Surfing with the Alien

[Starsailor]

I can play most of the song but when it comes to those semi-harmonics I just can't cut the mustard. How do you get that sound? Should I just aim to do a full pinch harmonic? :(

[Vai=god]

which section of the song r u talking about, if it's the squeal near the start justa few seconds before the tapping kicks in, u make that nouse by fretting the b and g strings on the bridge pickup and whammy dive bombing down.

[Starsailor]

TheY are various places throughout. On this powertab its at bars 26,30,38,86 and 94. These are really getting to me.

[EricV]

TheY are various places throughout. On this powertab its at bars 26,30,38,86 and 94. These are really getting to me.
Those are artificial or pinch harmonics. Check out this article of mine to read about them, how to use them etc:
http://www.ibreathemusic.com/article/38

Eric

[Mystical Potato]

mustard is spread not cut. i think your referring to cheese.

[Starsailor]

mustard is spread not cut. i think your referring to cheese.
"To cut the mustard" is a well known and well used phrase.

[Alan(Lost)]

Harmonics on the G and B string is correct, but with Satch he uses his picking hand to trigger them (if you see him live, he's always crossing over his left hand to the whammy and using that to dive, while picking the harmonics with his right hand).

[Metalliska]

Satch is a bad ***, I can play surfing with the alien up as far as the tapping bit but I can't cut that kinda of speed on the tapping run, it's phenominal.

[Tedious Lemon]

yeah, he does pich harmonics on the open g and b strings while the bar is depressed wiht his frettin hand then he slowly release it and trems a bit... its actuall easier than a normal pinch harmonic... well i find it so.

The tappin bit is done using the pic, he doesnt do conventional tapping, he taps the bord with the side of the pick thus making it soo mcuh easier but it sounds ace and with wah pedal compressed all the way down it sounds like when he plays it. The really hard bit in that song is probly the bit where he does some serious finger picking towards the end, thats mental... i cant even begin to thin about playing that bit as fast and as easily as he does... mind you... hes satriani fer gods sakes.. I love the bit where he uses the whammy too... i think thats such a genious and innovative idea for a riff...

does anyone know what hes doin in searching for the really cool bit at about 0:55... i think thats such a cool riff and i wanna knwo how to do it... i think hes using a whammy pedal, but im not too sure myself... anyone enlighten me?


cheers

[EricV]

Oops, didnt see that last post back then.
That part of "Searching" is one of my favorite parts of the album as well.
I just got my whammy pedal hooked up again, and I haven´t used that in a while, but maybe I can explain how this lick works.
He plays triad arps on the B- and high e-string. Bmin-G-D-A
At the same time, he rocks the Whammy Pedal forth and back ( I think it is set to an octave up ), in a certain rhythm. That part I havent figured out yet, so that part of the soundfile sounds very messy... bear in mind I only spent a few minutes with the pedal and this lick. I guess if I keep trying a while longer, I can figure out the rhythm he rocks the pedal in... might just be the downbeats of the song.
So sorry for it sounding kinda messy, but maybe it explains what´s happening there

http://www.ibreathemusic.com/forums/eric/searchtry.mp3

Eric

[mattblack850]

That part I havent figured out yet,

Eric, you surprise me that you haven't got this down yet!!!:p ;)
I wouldn't even know where to start!!:D :D :D

[EricV]

The "where to start" part isn´t that hard... once I heard it, I somehow immediately knew it was a whammy pedal ( this later was confirmed when I saw a video-clip from the Satriani tour-rehearsals ).
So then I figured out the chords etc in the background ( I also made a backing track based on the song ), and thereby figured out the chords ( Bm-G-D-A/C#-Bm-G-D-A )
The hard part was to figure out in which order he played the notes of each arp, and how often he picked each note etc. The whammy pedal and the pitch changes it does are really confusing when it comes to that.
Now all I´d need to figure out is the speed and direction he moves the pedal in... it´s a different beat than the notes he plays, and thereby this really cool sounding-pattern comes out.
I am glad though that no one was in the room with me when I worked on figuring this out, cuz it sounded like a bunch of cats on drugs and in heat.
I love the whammy pedal =)
Eric

NP: No music playing, watching "John Carpenter´s The Thing", one of my fave horror movies =)

[curiousgeorge]

Ahhhh, what's a walk through the park without seeing cats in heat AND on drugs... :p I always figured that one part was done with the whammy bar, not the whammy pedal, assuming you're talking about the single note riff near the end on the B string (starting at the 18th fret).....

[EricV]

Nah, I am referring to the "chorus" of the song, which starts at 0:55, and that is definitely done with the whammy pedal, similar to the way I described it ( just haven´t nailed the timing of the pedal movement )
I just found Tedious Lemons post, I didnt see it back then, as I would have replied to it back then
Eric

[EricV]

Dang it, I just wanted to watch a movie, but then I just kept thinking about it, so I turned the track from the CD into a wav and slowed it down a bit. And suddenly, I figured out the pattern.
He is rocking the pedal in 16th notes, so it´s "one octave up" on the first note, "normal pitch" on the second etc, going forth and back like that. Since he is PLAYING arp phrases that have a three note grouping to them ( note value is 16th notes, but he is playing triad arps descending, so you can think of it as 3 note groupings ), the "whammied" note changes... at one time, it´s on the first and last note of each arp, then it´s on the second of the next arp.
Once I had figured out the whammy-pattern, I was able to figure out better what notes he actually plays, and that is what you see in the attached ptb. In the second half of this whole section, he moves up the neck, still maintaining a Bm-G-D-A-progression.
In the ptb, I tabbed 6 bars witout whammy, and the repeated those 6 bars WITH the whammy thrown in on every other note. I used "artificial harmonics" to emulate the sound of the whammy pedal ( the closest I got to the sound of that part )
So don´t confuse it for actual a.h.´s, instead the harmonics are notes shifted up one octave with the whammy pedal.
I fiddled around a bit more with it, and it takes a while to get used to it. If I feel like it and have the time tomorrow, I´ll work on it a bit, don´t hold your breath though. I hope the ptb will be helpful in any case.
I dunno if anyone is interested in this at all, and I also heard there is a TAB book out for the album now. I assume whoever transcribed it for the book did a better, more detailed TAB than I did, but I just tried to demonstrate what Satch did there. And I love this song... the part drove me insane ( in a good way ) the first time I heard it, still love it
Eric

[mattblack850]

NP: No music playing, watching "John Carpenter´s The Thing", one of my fave horror movies =)

One of my faves too, I remember when it came out, I went to see it 13 times in the first week!!!!
I can still watch it now!!!
I also like the original 'The Thing from another Planet' that it was based on, real proper B-Movie stuff!!!!
Cheese to the max and I love it!!!:D :D

[EricV]

Matt
I feel the same, I have seen the movie bunches of time and still am fascinated by the atmosphere and vibe of it.
And yes, I have seen the "original" too, and I liked that one as well ( actually, both are based on the short-story "Who Goes There", with Carpenters version being more true to the story )
Argh, off-topic, huh ? =)
Eric

[guitar_ninja]

To EricV:
Now that you have the song down, would you mind showing us a demonstration of how you improved from your last try at it? =) I love that whammy pedal part of the song. Personally, I suck at guitar and I wanna hear someone good (besides Satch) do it.

I watch that show pretty much everyday at Satch's site, and it still gives me chills down my spine. I was in need of some inspiration at the time, and I'm glad I went to Satch's site and found it. That part of the concert has to be my favorite, I'd never heard awesome whammy pedal stuff like that before. I had the chance to go to that show too, but I declined (yeah, I'm such a moron).

[mac220]

Hi Guys,

I don't know if JS has changed the way he plays those sections of the song since he first recorded it on the original album. On the album he uses a Wah Wah pedal to provide the shaping of the sound, with his right hand he holds and bounces the whammy bar on the guitar and hits the strings with the pick as it reaches the strings as the bar is depressed, the wah wah pedal is pressed forward in synch with the phrase. If you mouth the sounds on the album you will get the movement of the wah wah pedal.

secondly the i'm fairly sure the sounds of the guitar is a combination of distortion, compression, Wah and Chorus.

Don't forget this album was recorded in 1987. i don't think the Whammy pedals weren't out then, also the original Whammy pedals did not produce the sounds on the record even if it was out. the newer versions are much better.

Also the Wah Wah pedal is used all over the track, on the tapping. legato etc to get the really compressed sounds,

hope that helps,

Mark

[EricV]

Mark,
you are completely right about SWTA, but the last few posts are about "Searching" from the "Is There Love In Space ?", so that´s what all the whammy pedal-talk is about :)
Oh and I agree to what you said about the sounds on SWTA, but an integral part of that was an Eventide Harmonizer ( not sure which model he used back then, as the popular HE 3000 wasn´t out yet... that one was used on Flying In A Blue Dream )
Satch once said in an interview that his goal was to use a rather unique, unusual guitar sound, and some of the harmonizer settings helped with that, especially for the heavy EQ-ing.

[EricV]

Guitar Ninja...

I wonder what makes you think that I "have the song down". I didn´t say that :)
Yes, I did figure out the chorus-part, the notes he plays there ( at least I think I came close ), and then later on, the whammy pedal deal ( the pattern ), but I didn´t say I was getting close to that tempo yet... I played it very slowly to figure out whether I was correct, then I created that ptb and posted that, and went to bad.
I was hoping I´d find some time to work on it a bit today and hopefully get to record my take on it, but I had to spent the day taking care of all the exciting chores like phone-calls, grocery shopping, a meeting with the EVB-bassist, so I haven´t really touched the guitar at all today. And I am not sure whether I´ll get to work on it tomorrow.
So I wouldn´t say that "I got it down" yet =) I will try to record a take on it asap, no promises though
Eric

[mac220]

Oops must have missed something in the thread somewhere,

[EricV]

LOL, I did so myself until I found the post by TediousLemon yesterday, and at first I was like "What does he mean when he mentions the whammy pedal ? There were no whammy pedals in 87...", until I read the whole post again and realized that "Searching" was the topic now.
Eric

[curiousgeorge]

Nah, I am referring to the "chorus" of the song, which starts at 0:55, and that is definitely done with the whammy pedal, similar to the way I described it ( just haven´t nailed the timing of the pedal movement )
I just found Tedious Lemons post, I didnt see it back then, as I would have replied to it back then
Eric

Oh, sorry, I thought we were talking about Surfing WTA...No whammy in that one! I was lucky enough to see Satch on the ITLIS tour with Deep Purple, and
although he didn't play Searching, he did put the whammy pedal to good use in Cool #9. I think he was practicing his improv for the Evening With... shows because there was an incredible amount of improv in Toronto that night...AWMAWY turned into a 7 minute+ song with an amazing jam session and Cool #9 was totally different from the record...He actually sang too, and he was good! (I Like The Rain). He did a few songs from the new record and they were all awesome...I've got a CD of the whole show...It's NOT a bootleg....ahem... :D