# Guitarists mostly sound the same now?



## eightsixboy (Feb 28, 2018)

So this is just how I've been feeling about a lot of the current online guitarists, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying anyone is bad/crap, I mean I'm one of these kinds of players as well 

It just seems whenever I see someone making a solo album or a band releases an album/song they almost all sound the same generic Plini/Polyphia progy djent thing. Besides some of the older most notable current players like Rick Graham, Martin Miller, Andy James, Angel Vivaldi etc no one seems to really stand out now, like they all watched the same star licks videos or something.

I used to get excited about seeing all these new guitarists coming out with songs or YT vids maybe 4-5 years ago, but now it is almost like everyone is a 0-0-0-0 "insert random tap lick" 0-0-0-0-0-0 whilst using a fret wrap kind of player. 

I grew up listening to players who all had their own style like Greg Howe,Vinnie Moore, Malmsteen, Batio etc, even when you had clones they at least had something unique as well, someone like a Chris Impellitteri etc.

This has me wondering, is guitar, or I should say instrumental guitar, becoming stagnant?


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## bostjan (Feb 28, 2018)

I like to think my stuff is totally different. But here's the thing - most people don't like "totally different" unless it's really really good. 

What's out there is way beyond just what's popular. And if what's popular all sounds the same, it's because something was good and then everyone tried to jump on the bandwagon. It happens a lot. When Creed got popular, they were pretty unique-sounding, but then, something like two years later, there were a billion bands that sounded like them. Going back a little further in time, remember the waves of late British heavy metal, early British heavy metal, ska, 70's punk, new wave, etc. etc....? It's a trend. The fact that a lot of people are now complaining about the trend means that the trend is nearing its end, but we already have tons of threads about "what's next" in metal. Sadly, it looks like metal is going into a sort of dormant state, though.


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## MaxOfMetal (Feb 28, 2018)

Anyone can be technically proficient, it's a lot harder to write compelling music, especially technical and compelling music. 

With social media we now have access to more guitarists, but that doesn't exactly translate into more noteworthy guitarists.


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## TedEH (Feb 28, 2018)

I think I've made similar observations before, then I'll run into something new and cool and exciting and forget all about all the samey-sounding stuff I had complained about. There's probably something to be said about an observable trend in what online-youtube-bedoom-etc players sound like, but it makes sense to me that players within certain communities would influence eachother.


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## jwade (Feb 28, 2018)

Easier access to recording platforms coupled with significantly easier social media usage for spreading material is definitely resulting in people posting a lot of 'I just learned this technique by popular guitarist X' stuff. It definitely seems like musical development has taken a back seat to people trying to be noticed for doing what's popular/already saturated.


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## wannabguitarist (Feb 28, 2018)

I think we're just more aware of all the clones nowadays because of the internet and social media.


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## bhakan (Feb 28, 2018)

I feel like we just reached a point of saturation with shreddy instrumental guitar like we did at the end of the 80s. In another decade it will have another resurgence when this wave isn't such a recent memory and the music scene has changed enough to provide a new take on the sound.

I definitely agree about the internet muddying the waters, but that was equally true 5 years ago yet we still had people like Tosin and Plini. I think there's just gonna be a lull in shred for a little bit.


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## Descent (Feb 28, 2018)

Yep...that's how they sound to me as well.
Even our own Rusty Cooley has jumped on the djent wagon and releases bland chugs interspersed with the occasional "betcha can't play this” lick.


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## ArtDecade (Feb 28, 2018)

I wish more guitarists sounded like Mike Keneally and Guthrie Govan.


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## Vyn (Feb 28, 2018)

Not to mention a lot of the tones that are being heard these days are either the same JP AxeFx patch or a 5150 clone with a drive pedal in front. -flame shield-

Give it another few years and shred will be back I think. Everything else from the 80s has been seeing a resurgence.


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## Opion (Feb 28, 2018)

Just listen to Julian Lage every once in a while to cleanse your ears from all the nauseating repetitiveness coming from the prog metal genre today. 

In all seriousness, I kind of fell off that wave recently and only listen to a select few here and there. It took me til now to finally come around on Polyphia, and I don't even really like most of their stuff or the vibe they're going for but they're insanely talented. I do think social media has been making it harder to find noteworthy examples of great music in that genre. But I've been stepping more into the Jazz realm lately and there's tons of great players out there with their own voice, like Janek Gwizdala and Bob Reynolds (bass player and sax player respectively) who post super insightful vlogs on youtube weekly. 

Basically, listen to jazz.


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## ArtDecade (Feb 28, 2018)

Jazz smells funny, but that Lage is a heck of a player.


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## Eptaceros (Feb 28, 2018)

+1 for Lage, talk about frightening mastery of guitar.

While it is true that almost everything that you come across online can feel like a recycling of the most recent fad, keep in mind that your personal preferences are always recorded and fed right back to you. Add to that the fact that all fads become viral and you have even more of a feedback loop of regurgitation. All you gotta do is broaden your social horizons and I guarantee you'll find guitar playing that is completely unrelated to everything you're seeing and hearing.

You don't even have to stray from metal! Check out this "tournament" on Toilet ov Hell that showcases innovative and under-exposed guitarists of our times.

http://www.toiletovhell.com/the-mos...in-metal-right-now-tournament-quarter-finals/


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## mikah912 (Feb 28, 2018)

I feel the same way about a good majority of the guitarists out there, but there are exceptions:


Emil Werstler - Unlike that instrumental shred album he made with Eyal Levi, his new stuff eschews metal and goes for a cool-ass fusion of spaghetti western, gypsy jazz, industrial, trap and classical (it sounds better than that reads)
Nicholas Llerandi - Whether with Ever Forthright (prog metal), Stimpy Lockjaw (jazz fusion) or his own solo stuff (kinda Jimmy Herring-ish), he stands alone with with chromatic, jazzy runs and restrained tastefulness.
Max Phelps/Matthew Rossa of Exist - Also jazz-based metal guys, but they both smoke live and in the studio. Also, chromatic, but perhaps more lyrical than Nicholas LLerandi
Wes Hauch - I shouldn't have to say more, really.....
Josh Middleton - One of the few modern metal guys playing 6-string standard E, but not just rehashing 80s and 90s riffs.


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## BornToLooze (Feb 28, 2018)

Vyn said:


> Not to mention a lot of the tones that are being heard these days are either the same JP AxeFx patch or a 5150 clone with a drive pedal in front. -flame shield-
> 
> Give it another few years and shred will be back I think. Everything else from the 80s has been seeing a resurgence.


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## Andrew Lloyd Webber (Mar 1, 2018)

I’m just bombastically +1ing sentiments already expressed, but that’s what this site is for anyway:

The electric guitar has been the symbol of mediocrity for ever, and the symbol of corporate america since 1965. Everyone has always aspired to sound like everybody else. But very few achieve even _that _level of mediocrity - The guitar-wearer’s days typically dwindle while sitting on the edge of a bed, growing intoxicated with daydreams of potential they’ll never make concerted efforts to realize.

And Youtube is there to ensure they’re never confronted with running out of fantasies to mull over in the eternal space that precedes realizing them. The constant advent of technology is there to offer the undisciplined the means (and outsourced train of thought) to buy their way out of how they sound and register a Facebook, LinkedIn, Grindr, and Bandcamp for products and enterprises that don’t exist beyond their vaguest of ambitions. By sublimating efforts toward an actual end into uploading the documented going-through of these motions for posterity on Youtube, the undisciplined are allotted a vague sense of legitimization that transubstantiates their nothing to the Upgraded status of “unprincipled.”

This Build-It-and-They-Will-Come approach to self-promotion is what social media and preset-sharing allow the unprincipled to indulge in as an alternative to any endeavor reeking of discipline. And, of course, it is not necessary to actually have a product to promote. I’ve seen local bands, having never performed live, try to crowdfund a debut EP. One closed with four anonymous $10 donations (by sheer coincidence, there were four band members trying to get the Giving spirit rolling).

GuitarBizarre recently described this in a fun way that I’ll butcher: Bands couched in the Build-It-and-They-Will-Come mentality tend to list three band “influences” on their pages, then upload recordings that sound like a cover band playing song sections in the wrong order. Copy-and-paste derivation is the norm for those of the current century, entitled to instant gratification in the celebration of their own Artistry.

And that ties right in with the Axe FX being ubiquitous to every bedroom studio but your grandma’s: When you go to Axechange and see the five most popular presets, you’re seeing what you can hear on fifty thousand SoundClouds. The most popular 6505/Mesa presets don’t always sit well in a mix with the most popular Steven Slate libraries, but it surely sounds good to all the guys bouncing and exporting at 128kps, otherwise why would they insist?

I’ve seen ten thousand views logged on a YouTube video of a guy covering a YouTube cover, and twenty thousand on a reupload of the first cover. This is Making It. And you’re considered especially savvy to film yourself doing this with one particular brand of guitar, and another of the same brand (but in an eye-catching color) hanging on the wall in-frame. This and subscribers totaling more than four digits can constitute your eligibility for endorsement, provided your appearance is relatable to what the brand considers their core Youtube audience to be. Sorry, 40+ year-old man with lesson channel - You’re unskilled enough for us, but you don’t have the right kind of tits.

Typing these phenomena out makes me want to list my priciest gear in my sig. You know, for the interested.


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## oc616 (Mar 1, 2018)

The last time I listened to a guitarist and thought "this isn't a mildly different version of something I've heard before" was my first experience of Tosin. 

Wes Hauch, Andy James, Jason Richardson et al may have certain studio magic or variance in their skills, but none of them struck as being any more than "a good death metal soloist/a good KSE stand in/a modern interpretation of neo-classical 80's stuff" respectively. Yeah, I can and do enjoy some of their songs and albums, but I'd be lying to myself if I said anything I've seen in the past 6 years or so blew me away by being unique enough.


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## Dayn (Mar 1, 2018)

I'll unironically copy what everyone else has said and say it only seems that way because we can see so many people copying each other these days. It's incredibly easy today to see someone, do something similar, and share what you've done in record time. More people see it, so more people get inspired to do it too. So they do. Many will be lost to time, and the best will stand out. As it always is. We're just more aware of it.

I'm proud to say I have a unique sound. But I can't say if it's good. Because even copycats have achieved more by actually recording and releasing music, unlike me. So I can't complain or claim any superiority. While I've been picky about my sound, others have actually just gone and _done it_. I admire that.


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## blacai (Mar 1, 2018)

Nick Johnston. He is just unique.


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## ArtHam (Mar 1, 2018)

+1 At any point I could be listening to David Maxim Micic, Intervals, Plini, Modern Day Babylon, Polyphia, Pomegranate Tiger, Jakub Zytecki even. All of them play more or less the same thing and use more or less the same sounds. If I put them all in a playlist they are all interchangeable.
Nothing new though, happened when Malmsteen came on the scene and when Van Halen got big. It's just that you never really heard about any of the clones safe for the few that were in bands that had good songs.


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## ArtHam (Mar 1, 2018)

Vyn said:


> Not to mention a lot of the tones that are being heard these days are either the same JP AxeFx patch or a 5150 clone with a drive pedal in front. -flame shield-
> 
> Give it another few years and shred will be back I think. Everything else from the 80s has been seeing a resurgence.


Either that or guitar playing will become drastically unhip again and the grunge thing will re-emerge.


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## MaxOfMetal (Mar 1, 2018)

ArtHam said:


> Either that or guitar playing will become drastically unhip again and the grunge thing will re-emerge.



I don't think we're ever going to really see a massive swing in any direction again. Music is too accessible.

Back in the day, when TV and FM radio were the only real ways to hear music without direct purchase the scene could easily be switched and sway one way or another, now not so much.


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## JohnIce (Mar 1, 2018)

I think it's more that artsy visionaries of today are less likely to stick to the guitar, since they have way more possibilities with Ableton, ROLI, Native Instruments etc. I've written a lot of cool sounding things in the box and, being a guitar player primarily, adapted it to guitar and it usually comes out sounding a little less... interesting. It may sound different "for a guitar" but still not as different as the Reaktor patch already did.

So with that out of the way, a lot of guitar players fighting for attention these days and self-promoting their asses off are really just trying to get recognition for their guitar playing and tone. I.e. trying to rise through the ranks as objectively "good" at it for clicks and likes. And for something to be objectively good you need a reference, something to measure by. You wouldn't be able to say xx guitar player is better than yy guitar player unless the style and tone was similar enough to compare the two, so here we are, wading through guitar players sounding the same because if they all had unique styles, how could we tell who wins?


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## Jacksonluvr636 (Mar 1, 2018)

bostjan said:


> I like to think my stuff is totally different. But here's the thing - most people don't like "totally different" unless it's really really good.
> 
> What's out there is way beyond just what's popular. And if what's popular all sounds the same, it's because something was good and then everyone tried to jump on the bandwagon. It happens a lot. When Creed got popular, they were pretty unique-sounding, but then, something like two years later, there were a billion bands that sounded like them. Going back a little further in time, remember the waves of late British heavy metal, early British heavy metal, ska, 70's punk, new wave, etc. etc....? It's a trend. The fact that a lot of people are now complaining about the trend means that the trend is nearing its end, but we already have tons of threads about "what's next" in metal. Sadly, it looks like metal is going into a sort of dormant state, though.



TL;DR - Just don''t read all of this nonsense and rambling.

I like this reply from bostjan.

I am a bit older so I am typically stuck on the same bands. I try to find new stuff but it is very hard for me to do so. I feel like the grandpa that says kids these days, smh.

I could not get into the djent thing at all. I love Meshuggah but that is as far as it goes for me and that is what I consider djent, I dislike how that genre evolved into what it is now.

I know that is mostly what this site is and I am not trying to offend anyone here, I just do not like today's kind of metal. There are a few bands here and there that I can really get into but I still feel that the late 90's/early 00's have some of the best music metal has to offer.

I recognize the level of skill and talent has gotten insanely good for a lot of younger kids today, I just do not like how they implement it. I am a metalhead for sure but lately I find myself enjoying listening to other genres like the band Marbin for example or maybe some classical music.

My post is mostly about bands I know but to me the youtube guys I do not watch because of their music. It is more for an entertainment or informational purposes.

Some examples would be Fluff. He is the man, #1 YT guy for me, I love his gear demos. He knows his stuff and I can always count on a good review.

Jared Dines, funny AF and I watch him to laugh my ass off.

Rob Scallon is the bees knees. For me he covers great comedy (mad libs is epic) but his music is freaking amazing to me. Right up my ally.

I know there are way more guys out there but I think it just depends on what you are looking for and what reasons you watch/listen. As far as everything sounding the same I agree with my quoted reply from bostjan. That is not uncommon and is just how it goes with every generation.

I do think metal has become stagnant for sure but I also feel metal isn't even metal anymore. I am ready to see what the next phase will be but unfortunately I am pretty sure I will not be the guitarist to bring it to you haha.


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## Lemonbaby (Mar 1, 2018)

Short answer: no. You've probably made the mistake to dig out similar sounding guitarists on purpose...


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## Avedas (Mar 1, 2018)

The only metal I've been remotely interested in during the last few years has been the artists going farther into the prog side or whatever other genre they mix in. Unless it's Animals as Leaders or Meshuggah I mostly don't care about ERG work, and definitely not binary chug garbage. Yes it's fun to play and dick around with, but so are shitty dad rock blues licks which I also don't want to sit around and listen to intently either. Riding your downtuned 8th string in a 21/16 time signature doesn't make your music "prog".

I actually hate how Youtube just immediately puts you in an echo chamber of whatever you've been listening to recently. I go on a kick of listening to David Maxim Micic and Owane and that type of stuff is all I see in my home page. Yes I enjoy it but it's hard to overcome to algorithms to get recommendations of other stuff.


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## groverj3 (Mar 1, 2018)

I sort of disagree. I think this has always been the case, it's just that it's easier to promote yourself if you sound very similar to what's already out there. Tons of people in the 80s wanted to be EVH, and tons sounded very similar. They didn't necessarily have the ability to promote themselves like with YouTube today.

I don't even necessarily think it's a problem. People like what they like, they want to play what they want. Complaining that people sound the same is like an "old man yells at cloud" sort of situation. I'm sure there are those who would say the players you think are too similar have their own unique styles too. Kind of like how all the blues guys at the store I took lessons at as a kid wrote off anyone who played anything fast using scales other than the pentatonic minor as being "one of those shred guys that all sound the same."


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## musicaldeath (Mar 1, 2018)

There are still some gems out there for sure though. Guys like Scott Carstairs in Fallujah have some serious chops and I think he manages to sound fairly unique. Basically if Holdsworth played Tech/Death metal. Plus, the videos Scott releases of him just noodling around or practicing, albeit few and far between, are really cool. I know he isn't really an instrumental kind of guy, but Fallujah does have some long spans in tracks of pure instrumental music, or pseudo instrumental music (the songs Dreamless and Chemical Caves comes to mind).

We are just saturated with a lot of guys with technical ability. And I think Max said it earlier in the thread, but that doesn't always translate well to song writing.


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## fps (Mar 1, 2018)

On youtube you're mainly listening to tonnes of very, VERY incomplete bedrooms players. The people you're listing are professional musicians and experts on their guitar, who also have the support and time to really develop their tone too. That's the main difference.


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## eightsixboy (Mar 1, 2018)

ArtDecade said:


> I wish more guitarists sounded like Mike Keneally and Guthrie Govan.



Yea forgot about Keneally. Still one of the best out there. I remember him on tour with Vai and being blown away by his musicality.



Opion said:


> Just listen to Julian Lage every once in a while to cleanse your ears from all the nauseating repetitiveness coming from the prog metal genre today.
> 
> In all seriousness, I kind of fell off that wave recently and only listen to a select few here and there. It took me til now to finally come around on Polyphia, and I don't even really like most of their stuff or the vibe they're going for but they're insanely talented. I do think social media has been making it harder to find noteworthy examples of great music in that genre. But I've been stepping more into the Jazz realm lately and there's tons of great players out there with their own voice, like Janek Gwizdala and Bob Reynolds (bass player and sax player respectively) who post super insightful vlogs on youtube weekly.
> 
> Basically, listen to jazz.



Don't worry I have been listening to Lage a lot lately, such a talent, like freakish talent.

I honestly never got the whole Polyphia vibe either, I like there early stuff way more then the newer stuff, which to me, all the tracks seem to blend into one sound almost.



mikah912 said:


> I feel the same way about a good majority of the guitarists out there, but there are exceptions:
> 
> 
> Emil Werstler - Unlike that instrumental shred album he made with Eyal Levi, his new stuff eschews metal and goes for a cool-ass fusion of spaghetti western, gypsy jazz, industrial, trap and classical (it sounds better than that reads)
> ...



Cool, some guys there I hadn't heard of, checking them out now.



blacai said:


> Nick Johnston. He is just unique.



Nicks awesome.

One thing I found/find weird is how come Nick got super popular real quick but other similar players didn't, like Tom Quayle or Rick Graham. As much as I love Nick's playing, to me, Tom or Rick are the kings of Legato and that sort of playing.



Lemonbaby said:


> Short answer: no. You've probably made the mistake to dig out similar sounding guitarists on purpose...



Well if you look at the prog/metal stuff I think almost all the new players sound the same. The only reason I mention this genre is it seems to be what most solo guys are playing or what's the most popular in the guitar community at the moment.

Short of Nick Johnston or Jason Richardson I can't really think of any new player who has had a real impact in the last few years in terms of being different or setting the bar. Basically all the other main players, regardless of genre, had already been around or "known" for many many years.

Another player I really dig is Al Joseph, but he has also been around for many years, but I don't see him really getting any recognition which is a little sad. To me this kind of thing is much more musically interesting and diverse then say Polyhia or Jason Richardson. Then there's also Brian Maillard and Marco Sfogli, who also seen to go unrecognised in the guitar mainstream for some reason.

I could listen to this kind of instrumental stuff all day and never get bored.


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## QuantumCybin (Mar 1, 2018)

I started following Al Joseph on Instagram a little bit ago, and the dude had serious chops and he does vocals in his band. Lots of respect for him, and his blue Ibanez with the gold hardware is super sexy.

I think Nick Johnston is gaining more traction than Rick Graham because Nick is touring a LOT. Graham doesn’t really tour at all, unless I’m wrong, but I never see him part of a band or advertising some type of tour.


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## Lorcan Ward (Mar 1, 2018)

I'm glad music scenes get stagnant and over saturated. I'm still discovering new Melodic Death Metal bands from the 00s that were copying In Flames/COB/At the Gates etc, its my fav genre of music and there is still a mountain of bands I haven't discovered yet. 

It happens for every big artist. Most have been forgotten but there used to be hundreds of Yngwie clones doing the neo-classical fender thing. I'm not really into instrumental guitar but I'm sure the Shrapnel lineup was packed full of Vai, Satch and Gilbert clones too but how many of them do people remember.


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## BIG ND SWEATY (Mar 1, 2018)

I mean you're looking into a genre that always ends up sounding the same no matter the era. Any time there's been a resurgence in shred music it's almost always because of one guy/band who then gets their sound copied by every other guy who has decent chops but not many original ideas which isn't necessarily a bad thing since it'll help their playing and push others to try and be more unique. There are plenty of standout guitarists in the genre but right now its in a slump because its a bunch of young guys with insane playing skills who just haven't found their own sound yet.


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## Shoeless_jose (Mar 1, 2018)

I think the ability to create such a polished product on your own is part of what causes the stagnation.

You can sit in your bedroom doing blazing runs to a metronome non stop and tweaking your presets till they are just right and you will be technically proficient and sound good, but you don't get that give and take from playing with other musicians, when someone hears your riff and has something they want to ad to it, or a band member can't keep up with a part so it changes to fit.

A lot of the organic element of songwriting are lost when your band is three tracks of yourself and some drum triggers.


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## Masoo2 (Mar 1, 2018)

Once you get past metal/prog stuff, you begin to see that there's TONS of amazing guitarists out there right now in the indie, pop, shoegaze, and other similar scenes

Mateus Asato, James Valentine, Sleepy Dog, Yvette Young, etc

All of them bring a really unique twist on this lighter/more accessible guitar-based music

There's even tons of excellent guitar playing in emo/post-hardcore/melodic-hardcore as well

Go back 10+ years, kids would pick up guitars to mimick the likes of James Hetfield, Kurt Cobain, etc... Go back 2-4+ years, the djent kid and metalcore wave attracted tons of people to the instrument. Now it's pop and indie music.

Just change where you're looking and I'm certain you'll find tons of amazing guitarists with refreshing playing and takes on the instrument.

edit: add math rock to the list of scenes/genres, thanks bhakan for the reminder


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## bhakan (Mar 1, 2018)

I already posted in this thread but I'm gonna add on more anyway. If you're looking for new, unique virtuosic playing it's still out there, it's just exploring different ideas than shred and prog metal.

Josh Martin uses all kinds of crazy techniques. I highly recommend his videos.


Battles' use of looping and effects really makes some of the most creative use of new guitar tech from the last couple decades and constitutes a whole different kind of technical ability in the tap dancing required to operate all that. 


This is some crazy tapping


I listen to a lot of math rock, and when going through that genre you eventually start to hit the same wall of "lots of people sound the same," but if you take the list of real refreshing players from prog metal, add it to the list of uniqe math rock player, add that to all the crazy jazz musicians, etc etc it starts to look a lot less gloomy.


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## Avedas (Mar 1, 2018)

The worst part of math rock is people who just ramp up the compressor on their clean patch and tap notes that happen to be in key and think that makes it decent technical music. Melody and harmony thrown to the wind.


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## Masoo2 (Mar 1, 2018)

Avedas said:


> The worst part of math rock is people who just ramp up the compressor on their clean patch and tap notes that happen to be in key and think that makes it decent technical music. Melody and harmony thrown to the wind.


same could be said for metal/prog music tbh, but I think that the whole math rock wave hasn't been _completely_ overdone yet so it still doesn't sound that bad/saturated to most people.

I do think many of them need to focus more on the songwriting aspect of it rather than just displays of sheer technicality though, you can't deny that. That Good Game example linked above is a bit wankish but they did so in a really cool way imo, it draws me in rather than pushing me away which I find really uncommon with overly wankish playing.


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## Andrew Lloyd Webber (Mar 2, 2018)

The guys in the Good Game video epitomize the above-average guitarist making the stylistic choice to stand in the hole created by everyone else that’s driven a particular subgenre into the ground by piling onto it.

Brock’s Steamed Hams playthrough is the best guitar performance I’ve seen in years, but his priorities seem to lie with a different unprofitable genre.

Same with Mauricio Torres:



I’d give a nut to play like him, but that music is in direct competition with everyone else tapping with their humbuckers in parallel through a one-knobbed compressor that gets pimped on the Strandberg Facebook page.

Unfortunately, the modern pioneers of two-handed playing are all going to have to go through the motions of sounding like each other before they sound like themselves. But even when they arrive at that, they may end up as cool as Erlend Krauser (below) while still producing equally unmarketable music. I like the stuff, but my liking it won’t pay the bills for anyone.


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## Fathand (Mar 2, 2018)

Genre skipping helps when everything sounds stale. I've become a middle aged fart that dislikes anything new in metal ("I've heard it all before"), so I moved to jazz (Lage!), country (still going through Chet and Jerry Reed, need suggestions for some new guys/gals) and different acoustic genres -> For example, check out these Brazilian acoustic players, they've got 7-strings and they burn: Dino 7 Cordas, Raphael Rabello and Yamandu Costa (there must be loads of others too, but I've just scratched the surface).


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## blacai (Mar 2, 2018)

It's all about trends... and headless+tapping is visually impressive. 
Thanks to social media a lot of young artists are being known, what I find perfect. You can choose whatever you want. I don't need to listen to the same genre two days in a row. 
Just start with a video and let the autoplay flow, you will find very good artists. Or check "old" artists and you will see how they have evolved.

Of course there are a lot of clones out there, but the huge catalog internet offers you is amazing. I am sorry, but I love this music era. Maybe artists complaint about how sh*** money they get or how many hours they need to spend to be visible in this oversaturated merch, but as a consumer of music, I get more than I can manage. I support the artist I like attending their concerts and buying their merchandising or just digital stuff, what 10 years ago I would never have done, I wanted the physical element.


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## Wizard of Ozz (Mar 2, 2018)

Vyn said:


> Not to mention a lot of the tones that are being heard these days are either the same JP AxeFx patch or a 5150 clone with a drive pedal in front. -flame shield-
> .



+1000

This right here. As much as I love the sound of a boosted PV 5150/6505.... it’s been entirely too played out and overdone to death. Stop. Stop it now. Turn off the AxeFx... close the amp sim plug in window... find a decent tube amp with a cab and craft your own tone. Please.


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## Andrew Lloyd Webber (Mar 2, 2018)

Wizard of Ozz said:


> +1000
> 
> This right here. As much as I love the sound of a boosted PV 5150/6505.... it’s been entirely too played out and overdone to death. Stop. Stop it now. Turn off the AxeFx... close the amp sim plug in window... find a decent tube amp with a cab and craft your own tone. Please.



Thinking about a 5150/6505 with a boost in front of it - Are they decent tube amps? I hear whatshisname records with it; and I want to use the same decent tube amps and cabs he does. He’s pretty much my main influence.


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## oc616 (Mar 2, 2018)

Wizard of Ozz said:


> +1000
> 
> This right here. As much as I love the sound of a boosted PV 5150/6505.... it’s been entirely too played out and overdone to death. Stop. Stop it now. Turn off the AxeFx... close the amp sim plug in window... find a decent tube amp with a cab and craft your own tone. Please.



There's an issue here. Not much else is being peddled in the way of an alternative. The difference between a Duel Rec, 5150, Satan and other high-gain amps on the vast majority of songs I've at least been checking out (can even point to Caliban's latest number here) seem interchangeable. The problem? Mids. One might sound a tiny bit deeper, you can probably just blame the bass tone for it, but when even the latest Death Metal albums are chasing Ola Englund's crunchy tone, there's a clear race to meet a certain standard. How is this a problem you may ask? Its an image brought on by us lot. The amount of "their tone is off" comments you can find on this forum alone (see HAARP Machine, At the Gates and Meshuggah threads for examples) is a reflection of comments on social media too. I see them fairly often on YouTube and Facebook comments.

I'd be happy going back to the scooped days of the 90's, but metal in particular has gone on to require tones that reveal the notes more. Tell me, how many of you see these words in relation to a good tone nowadays:

1) Clarity
2) Bite
3) Attack

These often feel interchangeable with other, less used recently, examples like "purrr" or "snarl".


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## GunpointMetal (Mar 2, 2018)

Wizard of Ozz said:


> +1000
> 
> This right here. As much as I love the sound of a boosted PV 5150/6505.... it’s been entirely too played out and overdone to death. Stop. Stop it now. Turn off the AxeFx... close the amp sim plug in window... find a decent tube amp with a cab and craft your own tone. Please.


You don't need a tube amp to craft an original tone. That's just nonsense.
But I agree, the Fluence-into-compressor-into-hi-fi-clean-amp-butterfly-glitch-tap-that-one-jazzy-chord-you-know thing is getting pretty old. Also getting burned out on all the "Safe" prog like the CHON/Polyphia/Plini/Sithu Aye clones. Somebody make some freakin dangerous music!


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## TedEH (Mar 2, 2018)

Of course the differences between amps are going to be negated when everyone is striving for the same produced sound. I think it's a lot of the reason for when people get burned out on metal and heavier music and have to listen to other things for a while. The same humbuckers through mid-to-high-gain with a boost through v30s micd with a 57, double tracked and hi passed on top of sample replaced dry drums and gritty bass gets tiring. The same as the youtube/bedroom sound of AxeFX 5150 models played over midi bass and superior drummer gets tiring after a while.

I get pretty excited whenever someone posts here with original stuff that includes real drums, or unique amps or production styles that aren't the traditional "modern metal" sound. At the same time, there's nothing stopping anyone from just listening to something else for a while.

I find it funny though that the opposite thing kind of happens too though. Whenever a "metal" band strays too far from the formula, they get pretty torn apart for it - just look at Opeth's last release. It's super raw, bassy, analog, warm, etc. Super far from the shiny production of previous releases, and I really appreciated that. Buuuuuuuuut people hated it. Someone in a position of influence in metal circles finally put out something produced with a significantly unique sound and they got torn a new one for it. Oh well.


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## Bloody_Inferno (Mar 2, 2018)

I do agree with the internet making music extremely saturated allowing anyone and everyone getting exposure and hearing too much of similar or the same thing. Sure it's no different than it was per every zeitgeist shift per decade. It's just a lot more pronounced now the rite of passage to exposure is gone and anyone can famous for a few minutes. 

However, I'm a firm believer that the songs are what make the musician. Even if you're heavily influenced by your favorite artist, put your own spin to it with your own music and you'll stand out. I remember talking to the guys at the music store I haunt about the same thing. One of them said how the whole horde of Intervals/Dave Maxim Micic clones are all sounding so indistinguishable that even can't tell the difference between the original guys and the clones. Same with the math core instrumental odd time tapping stuff. The songs are written so similarity it's almost a singularity. Either that, or I've been hearing them too much. Nick Johnston is interesting because he's so different to all his touring peers, and while a dazzling player, his songs are memorable. 

Despite being weary of djent, I love the guys at G5 Project, GOD Guitarists On Demand. Because even the djent heavy guys know that a great melody, a well written song, or both, are above the technical pyrotechnics. And they sound different to each other thanks to their composing style. 

My favorite of the bunch by far is A2C. Simply because he has the best crafted songs of the bunch, and most memorable melodies and even solos, that transcend the instrument making you hum them for days. 





He's my favorite guitar player by far for this decade. I've ripped him of so heavily. 

I would like to think that I have my own voice and style, even with the over saturation, even in the vast sea of many other like minded instrumental guitarists. But of course that's not for me to decide. I did get a cool review out of it, so that's nice.


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## sakeido (Mar 2, 2018)

It's too bad that Intervals did do one album with a vocalist that was fresh and awesome. Great guitar, all good clean vox... then they ditched the vocalist and, overnight, became as generic as generic can be. If vanilla white bread was music, it'd be Intervals/Plini/Chon/whoever else is playing that interchangeable garbage. 

I saw them and Plini at a concert and I couldn't even tell which band was playing which is partly because I wasn't a fan of Plini ever, or Intervals since they ditched Mike, but also because they both put on a terrible show and didn't talk to the crowd. Which is the next problem.. all these guys play their whole shows and do their mime-a-long playthrough videos with their chins tucked down into their necks, looking at their hands the whole time. Try for a stage presence, maybe? 

It was pretty crazy though, I thought djent couldn't get any more boring, derivative and repetitive and these guys have all proven me very wrong. I remember seeing Scale the Summit almost 10 years ago by accident, and thinking they were going to be an opening band forever.. never would have guessed they would spawn so many imitators


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## QuantumCybin (Mar 2, 2018)

sakeido said:


> It's too bad that Intervals did do one album with a vocalist that was fresh and awesome. Great guitar, all good clean vox... then they ditched the vocalist and, overnight, became as generic as generic can be. If vanilla white bread was music, it'd be Intervals/Plini/Chon/whoever else is playing that interchangeable garbage.
> 
> I saw them and Plini at a concert and I couldn't even tell which band was playing which is partly because I wasn't a fan of Plini ever, or Intervals since they ditched Mike, but also because they both put on a terrible show and didn't talk to the crowd. Which is the next problem.. all these guys play their whole shows and do their mime-a-long playthrough videos with their chins tucked down into their necks, looking at their hands the whole time. Try for a stage presence, maybe?
> 
> It was pretty crazy though, I thought djent couldn't get any more boring, derivative and repetitive and these guys have all proven me very wrong. I remember seeing Scale the Summit almost 10 years ago by accident, and thinking they were going to be an opening band forever.. never would have guessed they would spawn so many imitators



I also liked Interval’s record with Mike, then Aaron Marshall basically made Intervals his solo project and The Shape of Colour was okay, there’s two, maybe three songs I like on there. His new one though, The Way Forward, does absolutely nothing for me. I’ve listened to it a handful of times and all the songs sound sooo similar, almost like more interesting elevator music. The guy can play but I liked the band as a whole when Mike and Anup were in it.


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## GunpointMetal (Mar 2, 2018)

sakeido said:


> I remember seeing Scale the Summit almost 10 years ago by accident, and thinking they were going to be an opening band forever.. never would have guessed they would spawn so many imitators


At least (now anyways, or the last tour I saw) StS does have some stage presence.


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## Masoo2 (Mar 2, 2018)

Bloody_Inferno said:


> Despite being weary of djent, I love the guys at G5 Project, GOD Guitarists On Demand. Because even the djent heavy guys know that a great melody, a well written song, or both, are above the technical pyrotechnics. And they sound different to each other thanks to their composing style.



Nice to see some GOD/G5 love in here. They are seriously amazing guitarists and the majority of them are excellent players AND writers. The only one I'm not a huge fan of is Seku but that's moreso my tastes than his writing/playing.


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## coreysMonster (Mar 2, 2018)

Part of the problem is one guy comes out and does something just a little different, and immediately a dozen imitators hit the Youtubes and whatever to the point where it becomes stale before it even gets popular. I mean that's always happened, but now thanks to the internet it gets accelerated so fast it's hard to tell who did what first. I always assumed Plini was the first one to do his kind of music, but then I heard of Chon and the other ones mentioned in this thread and now I don't even know. I still think he does it best, but the problem definitely exists and there doesn't seem to be a good way to counteract that.

It's not just music, either, even smaller video game companies are having their games cloned before they're even released.

Also, with so many people that sound similar, the bar of _how different_ you have to sound to stand out has been raised monumentally higher. Every genre already exists mashed up with every other one in a dozen permutations, you have to be that much more original to stand out.


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## Descent (Mar 2, 2018)

I think the internet has streamlined a lot of cookie cutter hive mentality to approaching the instrument.
There was something to be said about learning few chords and then crafting your chops in isolation.


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## mpexus (Mar 2, 2018)

eightsixboy said:


> Nicks awesome.
> 
> One thing I found/find weird is how come Nick got super popular real quick but other similar players didn't, like Tom Quayle or Rick Graham. As much as I love Nick's playing, to me, Tom or Rick are the kings of Legato and that sort of playing.



Nick is amazing but I dont think he just popped out all of a sudden.

He has 4 records and he started getting his momentum right before last album came out. He "exploded" with the last recordthats for sure, not only because of the Music but because intelligently he made videos for all songs (or almost). That alone gave him a leverage of presence none of the other have.I found him by watching YT videos and clicking to listen to new people, loved what i heard and kept digging and kept loving more and more, got hooked first day.

Nick is known for playing this super cool tunes, Tom for doing Demos on YT and Rick for showing us this super super difficult things that he makes it look anyone can do without any effort 

Also Nick has a "unique" style of playing, he doesn't shred (in the literal sense) and the songs always have something.

Tom and Rick are MONSTERS players, especially Rick... but... it seems I heard all that before. Its amazing for sure and he is probably the most technical talented of the 3, but to me Nick that seems the simplest one is also the one that captivates me. 

Now regarding the main question of the OP... How many of you that play for real consider yourselves unique in what you do? Curious question.


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## GunpointMetal (Mar 2, 2018)

I suck in my own special way.


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## Drew (Mar 2, 2018)

blacai said:


> Nick Johnston. He is just unique.


That was my first thought too. I think _djent _has gotten incredibly homogeneous and derivative, and really always kind of struck me as a lot of guys trying to sound like bulb even fairly early on, but I think there's a wide range of guitar music still being made. 

This: 


...sounds nothing like this: 


And that's cool, because they both kick ass in their own way.


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## pastanator (Mar 2, 2018)

i started noticing a similar thing with grind bands using hm2s about a year ago and now i end up just closing the tab whenever i hear an hm2

though i guess thats the same point as the whole everyone using the same boosted 5150 thing just my example is more niche


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## Bloody_Inferno (Mar 2, 2018)

Masoo2 said:


> Nice to see some GOD/G5 love in here. They are seriously amazing guitarists and the majority of them are excellent players AND writers. The only one I'm not a huge fan of is Seku but that's moreso my tastes than his writing/playing.


 
There's a G5 Project thread here and I started the GOD thread so plenty of love from me. 

At first I thought so as well when GOD 2 came out but I've warmed up to Skyphobia nowadays. And oddly enough, with GOD 3 (not GOD 111) just coming out and more new guys on board, I thought Seku was the best of the djent bunch.


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## JohnIce (Mar 2, 2018)

Bloody_Inferno said:


> However, I'm a firm believer that the songs are what make the musician.



I think you may have hit a certain nail on the head there, JP. If one spends a lot of time on youtube and social media, a lot of the guitar you hear isn't actually songs of actual bands, it's promotional guitar noodling as a means to demo/sell/promote a product or someone's youtube channel. It's exaggeratedly guitar-centric and designed to be instant gratification for someone looking for a bitchin' solo, or wants to know what a Helix sounds like, but that's about it. If one's frame of reference for cool, new guitar playing is only constricted to these youtube guys rather than actual records being released, then naturally it's all gonna sound a bit stale and samey. Now that I think about it, none of my favourite guitar players' greatness can be summed up by sharing a short video clip, I just love their records and learned to love their guitar playing because of it.


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## will_shred (Mar 2, 2018)

I listen to a lot of stoner rock where riffs and pentatonic solos still rule, when I first joined this site I was really into shred and death metal, but I think that anyone with enough determination can sit down and learn to play Perpetual Burn. But writing a great piece of music and being technically impressive are two completely different things. I've been listening to a lot of classical music, and the way that composers like Mozart and Bach write their music, how the songs are constantly flowing and changing yet they may also be hovering around a central theme, all the nuances of really good writing and arranging are really what I get off on these days. 

Shred is dead, in my opinion.


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## bhakan (Mar 2, 2018)

Avedas said:


> The worst part of math rock is people who just ramp up the compressor on their clean patch and tap notes that happen to be in key and think that makes it decent technical music. Melody and harmony thrown to the wind.


I agree and I meant to touch on that idea with my last little comment, but if you're new to the genre the clean, american football tuning tapping ala TTNG is still a new sound, and there are plenty of fantastic bands like Battles, Tera Melos, Physics House Band, etc. etc. doing something fresh. 

If you notice, I didn't really call out Good Game as ground breaking. I wasn't really sure if OP was looking for totally fresh sounding guitarists, or just very technical music that's different sounding than djent so I touched on both even if I prefer the former. I think the important takeaway is that literally any genre gets stale if you go too far down the rabbit hole so just got check out something else when it does.


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## gunch (Mar 2, 2018)

I don't think its fair to lump Chon in with all the other new chill prog bands because they've been doing their own thing since 2009, and didn't have Axe Fx's or standbergs, they had cheap Ibanez's and AC30s


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## r3tr0sp3ct1v3 (Mar 2, 2018)

GunpointMetal said:


> You don't need a tube amp to craft an original tone. That's just nonsense.
> But I agree, the Fluence-into-compressor-into-hi-fi-clean-amp-butterfly-glitch-tap-that-one-jazzy-chord-you-know thing is getting pretty old. Also getting burned out on all the "Safe" prog like the CHON/Polyphia/Plini/Sithu Aye clones. Somebody make some freakin dangerous music!



I got you covered. My band is doing an EP. It's all raw guitar tone. I am running a peavey 6505+ with no effects. Nothing. Mics used are a Swedish mod Shure 57 and a classic MD421. RAW IS IT GETS BOIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII


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## Shoeless_jose (Mar 2, 2018)

Songwriting is what really rules, regardless of genre. I find when things get too stale in the heavy music I go back to a lot of Matthew Good and Baroness and the Mars Volta, just reminds me that there's so much more to the music than their just being a sick part.

Also whoever said music needs to be dangerous again nailed it... music is supposed to help fight back against the world, to make you go oh shit I didn't know you could do that, and have your mind blown. 

Miss when music felt dangerous.


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## ArtHam (Mar 3, 2018)

Definitely not in the Intervals, Plini, Sithu Aye group of lame axe fx shredders:

To my ears what they do has never been done before in songwriting and on the guitars


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## Andrew Lloyd Webber (Mar 3, 2018)

will_shred said:


> Shred is dead, in my opinion.



Happy 30th.


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## USMarine75 (Mar 3, 2018)




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## Stilicho (Mar 3, 2018)

musicaldeath said:


> There are still some gems out there for sure though. Guys like Scott Carstairs in Fallujah have some serious chops and I think he manages to sound fairly unique. Basically if Holdsworth played Tech/Death metal. Plus, the videos Scott releases of him just noodling around or practicing, albeit few and far between, are really cool. I know he isn't really an instrumental kind of guy, but Fallujah does have some long spans in tracks of pure instrumental music, or pseudo instrumental music (the songs Dreamless and Chemical Caves comes to mind).
> 
> We are just saturated with a lot of guys with technical ability. And I think Max said it earlier in the thread, but that doesn't always translate well to song writing.



So true. The bands doing really interesting stuff right now are pretty much Fallujah, Between the Buried and Me (well, just Parallax 2 really), Scar Symmetry, Gorguts (mainly Colored Sands) and Cynic (Traced in Air/Carbon-Based Anatomy).

I like a few songs from other bands like Tesseract, Veil of Maya, Periphery (if only they got rid of the vocalis...), Meshuggah, AAL, etc. but I'm only going out of my way to listen to the bands I listed above.

Any recommendations apart from those I mentioned?


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## Stilicho (Mar 3, 2018)

ArtHam said:


> Definitely not in the Intervals, Plini, Sithu Aye group of lame axe fx shredders:
> 
> To my ears what they do has never been done before in songwriting and on the guitars



Need to pick this album up soon. Their first one was amazing, especially the tracks "Carbon Phrases" and "Orgonism".


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## BenjaminW (Mar 3, 2018)

eightsixboy said:


> Besides some of the older most notable current players like Rick Graham, Martin Miller, Andy James, Angel Vivaldi etc no one seems to really stand out now, like they all watched the same star licks videos or something.


I still find myself to be blown away by Rick's cover of Cliffs of Dover.


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## auxioluck (Mar 5, 2018)

I've found it's really hard to have this conversation without sounding like a grumpy old fart (and I'm only 32).

I honestly kind of agree with the OP; when I listen to a new band now, I almost always expect it to be some kind of variation of Periphery's sound. I've found myself in a weird situation where I'm starting to get kind of tired of that sound. Luckily I'm really, really picky about music in general, so I'll just stick with 3 or 4 bands that manage that sound really well. I find myself starting to go back to bands with good layering and melodies, even if the riffing is simpler. This is part of the reason I love the new Sikth album so much; because it is a riff madhouse, but it also has great layering. Very satisfying to listen to.

Unfortunately, my inner old man comes out because I see and hear bands/guitarists coming with these crazy albums and riffs, but all I can think of are the people (especially younger ones) that I've gone to jam with....they could rip out great tap patterns, arpeggios, etc., but you ask them if they want to just do a little quick jam session in G, and they have a completely blank look on their face.


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## lurè (Mar 6, 2018)

Not to mention their album artworks: most of the time some kind of non-euclidean geometrical shapes into landscapes or astronomical/methereological wallpapers.

Name is usually: The (insert name of a god/goddes of a random pantheon)'s (something).
Songs title: words from ancient Greek or Latin.

Despite the rant, I honestly find 2 or 3 of this kind of guitarists inspiring.
The vast majority of them are boring and they seem not to be spontaneous when they play.
To me it's like they "have" to play that kind of stuff in order to be considered good.

My 2 cents. Long live minor pentatonic scale.


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## Avedas (Mar 6, 2018)

lurè said:


> Not to mention their album artworks: most of the time some kind of non-euclidean geometrical shapes into landscapes or astronomical/methereological wallpapers.
> 
> Name is usually: The (insert name of a god/goddes of a random pantheon)'s (something).
> Songs title: words from ancient Greek or Latin.
> ...



Yeah everyone's so damn smart these days. Just search Wikipedia for someone like Ludwig Boltzmann (or some other scientific figure/concept you learned about it in your 10th grade science class) and then click a few related links to find a science-y sounding name for your band/album/song/dog etc.

Also this World of Warcraft metal bullshit is beyond hilarious. Every song name sounds like they just ripped off an RPG raid boss name or something. I'd make a joke about the Latin garbage as well but that's been cliched for at least a couple decades at this point and people are still doing it unironically.


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## Ancestor (May 12, 2018)

It's true. It doesn't actually destroy me mentally. Ideas have to come from somewhere. Just like kids learn their behaviors from watching what others are doing.

I think it's a kind of cheap when a well known band rips off a nice piece that an unknown was fortunate and talented enough to put together.

Plus I think we're validated if we play something someone has already filed in the "I like this" category.

For most people modeling is going to be the only way they'll ever get a decent sounding representation of their ideas. I know... I know... there's some dude who bought a ten dollar guitar at a garage sale and records through a fostex 4 track and it sounds amazing.

But to me it's inspiring that I can check out an episode of Arnold Plays Guitar and the intro will actually sound good! Can you imagine if he had to do every one of those songs at Criteria? He'd probably never record.

The fact that this thread exists proves people have the dilemma in mind and are considering ways around the obstacle. I would rather hear 10 modeled 5150 TS patches than some crappy mic in front of a crappy practice amp.


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## wakjob (May 12, 2018)

blacai said:


> Nick Johnston. He is just unique.



Yeah...
But stuck in a box... just like Yngwie.

All this modern shreddy/progy stuff is very cool,
but my ears yearn to hear them expand outside
their comfort zone.


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## Ancestor (May 15, 2018)

wakjob said:


> Yeah...
> But stuck in a box... just like Yngwie.
> 
> All this modern shreddy/progy stuff is very cool,
> ...




I think what is actually disappointing about Yngwie at the moment is the fact that he's gone from writing songs to basically soloing over everything like it's a backing track. His old songs are awesome. And then the well placed and sized shreddery is like the nuts on the cupcake.

Here we go, where everyone starts hating on me. Before I say this please keep in mind that everyone is allowed to have an opinion and this is well within the first amendment. Let's not start censoring every single comment just because it's strongly stated and we don't agree with it please.

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." Aristotle

Right?

I feel that this is a reflection of where we are as country speaking for the states and possibly someone can for the global entity and vibe. I can't speak to that. Other guys help me out!

The "music business", which was basically the business of finding talented artists and stealing most of the money generated by their brilliant work, is over. The genie is out of the bottle and we can't put him back in. Nor would I desire it. This has left artists free to make their material instantly available to anyone with an Internet connection. That's a modern day renaissance.

I think as a result of the music vampire coven's demise a lot of dudes who still have careers sort of hone in on what they think people like and then just beat that into the ground rather than take a chance. It seems a reflection of the times in which we live. We're basically kept in a constant state of fear by the "news" media. I see it everywhere. In people's faces, in the way they speak to each other and in the reluctance to take a chance of letting go of whatever money they have.

Yng has a killer studio. He could get a killer young producer and do the Electric Lady thing all over the place.

That's what I'd like to see happen. With everyone. Get presonus and an interface if you can't afford to pay for two months in a studio. Record something that sounds different and upload it. What do you have to lose?

It's taken me 6 years to have the means to do that, but I'm in it now and I'm looking forward to doing some weird and then weirder stuff.

OK. You can start telling what an idiot I am now and how that can never work.


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## PunkBillCarson (May 15, 2018)

I honestly feel like a lot of the time on this site, and I'm not berating anyone for it, but people are seemingly always looking for more clarity and all of that as has been said before. It's almost like over the last few years, people have gotten more obsessed with making the mids more vibrant, the low end as tight as it can be with smooth highs. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, but it feels like the sounds of the past get left behind.

I posted the other day in the unpopular opinion thread about getting a Peavey Bandit which was an example of the tone bands used to use for albums. The exact Peavey, no, but same general idea. I posted that in the unpopular opinion thread because I felt that going after that sort of guttural tone -which seems to be deemed "bad" by nearly everyone here- was pretty unpopular. If there's one thing I've learned it's that people are always trying to push boundaries in music which again, isn't a bad thing. But pretty quickly, we've gotten to 8, 9, and 10 string guitars, MOAR mids, BKP's, Fishman Fluence, and digital modelers forever trying to capture the true essence of tube amps.

My question is, where else will you look? Add another string? Tune even lower? Find even tighter pickups? Come out with AxeFx 3 or the Line Helix 2020? I'm sorry, but I honestly feel as though this is a rut in metal music that has only been reinforced by many of those complaining about it now since a lot of the components for creating music just so happen to be the ones utilized in making that kind of music.

Sorry if I offended anyone or if I'm completely off the mark. I'm going to go plug into my 6505+ with my Epiphone Goldtop loaded with Black Winters. I'm turning the bass up, the mids down a little bit to 3-4 and I'm going to get my grime and grind on. 

Almost forgot to mention, I'm using a TS-9.


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## lurè (May 15, 2018)

Giving its context, almost everything makes sense.
"Bad" things expecially in gear/music don't exist, otherwise all the world would have the same amp: it's just a matter of personal tastes.

If you play a 10 string guitar you probably want to turn the bass down, add some mids and have some pickups with a lot of clarity. If you do the opposite (more low end, less mids, "muddy"pickups), you obtain onother sound which isn't "bad" per se but just different: you may like the first one or the second.

If you use many amps and your band tours a lot or you simply want a lot of amps and effects in a small unit, then an axefx or helix does make sense.

The Peavey Bandit has, as far as I remember, has "Marshall" tone but kinda scooped expecially with the highest gain settings. If you like it and you want to recreate the sound of certain bands, go for it!


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## Ancestor (May 15, 2018)

Yeah I definitely still use a peavey for my practice amp.

The Studio Pro. It gets heavy enough for me. All the palm muting and harmonics come out great. And I've had it for 19 years. The only problem I ever had was the high gain jack stopped working, which I think this guy that I was stupid enough let play my gear broke. And so I just move over one input to the right and there is the same great sound.







I've played through bandits. I'll tell you man, American made. Those things are unkillable. Peavey makes a great product.


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## p0ke (May 15, 2018)

Ancestor said:


> And so I just move over one input to the right and there is the same great sound.



Yeah, you just turn the gain knob down a bit and it'll be the same tone. It'd be worse if the other input broke, IMO.


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## jonajon91 (May 15, 2018)

A well timed video uploaded yesterday, I hear a lot of variety here.


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## Ancestor (May 15, 2018)

p0ke said:


> Yeah, you just turn the gain knob down a bit and it'll be the same tone. It'd be worse if the other input broke, IMO.


Well, crazily enough, unless they're marked wrong and I don't think so, the low gain has almost the same sound as the high gain. Those amps are just beasts man. LOL!


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## groverj3 (May 15, 2018)

As stated in my earlier post in this thread, and backed up by the numerous examples you've all shared, this "everything sounds the same" mentality is driven by either not looking around very hard, or not liking a (sub)genre and deciding it all sounds the same. In every era there are a lot of copycats, and I don't think it's actually any different now aside from the ease of promoting yourself on the internet. It's like your parents' generation complaining about "the kids today and their damn ______" forgetting that their parents complained about their generation for ______ (protesting the Vietnam War, listening to Hendrix, moving their hips provocatively?).

Also, I've shared the opinion in other threads that instruction for guitar technique is generally abysmal compared to instruments with a longer history. Perhaps, with all the sharing of knowledge and ability to see people play some are converging on certain stylistic and technical approaches.


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## JohnIce (May 15, 2018)

groverj3 said:


> Also, I've shared the opinion in other threads that instruction for guitar technique is generally abysmal compared to instruments with a longer history. Perhaps, with all the sharing of knowledge and ability to see people play some are converging on certain stylistic and technical approaches.



At first I thought "dude what are you smoking, guitarists are way more stylistically diverse than classical harpists!" but on second thought that's a really interesting point I hadn't thought about... I've been practicing IA Eklundh style harmonics the last few days (after 15 years of just dismissing them as "his" thing), and in that headspace, your point makes a lot of sense. A classically trained violinist would be required to learn to play col legno, bartok pizzicato, feather spiccato, flautando and dozens of other italian stuff just to be able to do their job in an orchestra. A guitar player on the other hand is off the hook saying: "Nah I don't want to copy Yngwie or Tosin, if I use that technique people will think I'm a derivative fanboy". With that mindset, you'll certainly be left with fewer techniques to use. So I think you're totally right. You can't stand on the shoulders of giants without, you know, actually taking the time to climb the giants I guess.


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## groverj3 (May 15, 2018)

JohnIce said:


> At first I thought "dude what are you smoking, guitarists are way more stylistically diverse than classical harpists!" but on second thought that's a really interesting point I hadn't thought about... I've been practicing IA Eklundh style harmonics the last few days (after 15 years of just dismissing them as "his" thing), and in that headspace, your point makes a lot of sense. A classically trained violinist would be required to learn to play col legno, bartok pizzicato, feather spiccato, flautando and dozens of other italian stuff just to be able to do their job in an orchestra. A guitar player on the other hand is off the hook saying: "Nah I don't want to copy Yngwie or Tosin, if I use that technique people will think I'm a derivative fanboy". With that mindset, you'll certainly be left with fewer techniques to use. So I think you're totally right. You can't stand on the shoulders of giants without, you know, actually taking the time to climb the giants I guess.



Yeah, kind of my thoughts there. I always like to qualify my opinions though by informing people that I'm well aware I could be full of shit!


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## NateFalcon (May 15, 2018)

Gear hounding, signature amps, tone cork-sniffers...it’s hard to chart your own “sound” when you’re seemingly trying to mimic others’ gear and tones...? I don’t listen to music every waking minute which allows me to write riffs and ideas in my head without influence or having to hear something to “inspire” me. When people listen to lots of music, I notice their playing tends to be a conglomeration of others players sounds -style aside. Style and technique on the other hand is as unique as you want it to be...


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## Avedas (May 16, 2018)

NateFalcon said:


> Gear hounding, signature amps, tone cork-sniffers...it’s hard to chart your own “sound” when you’re seemingly trying to mimic others’ gear and tones...? I don’t listen to music every waking minute which allows me to write riffs and ideas in my head without influence or having to hear something to “inspire” me. When people listen to lots of music, I notice their playing tends to be a conglomeration of others players sounds -style aside. Style and technique on the other hand is as unique as you want it to be...


That's a good point. I notice these days I rarely listen to music outside the gym or my very short commute. If I get musical inspiration it's usually not from guitar music. If I listen to too much guitar music (especially from a specific genre/style) I start to get into a rut.


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## JohnIce (May 16, 2018)

NateFalcon said:


> Gear hounding, signature amps, tone cork-sniffers...it’s hard to chart your own “sound” when you’re seemingly trying to mimic others’ gear and tones...? I don’t listen to music every waking minute which allows me to write riffs and ideas in my head without influence or having to hear something to “inspire” me. When people listen to lots of music, I notice their playing tends to be a conglomeration of others players sounds -style aside. Style and technique on the other hand is as unique as you want it to be...



I think there's two sides to that. Lack of influences can also mean a lack of perspective.

To each his own, but for me, listening to less rock and metal and exploring new music that sounds foreign to me made me realize just how derivative and generic my guitar playing and writing has been. So it helped me be more creative. It also made me see just how similar most popular rock and metal bands actually sound when compared to an artist like, say, Grimes or Nujabes. I mean, someone may think that Van Halen, Metallica and Eric Johnson are at opposite sides of the musical spectrum, until you hear for example J. Dilla and realize they all have way, way more in common with each other than they have with J. Dilla.

But I see what you're saying, on a smaller scale. Just like a nerdy botanist can see differences in species of moss that I can't, people who spend all their time looking at guitar youtubers can pick up on slight subtleties between guitar youtube celebs that I can't, and what they'll call diversity I call generic, hive mind bullshit  The "25 modern players" video posted above had me rolling my eyes. To me that video really shows the problem you're talking about.


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## lurè (May 16, 2018)

JohnIce said:


> istening to less rock and metal and exploring new music that sounds foreign to me made me realize just how derivative and generic my guitar playing and writing has been. So it helped me be more creative.



Yes. That's pretty much what has the biggest influence on creating your "own style" of playing.
I think that going out of your "comfort zone" of music can be very inspiring and also makes you a better player.


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## Jonathan20022 (May 16, 2018)

There is so much variety out there in music, but the consumers tend to be the ones who don't seek out fresh and new music often enough. I don't either, I don't have time for that kind of stuff lately so I let Facebook/Youtube/Instagram show me stuff and click on stuff that looks interesting. I could name off countless guitarists that I think are unique and fresh.







And then there's the up and coming guys I see on Instagram/Social Media literally grinding hours on guitar and uploading crazy licks, Thomas Griggs, Beau Diakowicz, Brandon Ellis, Stephen Taranto, Horace Bray, etc. There's countless up and coming talent that are either developing their sound or already found it.

There's nothing stagnant about guitar based music, social media will show you what you show interest in. If you listen to and look at artists who 0-0-0-0-0-0-1-0-0-0 that's what they're going to feed you on every website you go that's designed that way. You notice on Youtube that if you click on a single video, your recommended feed will be filled by whatever topic that video covers?

There is countless undiscovered talent out there, you just have to look for it.


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