What happened to Malmsteen's tone over the years?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kapo_Polenton
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The live in Florida DVD he put out last year is embarrassing, I quit after 2 songs.

They recorded audio from a number of nights and dubbed the audio over the best shots they recorded from 2 nights, so half of what you hear doesn't match what you see. In parts he has his guitar over his head and you can hear perfect rhythm playing. I even sense some of the rhythm guitars where completely re-recorded in post-production as well as the standard crowd screaming samples which makes the DVD seem it was filmed in a stadium and not the house of blues...

Tone-wise it's awful, fair enough he's running live YJM Marshals all tubes with some digital polishing but it sounds garbage. Over saturated, compressed and over-distorted which ruins the dynamics in his playing. Also the dancing around doesn't help, I saw a fan video where he actually changes guitar mid-song by playing an open note, slapping on his delay to drone the note and walks off stage to change guitar.... so the band are standing there playing over this horrible droned note whilst he's off for a doughnut!

It's just lame and sad what he's become
 
joncarlos":2gqty2zj said:
Thought I'd join the forum to chime in. As some of you said, he was never the same after the accident, but the one thing nobody said was that he also changed to .008s at that time. Listen to the Leningrad show for a taste of this thinner tone that's a bit closer to modern Yngwie. Having said that, his change in tone never dissapointed me as much as the detriment of his improvisational skills. He started out playing these passionate, urgent lines that didn't sound like patterns, went to a weird place during the 90's and now he's just a machine, but that's another story.

-Jon.
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I thought he always used 8's ? Was he using 9's in the early days? I remember I saw him at G3, must of been back in 2005 or so and his tone was so damm bright my fillings were coming loose. Satch had a such a better tone that night it wasn't funny.
 
danyeo":z4z56nrz said:
joncarlos":z4z56nrz said:
Thought I'd join the forum to chime in. As some of you said, he was never the same after the accident, but the one thing nobody said was that he also changed to .008s at that time. Listen to the Leningrad show for a taste of this thinner tone that's a bit closer to modern Yngwie. Having said that, his change in tone never dissapointed me as much as the detriment of his improvisational skills. He started out playing these passionate, urgent lines that didn't sound like patterns, went to a weird place during the 90's and now he's just a machine, but that's another story.

-Jon.
Click to expand...

I thought he always used 8's ? Was he using 9's in the early days? I remember I saw him at G3, must of been back in 2005 or so and his tone was so damm bright my fillings were coming loose. Satch had a such a better tone that night it wasn't funny.
Click to expand...


I have to agree with that. Went to the same tour and felt the exact same way. I even thought Vai had better tone and I have never been a fan of his sound.

I will say I feel the same way about Petrucci. I liked his tone and improv skills much better earlier on than now. From Images and Words through SFAM he sounded great. His improv was more jazz based (perhaps his Berklee influence). I even liked Train of Thought for what it was but after that his tone has become gained out and overly processed. Even when I watch his gear demos and such his improv playing is not the same. Oh well, still like him just not as much as before.
 
I'm not sure how hard it is for these guys to stick with what works. Even the Leningrad show, it might sound "thinner" to some but the urgency is there and the fire is there. He sounds fantastic even though he is shredding like a beast. The difference over time has been running the same licks and scales but TWICE AS FAST. Let me see how many notes and scales and arpeggios i can run into a phrase in the time signature I am playing in. He was also fast but he was smooth. I bet when he listens back to Far Beyond the Sun or I am a Viking he thinks "holy shit that's slow... that sucks, I shred, I am god, this needs more speed". The whole thing has become boring. It was fresh when he started. Now the rythms and song ideas are terrible and sound dated because there is no possible way for any person to be around 30 years and come up with totally fresh material. Now another issue, the tone. He always jammed on those NMV plexis and double DOD boosted from what I can see on old pedalboards and live shows from early 80's. Why not stick with that? Now it is thin, bright, compressed, shitty. How on earth do you start with a great ear and end up where he is? The obvious studio punch ins on the "live" stuff is as ridiculous as his live antics now. I could not pay to see him play now. I would be bored after one song. I used to wait in anticipation for him to play his leads (Liar, Disciples of Hell etc..) now I wait in anticipation for him to actually play some rythm. I don't think my ears could take the "Blitzkrieg" of notes.
 
Interesting, didn't know he was involved with Yngwie's stuff. Not sure when "Inspiration" was recorded (too lazy to look) but his tone and playing on that are pretty great - maybe just a little washed out. But yeah I agree Alcatrazz and the first few solo albums were stellar. This was the early eighties!

mentoneman":m9c5v7gj said:
instead it was yngwie and les claypool from primus recording in a warehouse and the whole project was done for 60k
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Hmm I saw him on the same G3 tour but I thought that was 2003? Crazy it's been that long lol. I actually thought Yngwie's tone was the best out of the three, but I am not a Satch or Vai fan honestly though I respect them both of course. I am usually most impressed by guys that shred with cleaner tones and not a lot of FX as you can hear what they're doing better, only major exception to that is EJ who sounds great with lots of delay too. Unless the delays are sync'd to a click and the drummer's playing to a click it can get really messy at speed IMO. Still, it's good to keep in mind that for all of the gear advances there've been, low-medium output pickups into a boosted marshall (or marshallish amp) will always deliver the goods. :rock:
 
I was thinking about this the other day. Maybe the guys hearing is shot? I haven't seen him live since right before the release of Marching Out but he played insanely loud way back when.
 
ghosty999":2cmmsxtx said:
The live in Florida DVD he put out last year is embarrassing, I quit after 2 songs.

They recorded audio from a number of nights and dubbed the audio over the best shots they recorded from 2 nights, so half of what you hear doesn't match what you see. In parts he has his guitar over his head and you can hear perfect rhythm playing. I even sense some of the rhythm guitars where completely re-recorded in post-production as well as the standard crowd screaming samples which makes the DVD seem it was filmed in a stadium and not the house of blues...

It's just lame and sad what he's become
Click to expand...

The Live in Leningrad video from the late 80's is like that too so nothing has changed :) He'd be playing Rising Force and obviously doing a run on the very high frets, and the audio is playing the same run on the lower frets. They just mixed and matched the best audio and video from several different nights.
 
danyeo":vk3rsiyn said:
I thought he always used 8's ? Was he using 9's in the early days? I remember I saw him at G3, must of been back in 2005 or so and his tone was so damm bright my fillings were coming loose. Satch had a such a better tone that night it wasn't funny.
Click to expand...

He used .010s for the first 3 albums and went for the lighter gauge after the accident. I also recall reading an interview on which he gave his main reason for the change. It was something like: "when you're doing those crazy step and a half bends for two hours every night, your callouses just die".

It's hard for me to believe he would sacrifice so much for that obnoxious string-breaking bend but may be so.
 
so given the comments in hear its safe to assume

1) his fingers hurt
2) his ears are fucked
3) he forget that less is more

:confused: :lol: :LOL:
 
BYTOR":26a9h4p8 said:
Massive intake of donuts has been linked to a disease that causes gradual tone suckage.........
Click to expand...

This is true. I blame the donuts.
 
ghosty999":2sgpnu52 said:
The live in Florida DVD he put out last year is embarrassing, I quit after 2 songs.

They recorded audio from a number of nights and dubbed the audio over the best shots they recorded from 2 nights, so half of what you hear doesn't match what you see. In parts he has his guitar over his head and you can hear perfect rhythm playing. I even sense some of the rhythm guitars where completely re-recorded in post-production as well as the standard crowd screaming samples which makes the DVD seem it was filmed in a stadium and not the house of blues...

Tone-wise it's awful, fair enough he's running live YJM Marshals all tubes with some digital polishing but it sounds garbage. Over saturated, compressed and over-distorted which ruins the dynamics in his playing. Also the dancing around doesn't help, I saw a fan video where he actually changes guitar mid-song by playing an open note, slapping on his delay to drone the note and walks off stage to change guitar.... so the band are standing there playing over this horrible droned note whilst he's off for a doughnut!

It's just lame and sad what he's become
Click to expand...

What he's become?? He's always been a circus act.
 
At times he's true brilliance and innovation, other times he's a generic shredder :(
 
Business":dm2z9c95 said:
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...
Click to expand...

That's incorrect.

Roland's Boss Chorus Ensemble CE-1, was originally designed for keyboards running on 'line level' (+4dB), rather than electric guitar output which is 'instrument level' (-10dB or maybe -20dB). So when used with guitar, they boosted the signal a bit.
 
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