Tried this once on a bridge with 4 guitars. an LP for the bottom, an SG for the lower mids, a Strat for the upper mids, and a Tele for the highs. It was then and at that pivotal moment, I realized, I was not Mutt...Great video here Doc!
When we were recording the T-Ride album back in 1990 I vividly recall Eric Valentine doing a similar thing. We would play the 3-note chords and double them, then go back and track each note separately for the chord. This gave the chord more definition and also eliminated inter-string modulation that happens. He then balanced them to have the beef of the 3-note chords along with the definition of the multitracked chords to make the whole thing sound very deliberate. You can hear it clearly on songs like "Zombies From Hell" and "Backdoor Romeo". Brilliant!
@@BobbyHuff Thank you Bobby! That was a fun album to be a part of. Eric was so innovative (and remains so) even as a teenager. Completely changed my life of recording music meeting him and playing with him and Dan.
I love that there is a community with which this is like the giant mystery! The internet sucks for a lot of things, but if you're interested in something specialized.... You can go down some really cool rabbit holes
Great stuff Bob! I did a video on this a few years ago to demonstrate what Steve Clark mentioned in an interview about recording the guitars on Pyromania. In that case it was mainly for clarity when they had distorted guitars playing more complex chord voicings, like on tracks such as Comin’ Under Fire. Over the years the band seem to change their stories on how much they used the string by string technique, although they’re a bit more consistent on this example it seems. Keep them coming! Would love a demo on the rumoured ‘stringing the guitar to a certain chord’ to have some nice sustain.
A band with 6 one string guitar players would be cool. Just think of all the different eq options, volume swells and panning you could do on the fly with each guitar.
Nah, not one string guitars: normal 6 string guitars with each string tuned to the same note with different gauges & intervals so each guitarist can play their one note 6 different ways on top of everything you mentioned too.
League of Crafty Guitarists, its not one string players but its a bunch of players showing how a group could sound. one string playing does sound like a fripp thing too lol.
I got the idea to record one string at a time from hexaphonic synth pickups for distorting complex chords. I love the technique. The thing is, it doesn't always help the song. (:
@@iswearnotme is it cos your new,or that you cant record to a static grid? ... your ideas might be bang on - but the daw cant handle it (it wants you quantized) - i would look at recording how you feel,then tempo map the grid ...
As a fan I love this album so much, listened hundreds of times over the decades, and when I got into recording and production it's been a treasure trove of great techniques and tricks. Keep em coming, Doc!
I am so glad I ran into your channel... so many questions and rumors about Def Leppard. Mutt is known as a 'perfectionist' but I think he was more of a 'purest'. His novel way of telling a story with music is legendary. Playing a string at a time really delivers a pure sound. Phil was right, only way to get this unique sound is one string at a time. I can only imagine how many countless hours spent mixing sounds for just one song. No wonder it took months to produce an entire album.
As always, great insight into the mind of a genius and how he orchestrates. A copyable (not sure if that's a word) trick but also a lesson in thinking outside-the-box. Thank you for putting this together Bobby.
A related technique I heard of (I think it was a Glam rock thing in the '70s) was having a guitar with 6 identical strings strumming full barres to build up chords one note at a time
the part directly after this is also a part that blew my mind later hearing the panning in headphones. such a beautiful symphony of delicious tones. mutt didn’t have to go that hard but he did for all of us! thanks for always crushing the best topics on youtube!
Sweet! I think Rick Savage demonstrates this on the "Classic Albums" DVD series of Hysteria. It's this same part. He shows it as a simple open chords of D, Dus4, Cadd9
@@BobbyHuff what???? oh man, you gotta watch those.. .that whole series is pretty amazing....but the def leppard one really stands out.... also never mind and dark side of the moon, and the tom petty one is really good. ..you have some cool stuff to watch my man... (I'm pretty sure their on prime..) Cheers guys
@@shawnhebbmusic I bought the VHS but this is more convenient ua-cam.com/video/VGySlPh3K3I/v-deo.html The piano player separate from the rest is Paul Griffin who was very Ill and had big medical bills. I think this was his last paying gig before he died. So Becker and Fagin for all the hipster bluster are actually really decent guys...
Hey Bobby - not sure what you are using for your guitar sound, but if you're really interested in getting that Def Lep guitar sound, Amplitube now has a plug in version of the Rockman X100 that's pretty good. I got it as part of the Joe Satriani signature package, but it's available as a stand alone as well.
@@BobbyHuff no need to thank me man, you are the one doing all the hard work for us viewers. I'm positive the musician community and those who listen to music heavily on here will find you. Just keep it up I know others would love to hear this stuff, plus I like how you put your own spin on these topics
One of my fav albums. Will forever be special to me and in some way it keeps me grounded when I play it, regardless of where or how I am. A true masterpiece.
The Smashing Pumpkins did this on a song called Hummer from the album Siamese Dream, for the bending octave chords of the main riff of the song. That's how they got the bends to sound so impossible-to-play smooth.
@@BobbyHuff 👍🏻👍🏻 Here is the song... Guitarists have been wondering for 30 years why they couldn't make it sound right. 😂 ua-cam.com/video/Zxo_MYrADmY/v-deo.html The part come in after the intro.. It's like some sitar effect, drums, bass, and then the guitars come it. One of their best songs.. Including the ending solo.
Bobby, another trick that Mutt would use which is a very subtle touch in Hysteria, is that he would mic the electric guitars like you would an acoustic guitar but he/she would play unplugged. I would love to see you try that experiment. Listen for in in "Animal"
I still think that Nik Kershaw used this technique throughout "Wouldn't It Be Good", mainly the higher chorused guitars that stick out (middle of stereo spectrum), sounding like a load of duplicate single notes. I think the guitar in the right channel is standard rhythm playing, though... I've thought this since the 80s, as there was no way I could duplicate that cutting sound on my own guitars. Of course, I may be mistaken. But now I know this technique has been used, and was used in the 80s. Certainly, Mutt Lange wasn't the only one.....
Nik said in an interview that the main progression was built up like that with inspiration from Brian May. When it came to play the song live, it was hard because you couldn't quite play all the notes in a chord.
@@bwm5150 I thought so. Yeah, live Kershaw did it OK, but that extra presence of the guitar lines was missing.... I found a vid of him playing at Live Aid and although it sounds good, that chorus of guitars definitely was missed. Thanks for the info, by the way. It was a suspicion I always had about that song (which I always cranked when it was on the radio) but never found any info on the recording of it.
@@chriscampbell9191 no worries! Yeah the Live Aid performance was my introduction to the song and it got me hooked. Wish I could find the interview to link but I think it was on a random channel here in the UK.
Wow just realizing that now. Messed around with this a little on guitar not too long ago. I knew it was obviously guitar in the recording but I was just playing power chords and it wasnt sounding the same.
I'll always wonder how much of that music was actually written by the band. Respectfully of course. Enlightening demo as usual, Bobby. That guitar technique rings like a bell. Beautiful.
So good! Always was a favorite for me to play drums on. That album was where the band rose from the ashes and found their sound. It was also my introduction to the band at 11 or 12 y/o
Fascinating as always Bobby.. All that matters is getting the end result recording to sound as good as possible.. no matter how "crazy" or un LIVE rock'n'roll it may seem.. This Hysteria myth actually influenced me to remove all strings from a guitar, except the only strings I needed for a certain repetitive rhythmic part that used just one or two strings, just so as to eliminate any possibility of getting unwanted noise from not perfectly dampened other strings.. worked great! :)
I am not so much into the rest of their stuff but hysteria is different. It's still kinda vulgar, sugar with sugar on top - its a style - but the songs are strong the the vibe works. I still dig it out from time to time ...
@@BobbyHuff You're welcome! I've watched a few of your videos so far, but I think this is the first time I've commented on one. Keep up the good work, I'm learning all sorts of new tricks that I can hopefully use on my next album!
Cowboy Song (and others) by Thin Lizzy utilizes this same kind of thing. Stacked single notes as backing harmonies, not as guitar solos. Much more pristine with Mutt and DL than with the rough Thin Lizzy sound. But, a similar trick. Great Video!
Thanks again Bob, that was an awesome dissection (yes pun intended) of the brilliance of Mutt Lange's creative process. The next time my Father calls someone a Mutt (like he does often) I will have to explain that all Mutt's are not equal!
Like an Octopus with a pick in each tentacle. I definitely hear it on parts on other Hysteria tracks. Rocket, for sure. It creates this artefact that sounds like the cymbals are adorned with hundreds of tiny cymbals or the glissando of a magic spell. I always thought it was a cymbal effect back in the day. Thank you so much! Mystery solved! Maybe Mutt got the idea from giving RIck Allen another hand, so he might have thought "Why not give Collen more hands as well?" Because this was never done on Pyromania, for example, was it?
I can’t for the life of me understand why trolls will thumbs down these videos? If I owned UA-cam I would require thumbs down to show who did it, and require an explanation for the thumbs down. There would be less unaccountable trolling. 👍🏻
(sigh) Yep. Sadly it's about envy, rage, self-loathing, fear of failure, and so on. I agree with you totally. Social media is too often about defamation and character assassination.
@@BobbyHuff You Obviously put a ton of time into making these videos, and not only that, coming up with the content, and doing the recording and editing. But even more, you are sharing engineering tips that people spend money to go to Berkeley, or MIT, and through years of grinding experience to learn. I just find it disrespectful to thumbs down a video that is obviously well done. But people going to do what they do. They have a right to their opinion of course, and I have a right to counter that by saying they are dumb asses. 😬 Lol Keep up the great work man.
When you play single guitar lead lines separately like on double or triple lead guitar, the vibrato and envelopes of each note in each line are different than if played in chords together. Not better, just different... and I think that's what your excellent video is illustrating here. And it also gives the mixing engineer more control over which voices--guitar voices--to bring forward and backward. But thinking about that level of detail in the automation gets me... well... I wouldn't want to do it unless I was paid a lot. But you could gate out a lot of noise that might otherwise live in chord transitions. Now after watching your video... I might try it.
One thing similar to this - and maybe you can try it out, is for a guitar to be mixed to where the pan from left to right depends on the pitch. So, if someone were to play a scale, a listener with headphones would hear it going from lower left to upper right as the scaled progressed. Sometimes a xylophone is recorded this way, with two mics, so as they go higher the other mic picks it up. I just think it would create a cool effect while listening with headphones.
Awesome, bud! Yep, the best producers strive to make things work, regardless of how strange it may seem to the players. Ravel did stuff like this to make violins sound like guitars. Ha! If we're not experimenting, we're not progressing :) Thanks bud!
Actually did this on a bass part once. The part had the A string droning off a run on the D and G strings and EQ’ing the part was a nightmare. Either the whole thing sounded way too thin or the droning A string made the whole thing sound like mud. We tried recording the A string separately which made eq’ing much much easier plus a little volume automation worked like a charm.
Oh that's not even that big of a deal. :-) It reminds me a little of how Bohemian Rhapsody had so many overlapping vocal parts, particularly the "Magnifico-oh-oh-oh" thing. Just typical studio chicanery. :-D
Thanks, Doc. I like the album well enough, though when it released I was disappointed that it wasn’t Pyromania-heavy. That said, Hysteria is my favorite track and an all time great song, and that is its most iconic section.
Great video on guitar sounds. Mutt is crazy creative. Also, I heard that Chris Cornell screamed into guitar pickups for a vocal part on Black Hole Sun. Any truth to that? As always, great job Doc!
I worked for DigiTech back in the day, in our quest to get tones for our processors we would as everone knows colab with producers and artists. My understanding was Mutt recorded each note individually summed them, came out of the console then ran them through a rockman for processing. I've heard it done this way and it sounds amazing as does yours. The only reason I comment is, and maybe I missed something but are you adding the effects on each high, mid and low guitar track?
Thanks again for this. Very cool stuff! I'd love to see you dissect how they get that bright, popping sound in the main riff & intro of Armageddon It. I use a little poppy palm-muting and upstrokes to emulate that sound but I've wondered how they did it on the record, if it too is single string recording.
Just got around to this… very nice! Allan Holdsworth did a similar trick with the band UK. At the end of the song “Mental Medication,” Allan does some great chord work, with each note being played separately. Massive sound.
old school rocker here. i grew up listening to these records hysteria was ground breaking. i didn't like it at first like most of us "purist" metal heads that dabbled glam and pop. of course the obligitory ratt and van halen are required but def leppard just sounded different. i began to notice how much different the album sounded i started to really listen. after hearing the song hysteria for years i was listening to it one day and realized its probably one of the best sounding songs ive ever heard. amazing song amazing recording. amazing talent both musical and at the console. the entire album is a masterpiece but the song hysteria is in a league of its own. mutt lang is amazing.
Erwin Musper who is a friend of mine and engineered for Mutt Lange did tell me that he would sometimes record each Bass note on a different track...for example...all the G's on 1 track all the A's on another etc. He did this so he could EQ them individually. Again, that was told to me personally by his engineer ;)
Thanks Chris. Makes sense to me! I actually did a video on this about getting great low end. I didn’t use Mutt as an example but I think Max Martin is on the thumbnail…
I like it when it's done like a looper where you add on each part on top of each other as opposed to just hearing the one string. It should be done like vocal harmonies.
It just sounds like he was trying to avoid bleed and frequency clashing… I mean it is super picky but not all that shocking once you get past the hyperbolic headline….(not meant as an insult… )
I did this song in a band where I was the only guitar player. It was a bit stressful as there was NOTHING to hide behind when performing this. Not only because there wasn't another guitar but because of the slow tempo. The guitar was very exposed. The slightest mistake would be heard by everyone.
Great video Bob! Sounds very close to the record and cool to see it finally broken down like this. To my ear the delay sounds a little off from the actual recording, but I'm probably wrong. (Wouldn't be the first time.) Keep up the awesome vids, man!
Thanks man! Delay may not be the same! I didn’t really try to nail the sound exactly but I tried to nail the part! Close enough to get the point across!!
Cool trick you uncovered! 🐕 Aside. Richard Marx wrote Angelia based on Def Leppard. He is a fan of the Hysteria album. Mutt was unavailable 😖, but RM got the late David Cole to produce Angelia with him. Would analyzing Angelia or other Richard Marx songs be possible future videos for you? Note: Keith Urban worked with him a lot!
I haven't watched this video yet, but I always wondered, as a beginner, why they wouldn't record only the strings used, even if it meant removing strings. Be back after watching....
I’ve just come across your channel. Loved the last couple of Mutt Lange items. The bv’s he did with Shania were amazing as well. Quick question, and I’ve looked through the comments before asking, what drum sounds are you using? They absolutely nail that Rick Allen sound.
@@BobbyHuff Highly disagree. The other parts have a repeating pick-up line by two 8th notes before beat 1 every other bar, which this part simply skips. Nothing random about it even in context with the other parts.
So, he made the chorus sound by singling out the strings? Interesting. I figured this would happen if anybody did this, but that sound, you can nail that with chorus.
I knew he did this but I'd seen the band explain it and knew he hadn't tracked every chord on the album one string at a time. Maybe I should start and make it my signature thing? I think you can hear Mutt's sound all over the stuff he did with Shania Twain and he also worked with an Irish band called The Corrs, on a later album, and it's pure Mutt Lange production, big, shiny, expensive sounding.
Tons of people can sing. Tons of people can write decent songs. But very few people can take an average song and make it amazing. Mutt Lange is a genius. He can make anyone a top seller
Billy Corgan recorded Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream album with multi tracked single string chords, it does give an awesome full sound to the guitars.
I have read several interviews now but can’t find a single mention of it. I highly doubt they did that. They did multitrack the guitars heavily though.
@@linusfotograf Maybe I was mistaken, I had heard they used up to 5 tracks to create the harmonizer effects for one guitar part. I remember back when the album came I was looking for an effect pedal to create that kind of monster tone. The owner of a local guitar shop told me he thought they must have multi tracked the guitar chords by playing the same part several times but on different strings to create the full chords. Might just be my bad memory from 30 years ago. I could not find and specific articles or interviews with Billy online about the subject either.
Tried this once on a bridge with 4 guitars. an LP for the bottom, an SG for the lower mids, a Strat for the upper mids, and a Tele for the highs. It was then and at that pivotal moment, I realized, I was not Mutt...Great video here Doc!
HAHAHA!! Great story Captain. I'm glad that YOU are YOU!!!
The great David Bendeth! Dude, thanks for chiming in!
Yeah, sometimes these things work, and other times
the cake winds up on the kitchen floor :)
@@seanemmettfullerton Right after it hits your face first!
@@dbendeth LOL... exactly :)
Trying this today! Great idea!
When we were recording the T-Ride album back in 1990 I vividly recall Eric Valentine doing a similar thing. We would play the 3-note chords and double them, then go back and track each note separately for the chord. This gave the chord more definition and also eliminated inter-string modulation that happens. He then balanced them to have the beef of the 3-note chords along with the definition of the multitracked chords to make the whole thing sound very deliberate. You can hear it clearly on songs like "Zombies From Hell" and "Backdoor Romeo". Brilliant!
Wow thanks for telling us Steve! Fantastic! Big fan of that album and of Eric!!
@@BobbyHuff Thank you Bobby! That was a fun album to be a part of. Eric was so innovative (and remains so) even as a teenager. Completely changed my life of recording music meeting him and playing with him and Dan.
I literally just listened to zombies on a whim then this came up in my feed!
@@SeanGould Wow, that is crazy! Still love that song. What's your favorite on the album?
T-RIDE !!!!!!! That album is a masterpiece !!!!
That Phil Collins snippet makes me want to see your take on the drum sound on Phil Collins - Face Value/Peter Gabriel - Melt
Yeah that’s on the list! Love Phil’s playing AND his sound!!
*Phil Collen…
@@Rikrik1138 They were talking about Collins, not Collen.
Peter Gabriel - Intruder drum sound is magic
I love that there is a community with which this is like the giant mystery! The internet sucks for a lot of things, but if you're interested in something specialized.... You can go down some really cool rabbit holes
Yeah totally. UA-cam is my university. I'd rather learn
something useful than to watch the TV wasteland imploding :)
Great stuff Bob! I did a video on this a few years ago to demonstrate what Steve Clark mentioned in an interview about recording the guitars on Pyromania. In that case it was mainly for clarity when they had distorted guitars playing more complex chord voicings, like on tracks such as Comin’ Under Fire. Over the years the band seem to change their stories on how much they used the string by string technique, although they’re a bit more consistent on this example it seems. Keep them coming! Would love a demo on the rumoured ‘stringing the guitar to a certain chord’ to have some nice sustain.
Great! Thanks for watching and the kind comments!
I was just going to link your video in the comments! lol
Very cool!!! Almost like when a Xylophone player is using multiple mallets and the strike and bloom of the notes happen together!!
yes!!!!
That's the idea.
A band with 6 one string guitar players would be cool. Just think of all the different eq options, volume swells and panning you could do on the fly with each guitar.
Nah, not one string guitars: normal 6 string guitars with each string tuned to the same note with different gauges & intervals so each guitarist can play their one note 6 different ways on top of everything you mentioned too.
League of Crafty Guitarists, its not one string players but its a bunch of players showing how a group could sound. one string playing does sound like a fripp thing too lol.
We do that at our campsite meetups. Like blue man group, on guutar
Glenn Branca did the guitar orchestra with something like that... 6 string guitar with all strings turned to 1 note
I got the idea to record one string at a time from hexaphonic synth pickups for distorting complex chords. I love the technique. The thing is, it doesn't always help the song.
(:
have you seen bax breakout box? hexaphonic string reamping :) ua-cam.com/video/XFz24YOxSso/v-deo.html
I got the idea to record one note at a time because I can’t play guitar very well
@@iswearnotme
The mother of all invention.
(:
@@iswearnotme is it cos your new,or that you cant record to a static grid? ... your ideas might be bang on - but the daw cant handle it (it wants you quantized) - i would look at recording how you feel,then tempo map the grid ...
That really is a ton of processors for what the Rockman box did on that track.
Hahaha! Agreed
As a fan I love this album so much, listened hundreds of times over the decades, and when I got into recording and production it's been a treasure trove of great techniques and tricks. Keep em coming, Doc!
Thanks Brad! In my opinion it was the greatest production ever. So far out of any box or any rules. NOTHING else sounds like it.
A comparison with the actual played guitar chords would’ve been cool
Exactly. This made it sound like shit.
I am so glad I ran into your channel... so many questions and rumors about Def Leppard. Mutt is known as a 'perfectionist' but I think he was more of a 'purest'. His novel way of telling a story with music is legendary.
Playing a string at a time really delivers a pure sound. Phil was right, only way to get this unique sound is one string at a time. I can only imagine how many countless hours spent mixing sounds for just one song. No wonder it took months to produce an entire album.
Hey Steven. Agreed. Mutts gift goes WAY beyond perfectionism!!!!
As always, great insight into the mind of a genius and how he orchestrates. A copyable (not sure if that's a word) trick but also a lesson in thinking outside-the-box. Thank you for putting this together Bobby.
Imitable, perhaps?
Repeatable?
"Replicable" would be a possibility. :)
A related technique I heard of (I think it was a Glam rock thing in the '70s) was having a guitar with 6 identical strings strumming full barres to build up chords one note at a time
Very cool!
the part directly after this is also a part that blew my mind later hearing the panning in headphones. such a beautiful symphony of delicious tones. mutt didn’t have to go that hard but he did for all of us!
thanks for always crushing the best topics on youtube!
Thanks Isaac. Mutts attention to detail and pursuit of something completely original is a HUGE lesson!!’
Sweet! I think Rick Savage demonstrates this on the "Classic Albums" DVD series of Hysteria. It's this same part. He shows it as a simple open chords of D, Dus4, Cadd9
Thanks Noah!! Haven’t seen that one!
@@BobbyHuff what???? oh man, you gotta watch those.. .that whole series is pretty amazing....but the def leppard one really stands out.... also never mind and dark side of the moon, and the tom petty one is really good. ..you have some cool stuff to watch my man... (I'm pretty sure their on prime..) Cheers guys
@@shawnhebbmusic agreed, lots of great ones. I like the Steely Dan "Aja" one as well - seeing as we're talking studio obsessives 😃
@@michaelcottle6270 I don't think I've seen that one... I will check it out.
@@shawnhebbmusic I bought the VHS but this is more convenient ua-cam.com/video/VGySlPh3K3I/v-deo.html
The piano player separate from the rest is Paul Griffin who was very Ill and had big medical bills. I think this was his last paying gig before he died. So Becker and Fagin for all the hipster bluster are actually really decent guys...
Hey Bobby - not sure what you are using for your guitar sound, but if you're really interested in getting that Def Lep guitar sound, Amplitube now has a plug in version of the Rockman X100 that's pretty good. I got it as part of the Joe Satriani signature package, but it's available as a stand alone as well.
Wow thanks Brian! I did not know that! I appreciate it!
I believe that Gary Pihl (who was working at Scholz R & D in between Boston tours), consulted with Mutt and the band on the Rockman use on the album.
It's crazy that they recorded that album with a Rockman, but it's undeniable when you hear the chorus on the Rockman.
I appreciate UA-cam sharing me this channel on the algorithm tonight.
Like how you shared something pretty mind boggling
Thanks for watching man!!
@@BobbyHuff no need to thank me man, you are the one doing all the hard work for us viewers. I'm positive the musician community and those who listen to music heavily on here will find you. Just keep it up I know others would love to hear this stuff, plus I like how you put your own spin on these topics
Ahhh! You missed the chance to show the character Phil Collins,as well, from the Trailer Park Boys lol! Love your shit Bobby!
Hahah!! Thanks Htiek!
One of my fav albums. Will forever be special to me and in some way it keeps me grounded when I play it, regardless of where or how I am. A true masterpiece.
That's how I feel about them as well. Kind of sums up my childhood in one great album.
You mean there’s other ways to record guitars other than one string at a time? Man! I’ve gotta get out more often 🤪
Great video Dr. Bob. I heard a rumor that for Hysteria, Mutt Lange recorded guitars using a Tom Scholz's Rockman headphone guitar amp
Yes it was a Rockman! I’m not sure which model exactly and I believe it was also modified somehow.
The Smashing Pumpkins did this on a song called Hummer from the album Siamese Dream, for the bending octave chords of the main riff of the song. That's how they got the bends to sound so impossible-to-play smooth.
Very cool!
@@BobbyHuff 👍🏻👍🏻
Here is the song... Guitarists have been wondering for 30 years why they couldn't make it sound right. 😂
ua-cam.com/video/Zxo_MYrADmY/v-deo.html
The part come in after the intro.. It's like some sitar effect, drums, bass, and then the guitars come it. One of their best songs.. Including the ending solo.
I have always been obsessed with this album and the methods used to create it. It fascinates me endlessly.
Man, this is great stuff. I grew up listening to this record and I love hearing how the musical sausage got made.
That’s awesome. That part is ingrained in our heads. Such an awesome sound. Great explanation!
Thanks my friend!
Bobby, another trick that Mutt would use which is a very subtle touch in Hysteria, is that he would mic the electric guitars like you would an acoustic guitar but he/she would play unplugged. I would love to see you try that experiment. Listen for in in "Animal"
Hahaha!! It’s already on the list!! Thanks Ken!
I still think that Nik Kershaw used this technique throughout "Wouldn't It Be Good", mainly the higher chorused guitars that stick out (middle of stereo spectrum), sounding like a load of duplicate single notes. I think the guitar in the right channel is standard rhythm playing, though... I've thought this since the 80s, as there was no way I could duplicate that cutting sound on my own guitars. Of course, I may be mistaken. But now I know this technique has been used, and was used in the 80s. Certainly, Mutt Lange wasn't the only one.....
Nik said in an interview that the main progression was built up like that with inspiration from Brian May. When it came to play the song live, it was hard because you couldn't quite play all the notes in a chord.
@@bwm5150 I thought so. Yeah, live Kershaw did it OK, but that extra presence of the guitar lines was missing.... I found a vid of him playing at Live Aid and although it sounds good, that chorus of guitars definitely was missed. Thanks for the info, by the way. It was a suspicion I always had about that song (which I always cranked when it was on the radio) but never found any info on the recording of it.
@@chriscampbell9191 no worries! Yeah the Live Aid performance was my introduction to the song and it got me hooked. Wish I could find the interview to link but I think it was on a random channel here in the UK.
Wow just realizing that now. Messed around with this a little on guitar not too long ago. I knew it was obviously guitar in the recording but I was just playing power chords and it wasnt sounding the same.
I wish I'd found Dr. Bob sooner. Unfortunately some of my tunes went to visit Dr. Delete unnecessarily. . Great video as always!
Hahahah!!!! Glad u are here now!!
I'll always wonder how much of that music was actually written by the band. Respectfully of course.
Enlightening demo as usual, Bobby. That guitar technique rings like a bell. Beautiful.
So good! Always was a favorite for me to play drums on. That album was where the band rose from the ashes and found their sound. It was also my introduction to the band at 11 or 12 y/o
Hello same last name Kevin
You will be responsible for more Mutt Lange Jr.’s than Mutt himself. Awesome video!
lmao..
Fascinating as always Bobby.. All that matters is getting the end result recording to sound as good as possible.. no matter how "crazy" or un LIVE rock'n'roll it may seem.. This Hysteria myth actually influenced me to remove all strings from a guitar, except the only strings I needed for a certain repetitive rhythmic part that used just one or two strings, just so as to eliminate any possibility of getting unwanted noise from not perfectly dampened other strings.. worked great! :)
Great story David! Do whatever it takes right??? No rules!!
I’ve never liked Def Leppard but you’ve made me want to play Hysteria all the way through for the first time.
Hysteria is a first class album where there's only really one slightly weak track (rocket) , the rest are fantastic songs
I am not so much into the rest of their stuff but hysteria is different. It's still kinda vulgar, sugar with sugar on top - its a style - but the songs are strong the the vibe works. I still dig it out from time to time ...
Rejoiceful chord sequence , sounds like something that belongs on a Christian rock album .
Thanks for the great vid
Thanks Rick!
Very interesting approach! Like layering synthesizers
It's like the clean guitar version of what Brian May did in Queen, very cool take on the idea
Thanks for watching Tufif!
@@BobbyHuff You're welcome! I've watched a few of your videos so far, but I think this is the first time I've commented on one. Keep up the good work, I'm learning all sorts of new tricks that I can hopefully use on my next album!
@@tufif thanks for watching and commenting!! Hopefully they will be useful on ur album!
"It would have been easy to use keyboard"
- Case closed.
But it wouldn't have sounded the same. Sometimes you have to go the extra mile to get the sound you want.
@@platterjockey That was kind of a joke ...
@@whynottalklikeapirat ...OK...
@@platterjockey YEah - it is
I always wondered what made those chores sound so unique. And, now I know. And, knowing is half the battle!
Wow... you're crushing it with that 1176. I woulda been scared to smoosh it that much.
Yeah for this type of sound crush away!!!!
Cowboy Song (and others) by Thin Lizzy utilizes this same kind of thing. Stacked single notes as backing harmonies, not as guitar solos. Much more pristine with Mutt and DL than with the rough Thin Lizzy sound. But, a similar trick. Great Video!
Thanks again Bob, that was an awesome dissection (yes pun intended) of the brilliance of Mutt Lange's creative process. The next time my Father calls someone a Mutt (like he does often) I will have to explain that all Mutt's are not equal!
Hahaha thanks Tim!
Like an Octopus with a pick in each tentacle. I definitely hear it on parts on other Hysteria tracks. Rocket, for sure. It creates this artefact that sounds like the cymbals are adorned with hundreds of tiny cymbals or the glissando of a magic spell. I always thought it was a cymbal effect back in the day. Thank you so much! Mystery solved! Maybe Mutt got the idea from giving RIck Allen another hand, so he might have thought "Why not give Collen more hands as well?" Because this was never done on Pyromania, for example, was it?
I can’t for the life of me understand why trolls will thumbs down these videos? If I owned UA-cam I would require thumbs down to show who did it, and require an explanation for the thumbs down. There would be less unaccountable trolling. 👍🏻
(sigh) Yep. Sadly it's about envy, rage, self-loathing, fear of failure, and so on. I agree with you totally.
Social media is too often about defamation and character assassination.
Haha! Yeah gotta love the haters too! I appreciate you having my back! Maybe the hate the beard????
@@BobbyHuff You Obviously put a ton of time into making these videos, and not only that, coming up with the content, and doing the recording and editing. But even more, you are sharing engineering tips that people spend money to go to Berkeley, or MIT, and through years of grinding experience to learn. I just find it disrespectful to thumbs down a video that is obviously well done. But people going to do what they do. They have a right to their opinion of course, and I have a right to counter that by saying they are dumb asses. 😬 Lol
Keep up the great work man.
Is that Maag EQ worth getting? And I heard some great stuff about the FabFilter Pro Q thing.
Unfortunately they are both fantastic Matt!!!! Haha
Sounds like an insane prospect prior to digital editing lol. I could see for one particular section or effect
What drum samples did you use? I love the snare!
Good choice on the guitar used. Variax JTV 59, I love mine.
Haha! Thanks!
When you play single guitar lead lines separately like on double or triple lead guitar, the vibrato and envelopes of each note in each line are different than if played in chords together. Not better, just different... and I think that's what your excellent video is illustrating here. And it also gives the mixing engineer more control over which voices--guitar voices--to bring forward and backward. But thinking about that level of detail in the automation gets me... well... I wouldn't want to do it unless I was paid a lot. But you could gate out a lot of noise that might otherwise live in chord transitions. Now after watching your video... I might try it.
One thing similar to this - and maybe you can try it out, is for a guitar to be mixed to where the pan from left to right depends on the pitch. So, if someone were to play a scale, a listener with headphones would hear it going from lower left to upper right as the scaled progressed. Sometimes a xylophone is recorded this way, with two mics, so as they go higher the other mic picks it up. I just think it would create a cool effect while listening with headphones.
Yes very cool and great comment!
Awesome, bud! Yep, the best producers strive to make things work,
regardless of how strange it may seem to the players. Ravel did stuff like this
to make violins sound like guitars. Ha! If we're not experimenting, we're not progressing :)
Thanks bud!
Thanks Sean!
If I remember right I don’t think there was any drumming on the album. It was separate drum strokes pieced together.
Actually did this on a bass part once. The part had the A string droning off a run on the D and G strings and EQ’ing the part was a nightmare. Either the whole thing sounded way too thin or the droning A string made the whole thing sound like mud. We tried recording the A string separately which made eq’ing much much easier plus a little volume automation worked like a charm.
Wow! Awesome!
I used this technique using a Tascam syn-cassette 4 track in 1984
Nice…
Dude, smashing job on this one! .. Really probably one of my all time favorite songs and productions.
Hey Steve!!! Thanks my friend!!!
Incredible how far someone will go for THE SOUND. That album has always been one of my favourites.
No doubt man!!
Oh that's not even that big of a deal. :-) It reminds me a little of how Bohemian Rhapsody had so many overlapping vocal parts, particularly the "Magnifico-oh-oh-oh" thing. Just typical studio chicanery. :-D
This channel should be so much larger. Love your content!!! 👍 🤘 🤘 🤘
Thanks for watching James! We are very happy with the growth and thankful for people like you!
Thanks, Doc. I like the album well enough, though when it released I was disappointed that it wasn’t Pyromania-heavy. That said, Hysteria is my favorite track and an all time great song, and that is its most iconic section.
Great video on guitar sounds. Mutt is crazy creative. Also, I heard that Chris Cornell screamed into guitar pickups for a vocal part on Black Hole Sun. Any truth to that? As always, great job Doc!
Thanks Dolb I appreciate you watching. Yes that is true he did scream into his guitar!
I have a Rockman Sustainor and got the same sound with just that box (adding chorus and other fx make it complete). Love that sound! Thanks!
Rockman makes great stuff!!
The notes by themselves are hauntingly beautiful too
Agreed!!!
I worked for DigiTech back in the day, in our quest to get tones for our processors we would as everone knows colab with producers and artists.
My understanding was Mutt recorded each note individually summed them, came out of the console then ran them through a rockman for processing. I've heard it done this way and it sounds amazing as does yours.
The only reason I comment is, and maybe I missed something but are you adding the effects on each high, mid and low guitar track?
Thanks again for this. Very cool stuff! I'd love to see you dissect how they get that bright, popping sound in the main riff & intro of Armageddon It. I use a little poppy palm-muting and upstrokes to emulate that sound but I've wondered how they did it on the record, if it too is single string recording.
Thanks man! Great idea!
The tone on the whole album is killer.
Agreed Rob
Didn't Dave Lombardo do something similar on the Slayer album Show No Mercy? But with drums obviously.
Just got around to this… very nice! Allan Holdsworth did a similar trick with the band UK. At the end of the song “Mental Medication,” Allan does some great chord work, with each note being played separately. Massive sound.
Love Holdsworth!! Next level……BRILLIANT!!!!
old school rocker here. i grew up listening to these records hysteria was ground breaking. i didn't like it at first like most of us "purist" metal heads that dabbled glam and pop. of course the obligitory ratt and van halen are required but def leppard just sounded different. i began to notice how much different the album sounded i started to really listen. after hearing the song hysteria for years i was listening to it one day and realized its probably one of the best sounding songs ive ever heard. amazing song amazing recording. amazing talent both musical and at the console. the entire album is a masterpiece but the song hysteria is in a league of its own. mutt lang is amazing.
Agree Scotsman!!
The guitar part winds up sounding VERY much like the guitars of The Fixx.
Erwin Musper who is a friend of mine and engineered for Mutt Lange did tell me that he would sometimes record each Bass note on a different track...for example...all the G's on 1 track all the A's on another etc. He did this so he could EQ them individually. Again, that was told to me personally by his engineer ;)
Thanks Chris. Makes sense to me! I actually did a video on this about getting great low end. I didn’t use Mutt as an example but I think Max Martin is on the thumbnail…
@@BobbyHuff Coolness! You're very welcome :)
I wonder if they came up with it originally in a more harmonized distorted solo way?
I like it when it's done like a looper where you add on each part on top of each other as opposed to just hearing the one string. It should be done like vocal harmonies.
Cool…
It just sounds like he was trying to avoid bleed and frequency clashing… I mean it is super picky but not all that shocking once you get past the hyperbolic headline….(not meant as an insult… )
Damn. That's two things in a row I've learned from this channel. Thanks, I just subscribed.
Thanks David and I appreciate the sub my new friend!
@@BobbyHuff thank you for the insights.
I did this song in a band where I was the only guitar player. It was a bit stressful as there was NOTHING to hide behind when performing this. Not only because there wasn't another guitar but because of the slow tempo. The guitar was very exposed. The slightest mistake would be heard by everyone.
Well you def didn’t want ME playing it then!! Hahahaha
@@BobbyHuff I've made my fair share of mistakes on this song and others. 😅
I really enjoyed this one Bobby. Great work. The filmmaking is top notch too. take care.
Thanks so much Mark!!
Great video Bob! Sounds very close to the record and cool to see it finally broken down like this. To my ear the delay sounds a little off from the actual recording, but I'm probably wrong. (Wouldn't be the first time.) Keep up the awesome vids, man!
Thanks man! Delay may not be the same! I didn’t really try to nail the sound exactly but I tried to nail the part! Close enough to get the point across!!
Cool trick you uncovered! 🐕
Aside. Richard Marx wrote Angelia based on Def Leppard. He is a fan of the Hysteria album. Mutt was unavailable 😖, but RM got the late David Cole to produce Angelia with him. Would analyzing Angelia or other Richard Marx songs be possible future videos for you?
Note: Keith Urban worked with him a lot!
I haven't watched this video yet, but I always wondered, as a beginner, why they wouldn't record only the strings used, even if it meant removing strings. Be back after watching....
Bobby - You never disappoint!
Thanks Steve!
I’ve just come across your channel. Loved the last couple of Mutt Lange items. The bv’s he did with Shania were amazing as well. Quick question, and I’ve looked through the comments before asking, what drum sounds are you using? They absolutely nail that Rick Allen sound.
Hey Mark. They are some sounds I’ve gathered and put together to emulate that Hysteria vibe. Thanks for watching the channel!
that was still awesome, i was reliving some childhood nostalgia lol.
What's missing is contrasting/comparing the composited solo notes with playing the actual chords.
I guess we will have to trust Mutts ears!
To my ear on my old cassette. I pick a higher guitar part. It might be an octaver effect.
I just pluck strings.
So you are saying guitars were harmonized?!?! Whoa!
I wonder if it was because of the guitars tuning / intonation imperfections?
Mutt knows his shizzle. The man could move some serious sales units.
Absolutely!!
I have always wondered how they got that sound. I’ve played along with that song thousands of times and could never get it 🙃
It sounds like Joe Satriani employed this trick on some of his earlier recordings, too.
Not Of This Earth!
"A little more randomly" - what...? That part hits beat 1 of every other bar, that's extremely structured and not even a single hint of randomness!
Random in context to the other parts where every note was played
@@BobbyHuff Highly disagree. The other parts have a repeating pick-up line by two 8th notes before beat 1 every other bar, which this part simply skips. Nothing random about it even in context with the other parts.
@@MrGul Um.....okay....what you said....
So, he made the chorus sound by singling out the strings? Interesting. I figured this would happen if anybody did this, but that sound, you can nail that with chorus.
I swear, Mutt's work, especially this album, could be, and has been, analyzed for decades.
Agreed!!
Love your Mutt Lange videos. The guy is a mystery and so damn talented. Love hearing more about his techniques.
Thanks Mark!!
I think Muse have used this approach when recording their album Absolution.
I knew he did this but I'd seen the band explain it and knew he hadn't tracked every chord on the album one string at a time. Maybe I should start and make it my signature thing? I think you can hear Mutt's sound all over the stuff he did with Shania Twain and he also worked with an Irish band called The Corrs, on a later album, and it's pure Mutt Lange production, big, shiny, expensive sounding.
Yes I loved all of that. The Corrs song “Breathless,” sounded like a Shania Twain melody to me….Very hooky!!!!!
wasnt this album all done with rockman gear and g&l m25o's????
Tons of people can sing. Tons of people can write decent songs. But very few people can take an average song and make it amazing. Mutt Lange is a genius. He can make anyone a top seller
Agreed Chad!
Billy Corgan recorded Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream album with multi tracked single string chords, it does give an awesome full sound to the guitars.
I have read several interviews now but can’t find a single mention of it. I highly doubt they did that. They did multitrack the guitars heavily though.
@@linusfotograf Maybe I was mistaken, I had heard they used up to 5 tracks to create the harmonizer effects for one guitar part. I remember back when the album came I was looking for an effect pedal to create that kind of monster tone. The owner of a local guitar shop told me he thought they must have multi tracked the guitar chords by playing the same part several times but on different strings to create the full chords. Might just be my bad memory from 30 years ago. I could not find and specific articles or interviews with Billy online about the subject either.
@@jasonrackawack9369 Maybe he did so on a certain passage just like in this video
Amazing tone. So much meticulous work from Mutt and the band. Brilliant!!!
Agreed Aljon!
"Second note" Then proceeds to play multiple notes on the same string.
Can't unhear the Master of Puppets snare.