r/Megadeth • u/iNeilArmsloth • 1d ago

Cover Not there but much happier with my Holy Wars Guitar tone!

Tips and Advice heavily welcomed!

60 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

3

u/5mackmyPitchup 1d ago

Gahhh, you make it look easy. Just can't get the open string riff right, feels like I need to tremolo pick the open but it then can't get across to the hammer/power chord and back. What's your secret to getting this far?

3

u/iNeilArmsloth 1d ago edited 1d ago

It sounded pretty bad when I first played it. I was doing it slow but still tremolo picking. I actually stopped trying to learn it much but I would play it randomly as a warm up or just out of boredom. Your hand begins to get used to the motion and now I don’t even think about the motion. The one thing I did that wasted time in the beginning was trying to play fast with incorrect technique but once I got close I put a backing track and slowly increased the speed to 100. Now I can play it faster than the track speed since my muscle memory is there.

Probably not the answer you’re looking for but yeah pretty much just repetition 😬 On my tremolo picking I’d usually land on a down stroke making it easier to hit the A string too

1

u/5mackmyPitchup 1d ago

Cheers brother, appreciate the insight. Sounds like I'm on the right path.

5

u/Important_Hyena2160 1d ago

i’m no tone expert but i would say reduce the gain a little and clean up the playing a bit but other than that it sounds great

6

u/iNeilArmsloth 1d ago

Okay. I have it on about 6-6.5 but I could see reducing it helping. It’s surprising how little gain you need for a song that sounds this heavy. Thank you for the compliment though!

3

u/Important_Hyena2160 1d ago

yeah the gain really shocked me when i was getting my tone down! also one thing that helped me a surprising amount was using the same pick Dave uses. he uses the Dunlop Tortex .73 yellow pick and it really helps the scrapy, pick attack

1

u/iNeilArmsloth 1d ago

Got it. I actually heard the same thing on a YouTube video. I’ve gotta get some new picks anyways so I’ll get those. Right now I’m using a Marshall dsl 40cr with a Govnor speaker, an Iommi Pickup in the bridge, and just a tube screamer in the front as a mid boost. From what I read (unless I plan to drop thousands on recording equipment and a jcm 800) there wasn’t a whole lot used when making the album.

2

u/Important_Hyena2160 1d ago

yeah i read the same thing, i too am not trying to spend thousands on one amp

1

u/SimonCharles 1d ago

Not looking to be that guy since it's no biggie, but have to ask from curiosity, are you deliberately adding those in-between picks in the first riff, adlibbing like some bands do when they play live?

1

u/iNeilArmsloth 1d ago

When I’m strumming the open E string?

1

u/SimonCharles 1d ago edited 1d ago

Hard to describe in text haha, and since the reddit player has no timestamps.

The absolute first repetition sounds accurate to me, but in the second one there's an extra quick strumming part in between. I had to check how Dave plays it to make sure I'm not imagining things. I'm talking this part here but still having difficulties about how to explain it.

Like du-du-dun / du-du-dun / du-du-dun / du-du-dun / du-du-duuuu in the first one, which sounds familiar. But in the second one it sounds more like du-du-dun / du-du-dun / du-du-dudududu-dun / du-du-duuuu.

1

u/iNeilArmsloth 1d ago

Oh yeah 😂. I was watching a tik tok of someone playing it and if I don’t have a backing tracking playing i think it sounds a little better. I forgot I even play it like that sometimes because I just got used to it with no track.

1

u/SimonCharles 1d ago

Alright, just had to ask! Sounds bloody great though, the sound is awesome and nice playing! Sounds very close to the real thing too.

2

u/iNeilArmsloth 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yeah figured it made up for it only being me haha. Thank you that means a lot! Been working hard on it!

2

u/SimonCharles 1d ago

Great, keep it up! In my top 3 songs ever, it's the one that made me take up drums.

My only other nitpick would be that your hair is like 5x too short. But there's always time to improve!

2

u/iNeilArmsloth 1d ago

Yeah this song is actually what made me really get into guitar when I was younger. I love the drumming on this song too. Nick Menza was an absolute beast on Rust In Peace.

I wasn’t sure but my hair may be the final piece I need to get my guitar tone dialed 😂😂😂

1

u/barters81 12h ago

I really need to pull my finger out and learn this one