i've been writing for a long time but just recently got into technical metal. when i get to the second guitar parts i never know what to use for harmonies of the two guitars. i wish i could figure out aletheian's but their amps are just insane and add a lot to the harmony. so my question is open to anyone, what harmonies do you use and do you know any cool ones other than the normal death metal tones?

someone who knows aletheian's trick would be helpful too...

they have some mp3's posted here http://www.myspace.com/aletheian

harmony meaning the sound of the two guitars together playing different notes on the guitar.

*sorry for the melodies/harmonies typo in the original! i always mix them up the two words up.

for hamronies u can use a 3rd note from what ur playing (if its scale wise)

im not sure what u exaclty mwean, my english isnt good enough to completely unerstansd what u want

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Note that melodies are different from harmonies. My melodies mainly come from the Aeolian Mode (Natural Minor Scale), which allows me to harmonize diatonically. There's plenty for me to play with there.

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Alright thanks man I'll try to get over to home depot at lunch and pick one up.

I don't mean to offend but would you mind rewording that? I'm not really sure I understand what you mean.

Is it wise to detune a guitar with a bolt on neck to let's say drop a ? or does it make no difference if its a bolt on neck or not

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Doesn't make a difference..what IS bad for a neck is tuning too far upwards.

Powers:

Definately haven't been here in a long time, cut me some slack. Didn't even know this thing existed...

Mk, now, if someone could answer this: http://metaltabs.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25755

I'd really appreciate it.

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I'm in the same boat. I'm fluent in my knowledge of theory and what notes to hit, I just can't whip out those patterns at blazing speeds. It's like when I watch my training videos of howe, gilbert, and others, they'll play a pattern slowly, but once they speed it up, it sounds completely different. Guitar One done a issue focusing on strength training. Mostly it was really focusing on the pick hand doing alternate picking with string skipping using chromatics, pentatonic, and other scales. That's what I've been doing. Indeed it's super fuckin boring at times, but will definitely build strength for speed.

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Ohw okay. I alwys figured that if I detune my guitar with bolt on neck to drop A the tension of the strings would kill the neck.

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Nope, I'm playing some Nile as we speak on a bolt on.

Okay sweet

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Trust me, you can detune a bolt-on.

nice job answering my questions, buttholes.

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K, this has nothing to do with playing material, but I've been having problems with my fingers. After playing for some time, I build up calices on my fingers, and they get all hard and shit. Now this has happened twice before on the same finger, the 3rd finger. The calice on it eventually starts ripping off, and it when I start playing and bending strings, it opens up a cut on the finger. Now I've got a fucking open cut on the finger and it hurts like a bitch playing. Anyone else experience this before, or anyone know a way to like put something on your finger so you can play w/out it hurting?

Slap a bandage on it, down a few shots of whiskey, and voila, no more pain.

Seriously, I don't really have a good idea. What I do when something like that happens is just try to make the most of it. Like, work on your other fingers. For example, my best frethand fingers are my index and ring, so if one of them were to get cut or I couldn't use them for some other reason, I would just get a workout in with my other weaker fingers. Not that you shouldn't work on all your fingers all the time, but an injury is a good excuse.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I would guess that that happens after you haven't played for a couple of days? You know you are racing against your own body in this case; you try to kill a bit of it and it tries to repair the damage. Be stubborn; the only way to make them permanently hard is keep at it.
Btw, have you noticed that you can impress people by inserting needles into your fingertips?

Now for a small question of my own:
I have a dist pedal that gives a wonderful metal sound. Funny thing is, if I don't modulate the signal with the dist in my amp while using this pedal the volume soars to bloody concert levels, even when I got the pedal's volume almost on minimum. Anyone knows why?

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So when you run the pedal through the clean channel it gets really loud? Have you checked the volume levels on the amp channels?

i have no idea what you mean with calice ... sry my english is fucked up
anyways the n1 rule for all injuries (broken arm... sliced finger... no matter what)
is to stop playing immediatly. you stop playing as long as you dont feel pain anymore otherwise you will make it even worse. and let me make sure that there is no option you will ruin youre playing if you keep on playing and ignore the wound. if calice is something like horny skin you are maybe pushing the strings to hard. but even then its better to stop ...the only the thing that changes is that it will heal much slower

if its something like a wart you have to visit a docter to remove it.

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This may sound crazy, but super glue. A friend of mine, awesome fuckin guitar player, literally has no fingertips on all his fingers. You look at em, and you can see 5 - 6 different layers of skin that have tried to grow back, but be plays 6 - 7 hours a day, and gigs all the time, so the skin never has time to grow in, so he uses super glue, says it works like a charm, comfortably numb.

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