L3 UNIT 7: Podcast Research
Week 1
For my podcast research I'm going to research and discuss the history between two of my biggest influences - Metallica and Megadeth and research the techniques they have used in their music and how I have used it in my own personal practice. I will title it after one of their songs like "Holy Wars" or "Master of Podcasts" or something like that.
Danish drummer Lars Ulrich and Guitarist James Hetfield started a band along with bassist Ron Mcgovney named "Metallica". Mustaine sees an ad in the newspaper about a metal band looking for guitarist and he gets the job by only warming up on his guitar.
Week 2
To fully understand the topic of my podcast, I must learn about the history of Metallica and Megadeth and how they helped pave the way for thrash metal. My research is loosely coming from a YouTube video where someone gathers loads of clips from people in Metallica and Megadeth and they tell the story themselves.
Metallica and Megadeth have heavily influenced my guitar playing and expanded my understanding of music theory, I will in the podcast how those bands influenced my music. I could include audio examples of early thrash metal and riffs that Megadeth and Metallica inspired me to come up with.
Metallicas first gig came in a little bar called Radio City in Anaheim California on March 14th 1982
James, Lars, and Ron saw a band called Trauma in a local bar and were stunned by their bass player. The slow headbanging, the intense bass playing, the Wah pedal he used on his bass guitar. Everything about the bass player blew them away, His name was Cliff Burton. After seeing Trauma, Ron Mcgovney knew that they were going to pursue this bass player over him and try and get him into Metallica.
In 1982, Cliff burton joins Metallica as the replacement for Ron Mcgovney who previously left the band, Cliff claimed that trauma was getting boring since they sold out so he finally joined Metallica after James and Lars nagging him for months. Metallica had very few songs written at the time, songs include Hit the Lights, The Mechanix (The Four Horsemen), Phantom Lord, and they would regularly play Am I Evil? by Diamond Head.
Dave Mustaine was an angry drunk and without exception had a problem with weed and alcohol. He got two guard dogs to protect the weed in his house and brought one to rehearsals one day and the dog put her paws up on Rons car and James kicked the dog. Dave lashed out and beat up James and Ron resulting in him getting kicked out of the band until getting band in the band the following day. This is but one example of Dave Mustaine's drunken behaviour clashing heads with the rest of the band.
Research meaning: the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions.
Primary research is what you find out through your own independent research
Secondary research is what you find out through others research
Goal- figure out and master the different guitar techniques from my favourite musicians whilst also exploring how to create heavy guitar tones in logic and actual amps
I found a video which demonstrates how to get a Megadeth sounding tone in logic which could be of great help for my podcast
Script for the intro of the podcast
"Thrash metal is one of the biggest genres of metal in the world and the bands that helped shape and mould the genre are nothing short of exceptional. From the early roots in bands like Venom and Exodus to the dark and satanic Slayer, no band helped shape thrash like Metallica and Megadeth did. I am going to showcase the most iconic riffs and guitar techniques from both bands and the differences between how Dave Mustaine wrote them and how Metallica ended up changing them and how I applied them to my own personal practise. I have researched lots of way to find out how to get the guitar tones of Metallica and Megadeth from their most popular records and how do they inspire Musicians in the modern day? All these questions will be answers in this podcast with me your host Bobby Taylor.
*ident*
Main bit
To figure out why Megadeth started, we need to go back to the beginning. To the start of Metallica. Danish drummer Lars Ulrich and Guitarist James Hetfield started a band along with bassist Ron Mcgovney named "Metallica". Mustaine sees an ad in the newspaper about a metal band looking for guitarist and he gets the job by only warming up on his guitar.
Metallica then hired the former guitarist from Exodus Kirk Hammett replacing Dave Mustaine permanently. Kirk And Cliff got on really well, like a house on fire. Not long after, Metallica released their first Album "Kill 'em all" featuring a large majority of Mustaines music. When Dave Mustaine was on the ride home he vowed to create a band thats more metal than Metallica. He found a quote from Alan Cranston which read "The Arsenal of Megadeth cannot be rid" which inspired him to create his new band "Megadeth"
Dave Mustaine was the vocalist and creates a great sound for the Thrash metal dynamic. Soon after, Megadeth released "Killing is my business... and business is good!" Though Metallica used lots of Mustaines material, There are clear differences in the riffs that both bands produced. For example, Metallica released "The Four Horseman" which sounded like this *me playing the song* Megadeth then released the original version of the song called the "Mechanix" which is way faster take a listen *me playing the Mechanix*
Megadeth's most popular and influential album for me was the 1990 masterpiece, "Rust In Peace" Holy wars the punishment due is without a doubt one of the best songs they have ever done. Dave Mustaine uses a lot of thirds in his guitar playing which influence me to create a riff using thirds myself. For example, one of the drafts in my original song "Take it to your grave" had a bridge section which consisted of thirds being played to create a more heavy tone *me playing the bridge riff* In "Holy Wars... The Punishment Due" the chorus riff is littered with thirds as showed here * my playing holy wars"
Week 3
Podcast name
What are the musical elements
Does the ident fit the topic
Would the ident work for your topic?
The great metal podcast
Musical elements include distortion on guitar, double pedal drums, bass isn't very visible
This ident does fit the topic of metal
This ident works well for my podcast
The ringing out chord at the end is a good idea but not edited very well
The blues podcast
Guitar with a minor pentatonic scale
This doesn't even sound like blues, so not really that relevant
This wouldn't work well for my podcast
This podcast doesn't have the blues
The drummer podcast
This ident let me down big time, he talked for too long and got boring
It kind of fits the topic but its two hits of the drum kit, its probably something they pulled out of a midi drum kit
This would not fit my ident
Living a vocal life
It's very ambient and it fits the vibe very well
I suppose it fits the topic and stays on the line of what you'd expect from a vocalist
This ident wouldn't work for my podcast but I do like it
Sound on sound podcast
This is all synth and electronic music, I hear synth pads
This does fit the topic very well, considering he is as sound producer. I think he needs more punch in it
Ii wouldn't something like this for my ident
My ident draft
Script for the intro of the podcast
"Thrash metal is one of the biggest genres of metal in the world and the bands that helped shape and mould the genre are nothing short of exceptional. From the early roots in bands like Venom and Exodus to the dark and satanic Slayer, no band helped shape thrash like Metallica and Megadeth did. I am going to showcase the most iconic riffs from both bands and the differences between how Dave Mustaine wrote them and how Metallica ended up changing them and how I applied them to my own personal practise. I have researched lots of way to find out how to get the guitar tones of Metallica and Megadeth from their most popular records and how do they inspire Musicians in the modern day? All these questions will be answered in this podcast with me your host Bobby Taylor.
*Sting*
Main bit
To figure out why Megadeth started, we need to go back to the beginning. To the start of Metallica. Danish drummer Lars Ulrich and Guitarist James Hetfield started a band along with bassist Ron Mcgovney named "Metallica". Mustaine sees an ad in the newspaper about a metal band looking for guitarist and he gets the job by only warming up on his guitar.
Metallica then hired the former guitarist from Exodus Kirk Hammett replacing Dave Mustaine permanently. Kirk And Cliff got on really well, like a house on fire. Not long after, Metallica released their first Album "Kill 'em all" featuring a large majority of Mustaines music. When Dave Mustaine was on the ride home he vowed to create a band thats more metal than Metallica. He found a quote from Alan Cranston which read "The Arsenal of Megadeth cannot be rid" which inspired him to create his new band "Megadeth"
Dave Mustaine was the vocalist and creates a great sound for the Thrash metal dynamic. Soon after, Megadeth released "Killing is my business... and business is good!" Though Metallica used lots of Mustaines material, There are clear differences in the riffs that both bands produced. For example, Metallica released "The Four Horseman" which sounded like this *me playing the song* Megadeth then released the original version of the song called the "Mechanix" which is way faster take a listen *me playing the Mechanix*
Megadeth's most popular and influential album for me was the 1990 masterpiece, "Rust In Peace" Holy wars the punishment due is without a doubt one of the best songs they have ever done. Dave Mustaine uses a lot of thirds in his guitar playing which influence me to create a riff using thirds myself. For example, one of the drafts in my original song "Take it to your grave" had a bridge section which consisted of thirds being played to create a more heavy tone *me playing the bridge riff* In "Holy Wars... The Punishment Due" the chorus riff is littered with thirds as showed here * me playing holy wars"
Week 4
Major 3rd
Minor 3rd
Minor 3rd
Major 3rd
Major 3rd
Minor 3rd
Minor 3rd
Week 5
"One of Metallica's most popular techniques is Down picking which is exactly how is it described. The down picking technique gives a more heavy sound to their riffs which is seen in songs like "Master of Puppets" "Creeping Death" and "Sanitarium" I have applied this to my own riffs in as I have hundreds laying about in my phone, here is one for example *Playing down picking riff*
The second technique I'm gonna show you is a very well known technique known as "Palm muting" which is where you take the fleshy part of your hand and mute the string you're playing creating a heavy and quieter noise though the technique is used in many genres, it really sticks out in thrash metal and is used in near enough every metal song ever. Heres how "Master of Puppets" would sound without palm muting. Vs how it would sound with palm muting. Big difference. A couple more examples could include Holy wars, paranoid by black sabbath, and wake up dead by Megadeth. I have used Palm muting in lots of my songs, it will be very present in my upcoming self titled track "Poisonous Soul" *me playing the song*
Another technique which is commonly used in thrash metal is galloping. Galloping uses a repeated series of notes picked in either 2 or more times in one motion, In musical language it is known as an Ostinato which is a repeating of notes. in music theory it is basically where you remove the 2nd sixteenth note which creates the galloping sound.
Galloping has been used by hundreds of bands over the years including Iron Maiden with Steve harris' bass galloping, Metallica, commonly seen in battery, and she wolf by Megadeth. I have used this in multiple riffs of mine, here is but one example *me playing riff*
Galloping has been used by hundreds of bands over the years including Iron Maiden with Steve harris' bass galloping, Metallica, commonly seen in battery, and she wolf by Megadeth. I have used this in multiple riffs of mine, here is but one example *me playing riff*
4 sixteenth notes in one bar
with the second note removed, it becomes a gallop
Week 6
One of the most popular and most obvious techniques are the usage of "Power Chords". Power Chords are not really chords because they don't have more than 3 distinct notes as they usually share two notes the root note and the fifth. Despite that, they work really effectively for high gain and overdriven guitars.
Most of the riffs I create are made up of power chords so Im spoiled for choice when it comes to showcasing them, I might throw in a good two or three just to show off
Pick Scraping is a technique used on guitar that only works with distortion and it also depends on the shape and the material of which your pick is made. All you do is use the side of your guitar pick and scrape it either up or down the guitar strings. After a pick scrape, it is usually followed by a power chord or crazy solo of some sorts. I have used this technique before in my own music, jus before the solo of one of my songs titled "Poisonous Soul"
Week 7
How to record audio for a podcast
To record vocal audio for a podcast, I will need to plug a microphone into the audio interface and connect everything up like you're plugging a guitar in. After that, we can simply press record and speak into the microphone. Any extraneous noise can edited out with a channel EQ and simple splicing.
Week 8
"Tapping" is where you use your picking hand fingers to tap notes directly onto the fretboard for fast, melodic phrasing. The motion itself isn't exactly as simple as tapping one of your fingers onto the fretboard, its more of a pull off but with your picking hand.
guitar players like Eddie van Halen, Jimmie Webster, and Steve Hackett of the band "Genesis" have all used the technique on their records.
I have never exactly used tapping in one of my solos, but I can do it so I will demonstrate in one my podcast
Tapping can also be used to create harmonics. Like natural harmonics on the guitar, if you play a note and tap the fret 12 frets up from it, you can get the note you've play like G for example but in a harmonic fashion. This is used in the solo of the song "Beat It" by Michael Jackson with Eddie van Halen on the guitar.
Week 9
Pinch Harmonics is where you create a high pitched squeal by catching the string with the edge of the pick and your thumb. It is commonly used with distortion and used in solos and some riffs. One of the biggest users of this technique was Dimebag Darrell from Pantera and Damage plan. The main riff of "Cemetery Gates" is filled with pinch harmonics on the A string. I have used pinch harmonics in some of my solos and riffs on all three of my songs in my band
Week 10
Sweep Picking is a technique used to play fast arpeggios where you "Sweep" your pick down the strings. I don't really class it as sweeping because you're not actually sweeping if you will, the picking is alternate Down down down up down it's alternating. I cant really sweep very well, but I will give it my best attempt for the sake of my podcast.
My script isn't exactly planned. I will read through the techniques and discuss how famous guitarists have used them and how I have applied them to my personal practice.
Done the podcast, all I need now is the ident
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