What happened to Malmsteen's tone over the years?

[Kapo_Polenton]

I was just listening to some tunes off the first two albums... Marching Out is badass in the tone department and playing. Trilogy was great too. Odyssey the lead tone starts to change a bit, still good though. Eclipse was the last really good tone that Malmsteen got to my ears. Fire and Ice started to sound a bit thin. Moving forward, it starts to sound gainier, more compressed, over-produced. What did he move away from if the gear was always the same? Those first three records, the tones are really dry it seems. Not too much gain, awesome phrasing. Almost as if he used to think about his solos.... then move into the 90's and it all starts coming apart. Too much speed, tone too compressed. Did he try to modernize his tone i wonder because he def. is not getting the tones he got with Alcatrazz and the early albums anymore.

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

Analog to digital.

No $hit eh? I would honestly love to hear what my amps would sound like mic'd through a mixer and onto tape.. for home recording though, I'm going to guess going into the PC is the weak link.

 

[JMP2203]

Analog to digital.

and great tubes to modern production (jj tesla?)

 

[November5th]

I loved Yngwie's tone especially on his first 3 album's . He had a much more dry tone back then. Then he started to tack on copious amounts of delay and reverb. I think his tone degraded more when he started recording all of his albums at home. He always recorded to tape until the Perpetual Flame album, it was then that he started to use Pro-tools. Perhaps his vintage Marshalls need some servicing or his cabs need new speakers. Or perhaps he has gone deaf. I am sure there are many factors why his tone has degraded. He plays faster now than he did in the 80's , and he seems to repeat himself a lot. Using the same motifs over and over again. But besides all of that , he is still one of my favorite players of all time.

 

[Badronald]

Man his tone was so killer. His playing was slower and the phrasing was stunning.
I don't know what to say except it seems later on he fancied himself a metal guitar player and started running two of the DOD pedals and his tone go so saturated where before it was so pure.

I downloaded a special iTunes Alcatrazz album that has all the songs in their demo form without any vocals and the guitar tone is almost clean. It's amazing how masterful he was with that clean pure tone. Brilliant

 

[snowdog]

He always recorded to tape until the Perpetual Flame album

This is incorrect, Eclipse was recorded completely digitally...he has mentioned this in interviews.



The Attackk! album has some classic Malmsteen tones on it...or close to it.

 

[mentoneman]

hearing loss is my guess

alcatrazz live and marching out for tone

rising force for playing--such a bummer that wasn't engineered and mixed by a guy like ted templeman, michael wagner,
or even john cuniberti of satch and lynch fame

instead it was yngwie and les claypool from primus recording in a warehouse and the whole project was done for 60k

 

[legend71]

That is a killer video

 

[kasperjensen]

As mentioned, I think it's because he started producing the guitars himself at home.

 

[Shawn Lutz]

I really loved Yngwie's neck pickup tone on Alcatrazz Live Sentence album, Rising Force and Marching out. I never cared for his bridge pickup and rhythm tone. I love Yngwie, him and RR are my two main guys but after Triology it just seems a bit rehashed and I have bought an album of his since

 

[carlygtr]

His live tone isn't as great as the beginning, so what does home recording have to do with it. His earliest, simplest rig from Alcatrazz, early Rising Force, was his best sounding, IMO

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

I think you guys probably nailed it, doubling up on the DODs definitely didn't help nor did the compression and delay. The early dry tones probably meant he dug in a little more on the strings and as such, he played slower (which was still fast!). Now it just seems like a jumble of notes where as back in the day, even if he played fast, you could almost hear every single note. I mean this guy was best of the best when he hit the scene in the early/mid 80's.. brilliant playing and phrasing. The early stuff never gets old. There is so much power there and drive. Sad that it all went to his head (and home studio) The guitar tones he is getting nowadays are absolutely horrid. He might need a tone intervention!

 

[charveldan]

I saw Yngwie open for Triumph in the 80's, Rik Emmitt had a tough act to follow.

Malmsteen when I saw him was spectacular. Which is more than I can say for nowdays.

Still Yngwie on a bad day > anybody else.

 

[Badronald]

I saw Yngwie open for Triumph in the 80's, Rik Emmitt had a tough act to follow.

Malmsteen when I saw him was spectacular. Which is more than I can say for nowdays.

Still Yngwie on a bad day > anybody else.

I hear ya, but nobody could touch Rik Emmitt live...........because of his voice.

 

[AndyK]

You can almost say the same thing about EVERY current player - their original tone was better!

Clapton - much fuzzier now
Angus - Thinner
EVH - wont even go there

You can't beat a vintage tube amp and less FX!

 

[Badronald]

You can almost say the same thing about EVERY current player - their original tone was better!

Clapton - much fuzzier now
Angus - Thinner
EVH - wont even go there

You can't beat a vintage tube amp and less FX!

Vai......

There's a common denominator in this equation.

Marshall.

 

[carlygtr]

You can almost say the same thing about EVERY current player - their original tone was better!

Clapton - much fuzzier now
Angus - Thinner
EVH - wont even go there

You can't beat a vintage tube amp and less FX!

Vai......

There's a common denominator in this equation.

Marshall.

50 watt Marshall, DOD 250, a few other effects. Can't beat simple

 

[AndyK]

You can almost say the same thing about EVERY current player - their original tone was better!

Clapton - much fuzzier now
Angus - Thinner
EVH - wont even go there

You can't beat a vintage tube amp and less FX!

Vai......

There's a common denominator in this equation.

Marshall.

50 watt Marshall, DOD 250, a few other effects. Can't beat simple

Depends on WHICH 50 watt Marshall, from WHAT year. If it doesn't have giant heavy transformers, it wont sound the same!

 

[charveldan]

I saw Yngwie open for Triumph in the 80's, Rik Emmitt had a tough act to follow.

Malmsteen when I saw him was spectacular. Which is more than I can say for nowdays.

Still Yngwie on a bad day > anybody else.

I hear ya, but nobody could touch Rik Emmitt live...........because of his voice.

For a solo, Rik came out with a Gibson electric/acoustic, full stadium stereo-chorus-delay effect.

To this day the best acoustic performance I've ever seen, bar-none. Utter awesomeness.

Between Yngwie & Triumph there must have been 55 Marshall stacks at the Checkerdome in STL MO that night.

 

[Anonymous]

I'll quote this from a thread on MetroAmp

"Regarding Yngwie's pre-1985 guitar tone (from 1978-Alcatrazz live ~1983) you are right that the Boss Roland Chorus Ensemble CE-1 played a vital role. The CE-1 was not originally designed for guitar and it therefore boosts the guitar signal a bit like a pre-amp in addition to the shimmering chorus effect. This is not the case with the retrosonic re-issue pedal...

However, you missed the most important thing... Yngwie did NOT use DiMarzio HS-3 pickups until end of 1983. All recordings from 1978-1983 were made using DiMarzio FS-1 pickups (Higher output, true single coil, yet warmer and more bassy than HS-3 pickups). Yngwie also used Fender stock pickups on some early demos from Stockholm, Sweden..."