ive been playing guitar on and off for about a year and a half. i used to play bass but i have recently given it up for guitar. my style of playing not too long ago was pretty heavy, it was definately metal but deffinately not death metal. i actually learned a couple of things from the drummer in my band (triplets, fretboard tapping...) and i wanted your guys' input on other things that may help make me a better death metal guitarist. also ceartain gear that may make my sound a little better.

Well, if your amp doesnt already have good distortion then I would recommend getting a Boss Metal Zone MT-2 pedal if you dont already have one. That will give a good tone. Now for playing--- lots of death metal guitarists use trills, tremelo picking, pinch harmonics played really fast and with lots of distortion.
Listen to some Cannibal Corpse to get an idea then try it out. Its definatly not the easiest style of music to play.

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The best way to do this is to listen and listen to alot of Death Metal bands.
Listen to what the guitar player is doing and listen to the drums. The drums is an important instrument to listen to since the drums can change the way everything sounds even if the guitar player stays on the same riff. Listen to the different chords they use and how some bands will use some leads mixed in with chords without doing an actuall solo spot. Practice on your down picking. Especially Fast down picking. Be creative.

what are trills and harmonic pinching? i can already do tremolo picking and not too fast at it yet but its a decent speed. i have a crate xt120r amp that actually has a good amount of distortion. it has a rhythm channel which is distorion and it has a solo channel with a lot of distortion, as well as a clean channel. but the problem is i dont like playing on rhythm channel too much and when i turn up real high on solo to play with my band i get way too much feedback and its dam annoying. i no part of the problem is the pickups but i cant do much about taht right now. and i went to guitar center about a month ago and tried out some pedals, not sure if i tried the metal zome, but i tried the metal master and it was real good (expensive!!) and i also liked the dod death metal distortion pedal but once again laods of feedback. oh and i have heard some cannibal corpse songs and they seem like a very good death etal band.

are trills and triplets the same thing?

No, a trill is a very short and fast alternate picked note, just like tremolo picking but a bit different

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the most important thing is to play clean and tight. some guys wanna play death metal ( wich isnt that hard if u keep on practising) and start trying to play fast but they don't even got the riffs at the low speed. try to play everything with a clean sound to aviod misktakes and noises. i know some players who were ok at speedpicking (about 180 bpm 16th feel) but they never learned how to play tight and without mistakes. and when they got their new amp they sounded like shit becuz the distortion wasn't muddy like their old ones.

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For good death metal influence I would suggest listening to:

Morbid Angel-any cd is good really. The guitarist here(Trey)
uses a lot of Poly-Rythyms(different rythyms going at a time,etc)
Hypocrisy uses these at times too.
Immolation-they use a great combination of different chords, harmonics and time signatures..a great band to learn from..
Kataklysm-good for the hyper blast music!
Obituary-classic old school death metal.
Death-Classic old school death metal, with death, listen to Leprosy(for more fast/palm muting techniques, and The sound of perserverance(for more variation in speed and technique/time signature/tempo changes..

Also get Suffocation!! They have a new cd coming out in May in case you've never heard of them. They are probably the most misunderstood and complicated death metal band you'll ever hear. I attempted a few tunes, but I haven't got them downpatted just yet. I'm trying to get some tunes of off the cd "Effigy of the Forgotten". I wish production and sound were a little better back in the day.lol..

Anyway, there you go man....

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If i were u , i wouldnt just focus on trying to play death metal, variation and practice is the key to becoming a good guitarist. So just learn as much as you can and jam with mates or even better a drummer and u'll be shit hot in no time

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Wrong. A Trill is a very fast hammer-on/hammer-off sequence (5h6p5h6p5). A triplet is a note picked in forms of three, usually in a fast gallopy fashion.

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No Cannibal Corpse??
Theres some awesome/easy songs off tomb of the mutilated. They influenced me a lot.

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so the way u put it darko seems to me that trills and fretboard tapping are the same. is this true or are hey similar?

Oh yeah, Cannibal Corpse! How could I forget! In repliance to the last reply above, fretboard tapping is different than what was mentioned. In fretboard tapping, your using both your hands, in trilling...like Darko mentioned....
5h6p ,etc.. your striking the 5th fret with your pic and your index finger, and then tapping the 6th fret with your middle finger basically. Almost works like a slide, except a slide uses the same finger(s).. I don't know if your a Steve Vai fan..but if your not curious of it, pick up Guitar World magazine.. it's got Steve Vai in there and shows all of these tricks...
I'm sure you can learn on your own, but just telling you what I know...

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Learn how to palm mute, alternate picking is also especially handy. Listen to a lot of DM and try and work out the guitar for yourself, it will help your ear. You'll have to downtune the guitar. I found Obituary were good to jam along with, not too difficult rhythms. Once you get good try playing some Atheist, that'll test your skills.

A good example of trills being used in a riff is Staring through the eyes of the dead By Cannibal Corpse.

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That is actually a BRILLIANT reference. No sarcasm either.

In order to play more death metal, you need to, as someone said, immerse yourself in bands that you like and learn some of their techniques.

Trilling is big. Palm Muting, though it has become more of a stereotype, is one of your biggest things. Learn how to Tremelo pick (alot of black metal bands utilize this). Try Chromatic Excercises to get your finger's in shape and to learn accuracy and also speed. Listen to a few of these bands and you'll learn the basics:

Suffocation - Any album
Cannibal Corpse - Earlier stuff for less monotony
Opeth - Any album. Their playing is more technical than i can explain
Quo Vadis - Day Into Night. This showcases technical death at its best.
Deicide - Not very complicated, but it shows you how simple some death metal can be.
Obituary - Old School. This is how it is done.
Death - Enough said.

Now get to it and dont come back until you listen to all of this.

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These are all good tips and snippets of advice but don't forget to use scales that fit well with death metal. Simple pentatonics and blues scales will not do at all. Use the melodic and natural minor scales and to mix things up a bit try the half-whole and whole-half tone scales. In the key of E:

Natural minor:

E|-0-2-3-5-7-8-10-12-|

Melodic minor:

E|-0-2-3-5-7-8-11-12-|

Half-whole tone (diminished scale):

E|-0-1-3-4-6-7-9-10-12-|

Whole-half tone (inverted diminished or augmented scale):

E|-0-2-3-5-6-8-9-11-12-|

It's best to remember the intervals between the notes rather than the actual positions so that you can remember them easier for different keys. So in intervals with w1/2=1.5 steps (3 fret interval), w=whole step (2 fret interval) and h=half step (1 fret interval) we have:

Natural minor:

|-w-h-w-w-h-w-w-|

Melodic minor:

|-w-h-w-w-h-w1/2-h-|

Diminished:

|-h-w-h-w-h-w-h-w-|

Augmented:

|-w-h-w-h-w-h-w-h-|

Compare these with the scales in E to see what I mean. Also try the chromatic scale in small flourishes to include notes that the listener won't be expecting. Anyway, I hope that helps.

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You could also spell out the half-steps with numbers, less confusing I think. So the E Harmonic Minor is made up of the following formula:

intervals: 1,2,b3,4,5,b6,7
half-steps: 2-1-2-2-1-3-1
notes: E,F#,G,A,B,C,D#

Nice post John, there is a wealth of information in it.

Thanks, man. I think it's very important to play the right scales in DM. Simple scales (like the pentatonic, even the major scale) just sound crap. I think, possibly, that the half step method (the second one you mention) is easier to remember than w, w1/2 and h. That way, you have an automatic association with the number of frets that comprise the interval. But yeah, we mean the same thing, it just depends on which way is easier for people to learn.

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being able to trem pick and palm mute while staying in tempo, knowledge of power chords, being able to trem pick chords for that rumbling effect. Just listen to Devourment or Cryptopsy, get some metal tabs to guide you, you should be alright.

Another good pedal for death metal that I own is a DOD FX86B Death Metal Distortion pedal. Its good for both guitar and bass. It has some good raw power good for speedy riffs. I use it with my Warwick bass, and it sounds amazingly awesome when you pull off some slaps and other stuff like that. But if your playing guitar, its good with power chords and solos.

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I dont like DOD very much...

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I think DOD is a cheaper version of Digitech, because I'm always reading them as one in reviews and shit like that. I have a Digtech Death Metal, and it has pretty noticeable differences when you move the EQ knobs around. Not just good for death metal but metal in general. I can get a Kill 'Em All tone or a Slaughter of the Soul sound with a dial of a knob! Some good playing techniques in terms of death metal are defintely speed picking and palm muting, a good majority of death metal riffs are JUST those 2. Also, if you can build up your general playing speed up to ,oh, about a Rein In Blood song, you will have NO trouble adapting to death metal, the only challenges would be how complex and technical you can take it.

if you could read, this thread is 2 years old

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No shit. The guy is never going to see your post. Another thing, have you noticed the Metal Master pedal has no gain knob? It is completely worthless without it.

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How do people find these old threads? And then feel that their advice or opinions way down the road somehow are still relivant? Not to be too.. attacking, just something i've posed since it really doesn't make that much sense.

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^ I was just about to post the exact same thing.

the irony of this statement is that if someone asks something like this in a new thread, they normally get dumped all over (especially by anal-retentives like BLS) for not using the infamous "search button" ..they just can't win.

no in this circumstance the noob was posting shit to try help the person even though its been 2 years and they have probably left, if a noob asked a question then it would be alright

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I have a Metal Master pedal and it's no shit Soulinsane, u can get decent tone out of it. It is on max gain constantly, but it's not useless. I'm not defending it 'cause i have it, it's because really on the rehearsals i almost always get the right tone from it. Of course, i would rather have an tube amp, say JCM 900, or Mesa, but i would rather have 1000000000000000000000 euros in gold also.

For this "This thread is 2yrs old" thing...The way i see it, threads are not just for the sake of it's author.

pedals suck, they always make people sound like they're using some little practice amp

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got that right

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