VV’s picking on troygrad forum

[tukoztukoz]

Some talk about VV... Do you agree with what they say?

https://forum.troygrady.com/t/vinnie-vi ... cking/1070

[Genebaby]

Troy himself is quite the master and has studied picking technique, going in "super deep" with Michael Angelo Batio, when he discovered the crazy way Michael can pick via one of his old videos.

They got Michael in to talk and film how he does it, to achieve his monster speed.

There is definitely something going on with the first album tuning wise. You just can't grab your guitar and play along with it, so people have been saying it's been sped up for a long time, which as you can read, makes no sense. Vinnie can play super fast, so he didn't need to be sped up for reasons of making it seem like he is a fast player.

It's a good question to actually ask Vinnie these days, would love to know the answer as to why it's tuned the way it is.

[Kuron]

Some talk about VV... Do you agree with what they say?

I agree with what I put in italics, below:

... when Vinnie slows down a little, his technique actually looks cool, with a crosspicky element to the alternate picking and an interesting hybrid approach on top of that. And his note choices are really interesting. He does all kinds of jazz-influenced things in major tonalities that metal players have tended to avoid. This is a guy who didn’t need to speed up anything - he was already too fast. He needed to slow down a tiny bit, and the lead playing would have benefited greatly.

His songwriting chops were of course great, and probably need no introduction.


I have always preferred Vinnie's melodic style over his speed style. Which is why I prefer the second VVI album over the first and prefer all of his old stuff over the first VVI album. As a songwriter, he has written some of the most beautiful songs ever recorded.

My influences are Jerry Reed, Glen Campbell and Vinnie Vincent. Although a short list, it is one hell of a list!

[tukoztukoz]

« His playing was horrendously sloppy, and on top of that, he is the only case I can think of off the top of my head where a player actually sped up their solos on the record. It’s a common accusation in the YouTube era that probably doesn’t happen as often as people think, but Vinnie actually did it. And he mimed to those sped up performances on his REH video. Later parts of the video, in the instructional section, also look sped up but I don’t know how they would have controlled the pitch of the guitar with the tech that was available at the time, unless maybe he was detuned to start with. »

I don’t think VV’s playing was sloppy, he just played irregular pulsating patterns, full of life . Also I don’t think his solos were sped up, especially on the REH vid.
I’m waiting for Troy to crack VV’s code for real. Harder than cracking MAB’s code!

[poserboy71]

Fuck, Can we put the sped-up solo bullshit to rest.

Everyone knows that Vinnie could play the music.

I liken the slightly sped-up tracks to what they did to a lot of records in the early stages of Rock music (1950s)...Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis,etc...
IT LIFTS THE EXCITEMENT LEVEL A NOTCH !

[Genebaby]

You really could have phrased the start of your post differently.

The last half was good though.

[shramiac]

Yes. I've no doubt there were some studio sped up bits (Boyz IS in Bb) but, as PB said, "Vinnie COULD play the music!".

AND...live they used backing track vocals which meant the songs had to be played at the same speed live as they were done in the studio otherwise, the vocals would have been out of tune! Bleh!

As well, I agree with tuko that Vinnie wasn't sloppy. He was a tad sloppy on the REH video during the improv parts but it was obviously a rushed production. His ability to REPEAT what he played during the actual lesson parts, still freaks me today.

[tukoztukoz]

Grady wrote that, so, yes, « fuck »!
On the same thread or another one about VV in Grady’s forum, there are people talking and knowing about the REH staff. It would be cool to hear from them about the VV sessions.