Solos on The Last Hero

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PRS10Top
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Re: Solos on The Last Hero

Post by PRS10Top »

Jhenrid wrote:Well he's been using a PRS acoustic instead of the Taylor. For some reason I think its an se which is around $600-$800. To be honest I'm not sure why I have it in my head that its an se.
You are absolutely correct. It is an SE. I'm not exactly sure which SE model - it doesn't match perfectly to any of this year's models on the site. But it is for sure a PRS SE Angelus. The bird pattern doesn't match the 2017 Alex Lifeson but the ring around the cut out does. The ring doesn't quite match the A30E, but that's my guess for the type of guitar. Verified the SE symbol with my own eyes.

As a PRS fan, this is awesome to see because a non-SE PRS makes the electric core line look cheap!

Edit: It looks like a PRS SE Angelus from a couple years ago. It looks exactly like the guitar reviewed in this video from 2014.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_p_AlQvuJc

Kreuger33
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Re: Solos on The Last Hero

Post by Kreuger33 »

I doubt they will ever play it live anyways. The tuning for Mark is B F# C# F# B D and Myles is B A D G B E. They would have to add a guitar to their rigs. And I believe Mark is at abouit 14 at the moment. He has a main and a back up. Myles has less I believe 6 or 7 including the acoustic.
The BADGBE tuning is one they have used before. Or at least that with a half step further down. So its not a stretch.

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Re: Solos on The Last Hero

Post by Drumkidstu »

Kreuger33 wrote:
I doubt they will ever play it live anyways. The tuning for Mark is B F# C# F# B D and Myles is B A D G B E. They would have to add a guitar to their rigs. And I believe Mark is at abouit 14 at the moment. He has a main and a back up. Myles has less I believe 6 or 7 including the acoustic.
The BADGBE tuning is one they have used before. Or at least that with a half step further down. So its not a stretch.
They could lower it a half step. When they used to play Coming Home live, Mark was in Drop B and Myles was in B A D G B E so they have used that tuning live before. If anything we might have to wait on it for a while. They will probably eventually get down to playing it live, but it will be a rarity. It is the most complicated tune on the latest record. Especially for Myles playing those leads and singing on the bridge at the same time. Generally Myles plays the higher leads/colors/textures over the riffs so this one would be extremely difficult to pull off while singing. I hope they do end up playing it at some point. It is my favorite song off the latest record.

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Re: Solos on The Last Hero

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Drumkidstu wrote: When they used to play Coming Home live, Mark was in Drop B and Myles was in B A D G B E so they have used that tuning live before.
Any proof? Myles does the intro figure which requires a regular Drop B, BADGBE would not work in such environment.
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Drumkidstu
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Re: Solos on The Last Hero

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Ask rockit2112. I was trying to figure out it as well. rockit2112 had a conversation with Myles and Mark at a meet and greet or something and Myles said that he was just tuned standard with the E dropped to B. Mark was in the B F# C# F# B D tuning. It actually makes sense because the only way you could easily play Myles's solo is in a regular tuning.

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Re: Solos on The Last Hero

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It's all pretty bizarre, cause I own Blackbird Official Tabbook, and it says that they are both in regular Drop B (B-F#-B-E-G#-C#) for Coming Home, but if you look closely at what Myles does in the intro on Live in Amsterdam + if you look at this tab: https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/a/alte ... me_tab.htm, BADGBE starts to make sense. These guys never know what they use.
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Andy92
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Re: Solos on The Last Hero

Post by Andy92 »

I don't think that tab book was looked over by the band though. I know Mark has corrected a few tab books before they got released over the years, but I think some of the earlier tab books contain some mistakes because Mark and Myles didn't actually proof them.
anguyen92 wrote:Oh well. Deal with it.

Jhenrid
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Re: Solos on The Last Hero

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The tab books don't even match all the solos that they taught on the sound and the story dvd

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antiwal
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Re: Solos on The Last Hero

Post by antiwal »

Is it Myles' solo on TWOTW? Sounds like him, but not 100% sure!

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Re: Solos on The Last Hero

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antiwal wrote:Is it Myles' solo on TWOTW? Sounds like him, but not 100% sure!
Yep, that's Myles! Check out some live videos of them playing it for proof.

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Re: Solos on The Last Hero

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Dolo wrote:It's all pretty bizarre, cause I own Blackbird Official Tabbook, and it says that they are both in regular Drop B (B-F#-B-E-G#-C#) for Coming Home, but if you look closely at what Myles does in the intro on Live in Amsterdam + if you look at this tab: https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/a/alte ... me_tab.htm, BADGBE starts to make sense. These guys never know what they use.
The way I figured out Coming Home is that Myles used the same guitar on Rise today, and One Day remains that he used on COming Home. Since Rise Today was played DADGBE and One Day Remains is EADGBE, it would make since that Myles was actually in BADGBE. Tuning the whole guitar from E standard to literal Drop B (a step and a half down) would be dangerous live. Hence I believe he just retuned the low string down. Plus his voicings for his chords would also indicate that he is not in full Drop B. In the studio he probably was in Drop B. Just live he could use less guitars if he consolidated his tunings. And very true about never remembering their tunings. I mean over 5 albums they have literally used almost 20 different tunings.

ToNsOFuN88
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Re: Solos on The Last Hero

Post by ToNsOFuN88 »

mikeyd23 wrote: Controversial opinion: Myles' solos are better on this record, as a whole, than Mark's are.
I agree. His solo on This Side Of Fate is the best on the whole record in my opinion. Really wish they would play that live, but I get the feeling it won't happen.

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PRS10Top
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Re: Solos on The Last Hero

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TLH solo was the one that I thought could have been Mark. Myles kills it.

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Re: Solos on The Last Hero

Post by mikeyd23 »

Yeah, Myles' solos on the title track and on TSoF are bliss.

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Mr. Slash
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Re: Solos on The Last Hero

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To say something negative about Myles' soloing: His solo con "Crows on a Wire" is pretty lame. He is basically shredding a chromatic pattern up. At least it sounds pretty chromatic to me, might have been some "real" scale.
Last edited by Mr. Slash on Fri Mar 24, 2017 2:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Solos on The Last Hero

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Mr. Slash wrote:To say something negative about Myles' soloing: His solo con "Crows on a Wire" is pretty lame. He is basically shredding a chromatic pattern up. At least it sounds pretty chromatic for me, might have been some "real" scale.
Yes... but that pinch harmonic though...

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One Drew Remains
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Re: Solos on The Last Hero

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Lol, playing scales fast is about the extent of my lead playing.
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Re: Solos on The Last Hero

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Mr. Slash wrote:To say something negative about Myles' soloing: His solo con "Crows on a Wire" is pretty lame. He is basically shredding a chromatic pattern up. At least it sounds pretty chromatic to me, might have been some "real" scale.
I agree, not my favorite either, but in Myles' defense Mark passed that solo spot onto him because he said he couldn't come up with anything himself. Must be a difficult chord progression under the solo or something.

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Re: Solos on The Last Hero

Post by ElliotYork »

I think Myles' solo on Crows is fine. It's certainly not one of his best, but it is by no means below average. Just a cool, quick, heavy metal solo. I actually kind of think of it as a bit of a combination of his solos from Isolation and Farther Than The Sun, as he seems to use similar runs in certain parts.

I also really like his solo on IoF, because it is everything that it needs to be. It's not THE solo of the song, it's very much just a build up for the bridge, and I think he nails that perfectly. The way he syncs his bends with the ascending riff pattern is pretty awesome.

In general, I agree with the sentiments that Myles' solos do outclass Mark's in most cases for this album. His solo in TSoF is the best solo on the album for me - it's pure god-level. It's honestly one of Myles' best and I'd say it's one of Alter Bridge's best as well. I'd also class his solo in TLH as a very close second-best on the album.

This is not to say that Mark's are disappointing at all, but I think his workload is definitely starting to show. The Last Hero was the 8th album he'd released in the last 10 years, and the 3rd album in 18 months. Being a guitarist who almost exclusively spends a great deal of time pre-writing all his solos, it seems fair to think that it does become quite a challenge every time a new album comes out and he has to think of approx 10 new solo ideas. I'd say that'd be part of the reason why he encouraged Myles to take the Crows solo - it's not that he's running out of ideas, he's just simply spreading himself too thin. After a while, it's almost inevitable that either the quality will dip or there will be less standouts solos.

We have to remember that Mark was a songwriter before he was much of a soloist, whereas Myles was a soloist before he was a songwriter. Mark is already talking about writing another double album for the Tremonti project (which I'm assuming would be a 2018 release) because he's the kind of writer that will just always keep coming up with new song ideas. And as much as I'd love to hear it, I'd also rather that he either wait a while or cut it down to a single album so he has time to focus on making every solo unique and memorable.

Myles, on the other hand, was playing killer solos for Cosmic Dust when Mark was still learning the instrument. It was a muscle that probably suffered a little bit of atrophy after he disbanded MF4 and through the first two AB albums. ABIII was him warming that muscle back up again. Fortress was him showing us what he can do with warmed up muscles. The Last Hero is Myles Kennedy the Guitarist at full flight once more - and boy is it beautiful!

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