Zakk Wylde

LucioArgento

Make Love, Not Peace
Apr 2, 2002
229
0
16
1 Hate Pit Avenue
What are his squeals made up of?

The obvious that I see: Les Paul standard, thick ernie balls on the low end, EMG humbuckers, cry baby wah-wah, and a vicious vibrato.

Does that sound right?
 
But that vibrato is just inhuman. I mean, if you didn't know better, you would think that he was using a wammy bar to create the undulations. And the fact that he makes it scream at the same time as he slams down on the crybaby....

Fucking awesome - I want his Les Paul 'bullseye' edition. I would just stare at it all day.
 
Wylde has a really unique guitar style on the albums I've heard anyways, I could never really figure out what tuning he was using. It really seems as if he's tuned his low E string down to B but kept the rest of the strings at standard tuning. Which should screw up the intonation, but somehow doesn't on his part. I mean how else do you explain the booming low notes and the high solos, his range is incredible. He doesn't seem to play many chords either, mostly notes which he accentuates with (sometimes too many) artificial harmonics. I saw him live in the USA, and he covered War Pigs. He did a pretty good job with it, but he really ruined the chorus by making every other note a squeal, which didn't go well with the softer emotional melody.
 
I know he tuned down to a B for the track "No More Tears", just to switch between the single finger barring 'chug chug chug' sound to the slide-driven treble during the verses, otherwise his whole set is tuned down a whole step.

That first kick in to the opening riff on "Breakin All the Rules" could be the heaviest intro to a song ever. I know its multilayered but its still a brick wall coming through your speakers, and I think he might have tuned the E to a B on that one too....
 
His vibrato is not inhuman, learn some of your essential blues and practice it, it is quite easy for me at least, well, some people got it.....