each time, that should be a goal of any rhythm guitarist!

Roo

Doublings great, but you get a lot more leeway with doubling and hard panned left/right. There can be a little space (10 to 20ms perhaps) between the notes and it still sounds tight. 

Two tracks hard panned each side is 10 times harder again. The note strikes coming out of the same speaker, even with good monitors, obfuscates them and they turn to mud unless they're utterly and totally exactly in time (like, within 5ms of each other).

If you can double it, you've got it tight. If you can 4 track it you've got it nailed.

[Lazy_McDoesnothing]

And the winner of the thread is......LAZY McDOUBLETRACK!!

C'mon down to see what you've won!

:lol:  I thank you.

It wasn't until I got into double tracking recordings that I realized how shite my right hand truly was/is.  (the left ain't that great either!) :wallbash:

[MDV]

Yep, recordings an eye-opener.

You learn to listen to yourself differently when just playing normally, too. Its a whole other realm of playing that guitarists should be forced through.

[Johnny Mac]

If you want to play tight, then you need a precise internal clock, which only comes with lots of practice.

All styles of music need to be tight or it sounds like shitee. Why have we got a 5 page thread on this ffs?

Indy try some funk stuff thats all very tight.

[noodleplugerine]

The persecuted wont forget
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-rySnvAvmo

Another good choice - Infact, Testament - Hell, what I did to improve my rhythm was to learn the whole of Demanufacture (Fear factory), but The New Order would be an even more demanding work out, and would deffo improve rhythm chops.

Infact, I've decided that's what I'm gunna spend the next few weeks doing.

Eerie Inhabitants here I come.

And what's even better is that Alex Skolnick's solos are absolutely AMAZING on that album, will help with my phrasing loads.

[MDV]

Yeah, those are just what came to mind.

Damn near any song by

Testament
Metallica (Not kirk though!)
Slayer
Megadeth
Anthrax
Overkill
Fear factory
Strapping young lad

To name but a few that are great for tightness

Some tightness masterclass bands

Origin
Meshuggah
Gojira
Nile
Psycroptic
Necrophagist

Both lists go on and on, but there are hundreds of songs in there that vary from 'tight' to 'pushing the physical limits of tightness'.

[JDC]

I've got a fear of quad tracking now!!! some days my hands are so out of sync and other days they are perfect

I always meant to learn more fear factory, some really good palm mute chugging patterns in there to practice

that bloke in necrophagist is class at sweeping and I really like his lead tone even if I don't like music that much

[MDV]

I've got a fear of quad tracking now!!! some days my hands are so out of sync and other days they are perfect

I always meant to learn more fear factory, some really good palm mute chugging patterns in there to practice

that bloke in necrophagist is class at sweeping and I really like his lead tone even if I don't like music that much

I too fear 4-tracking, for very fast and complex stuff. Its evil....but when you do it its awesome :twisted:

[JDC]

I've got a fear of quad tracking now!!! some days my hands are so out of sync and other days they are perfect

I always meant to learn more fear factory, some really good palm mute chugging patterns in there to practice

that bloke in necrophagist is class at sweeping and I really like his lead tone even if I don't like music that much

I too fear 4-tracking, for very fast and complex stuff. Its evil....but when you do it its awesome :twisted:

I want to hear you record some quad track jeff loomis sweeping solos then :P

[_tom_]

I only ever double track, I get way too frustrated doing more than 2 takes, and those are usually bad enough :lol:

[MDV]

I've got a fear of quad tracking now!!! some days my hands are so out of sync and other days they are perfect

I always meant to learn more fear factory, some really good palm mute chugging patterns in there to practice

that bloke in necrophagist is class at sweeping and I really like his lead tone even if I don't like music that much

I too fear 4-tracking, for very fast and complex stuff. Its evil....but when you do it its awesome :twisted:

I want to hear you record some quad track jeff loomis sweeping solos then :P

What brought this indignant demand on?

Fine, whatever.

Its not loomis soloing, but this has the following

---------------------------------------------------
-------------------4------6--------------8-------
-------------------------------------------------
----------------------5------7--------------9--
----------2h3h5------6------8-6h7h9-----10
-2h3h5-----------------------------------------

Drop B, 245bpm

rest of the riff is

-------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------
------3p2p0-----------------------------
--------------------5p3p2---------------
--------------------5p3p2----------------
-000---------000--------000-6p5p3---

Oh, and

--------------------------------------
---6p5p3---------------------------
-----------5p3p2--------------------
-0-----------------5p3p2----------
-0------------------------------------
-0--------------------------3p1p0--

Those 3 riffs are mixed up in the intro (remembering what I did in subsequent takes wasnt easy!)

http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=13664.0

When you can reproduce that recording, you get the right to challenge me, biatch :twisted: ;) (well, the recording aint very good, but I'm a n00b at that anyway).

Before any gaylords jump in and say theres all the gain in the world in there to hide behind - the tone used was an open, low gain crunch sound, such that one might get from a TSL chanel 2 with the EQ level and the gain on 3 or 4. Maybe 5. Or a screamer with the gain on the lead channel on 3 or a powerball with the gain on channel 3 on 1.5 to 2.

If you want to know the rest, ask. It gets harder ;)

I'm reworking an older song that now has a sweeping section thats a bit more in the loomis style. Dont know if it will be 4-tracked yet, I'm trying to nail a sound that gives adequate thickness and clairty with double tracking.

[Nolly]

There is far more to rhythm playing than being super-tight, though that is a great skill to have.
I do subscribe to the idea that playing tight and slow is much more difficult than fast - seriously, try playing some of your favourite songs at 30 or 40% of their actual speed to a metronome (that's something I practise every day).
That's not to say that nailing Bleed like Meshuggah do is easy, but I do find it easier to stay tight with than, say, Stengah.

Lots of tracks to try your hand at, and they'll all develop your playing in different ways. A few off the top of my head:

John Coltrane's Giant Steps
Jimi Hendrix - Little Wing
The Police - Message in a Bottle
Paul Gilbert - Rusty Boat
Van Halen - You Really Got Me
Freak Kitchen - Taste My Fist
Extreme - Get the Funk Out
Frank Zappa - The Black Page Pt.2 (if that doesn't improve your knowledge of rhythms then I don't know what will)
Anything by The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, etc
Any big band jazz

Much of that really won't sound great if you play it super-clinically "on-the-beat" tight. Groove is an element missing from alot of players' rhythm playing.

Then to satisfy the metal bunch, try playing the end breakdown from Gojira's Remembrance - from 3:35 onwards http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeJ3jlQ4dFc, SikTh's Bland Street Bloom, Blotted Science's Laser Lobotomy, and learn Megadeth's Rust in Peace album from end to end.

[Johnny Mac]

Musical notation has rests as well as notes of different time values. So they're just as important, say for instance, in stop start dynamics. Which all adds to a tight sound.
Lots of musical styles can be tight, has no one mentioned Jazz yet, why the emphasis on Metal?
Listen to Jeff Beck and his band play the tune 'Scatterbrain' That's tight.

[MDV]

Musical notation has rests as well as notes of different time values. So they're just as important, say for instance, in stop start dynamics. Which all adds to a tight sound.
Lots of musical styles can be tight, has no one mentioned Jazz yet, why the emphasis on Metal?
Listen to Jeff Beck and his band play the tune 'Scatterbrain' That's tight.

I mentioned jazz :P

[Johnny Mac]

Musical notation has rests as well as notes of different time values. So they're just as important, say for instance, in stop start dynamics. Which all adds to a tight sound.
Lots of musical styles can be tight, has no one mentioned Jazz yet, why the emphasis on Metal?
Listen to Jeff Beck and his band play the tune 'Scatterbrain' That's tight.

I mentioned jazz :P

I glazed over pages ago  :P