I dunno. Mastodon seem to manage ok on standard neck length down to A# or even A.

I didn't find this riff "heavy" at all.
It's not the tuning that makes a song heavy, it's a whole bunch of things.

Sepulturas Roots Bloody Roots is in B and Panteras 5 Minutes Alone is in D. Can you honestly say that Roots is that much heavier? Would 5 Minutes Alone be heavier in B?

The riff itself is obviously important, but also what the drums are doing, the production, the tone, etc.

Nice watch but very pop centric. SO many huge riffs never even got a mention. Case in point:

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

My first real introduction to metal when they charts were full of Abba and Boney M.

It's seems weird this is a BBC documentary yet you're as likely to hear of Iron Maiden's achievement's as you to hear of The Prodigy.

Story of the discussion of the riff? They jump from Nivarna (1991) to 7 nation army (2003). But somehow they missed the fact The Prodigy went from a underground dance ground to a rock festival headliner on the basis of this riff back in '95: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l62UTsRQ6qY

Yes "walk this way" was a rap/rock crossover - but this is afaik the first proper metal/underground dance mashup. I honestly hate the fact The Prodigy never get the credit they deserve for bringing so much.

Final point - this UK documentary goes from Nivarna to White Stripes and ignores:

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

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I'm probably just stuck in my ways

And yeah, I think the difficulty levels are a bad way to learn a song.
I suppose my main issue with it is that I'm a decent enough guitarist that I can play almost all the riffs without too much trouble but I find the note highway an information overload for leads.

Interesting. I find that I learn MUCH better with Rocksmith than I do from a straight tab. I hate the difficulty levels; I'd rather just show ALL of the notes ALL of the time (although that is easily fixed by just selecting the whole song and turning up the difficulty to 100%), but riff repeater plus slowing a song down to 60% or so (depending on how tough the bits are) has been my new ideal way of learning more difficult songs.

But for bass at least, I find that I'm able to sight-read the majority of songs to 97%+ accuracy. Probably 9 out of 10 new songs that I try, even if I've never looked at a tab before, I can get that kind of accuracy with the Rocksmith note highway / tab hybrid.

I do agree that sometimes it would be nice to be able to pause and just show a pure tab, to have more time to prepare and anticipate what things are coming. I know of two things to assist with that:

1) I know that there is a program that somebody put together that can read Rocksmith .psarc files and automatically create a tab text file from the song's arrangements. I can't recall the name of it, but I know it exists -- I've seen people talking about it at www.customsforge.com, the community for creating custom Rocksmith DLC tracks. I'll do some searching and see if I can find the exact name of that program for you.

2) As an alternative to Rocksmith if you prefer reading tabs but like playing along with the recording, check out "Go Playalong", which you can use to sync a guitar pro or powertab format tab with an .mp3 or other audio file and do Rocksmith-like features like slowing down, etc. but with the cursor scrolling through a traditional text-based tab. I sometimes use this also, but overall I prefer Rocksmith now. Works quite a bit like GuitarPro, but the cursor scrolling through the song is more intelligent about keeping bars ahead of your current position in view, and most importantly it lets you sync up to an actual recording rather than just playing back MIDI.

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Outrageous Portishead riff ripoff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uciibl0rcs

@Trancecoach: We're not going to agree, and that's fine. This'll be my last reply.

Retailer strong-arming: Imagine Apple makes up 95% of Best Buy's tablet sales. Off-brand-X wants to sell tablets at Best Buy. Apple says: If you sell Off-brand-X tablets, we will not let you sell our tablets. Off-brand-X is likely to only provide a tiny profit to Best Buy, compared to Apple, so they comply. (This actually happened, in a different form, with Intel paying computer manufacturers to not use AMD processors. See here). Also see price-fixing.

Widget-distribution-prevention: This is just an extension of the previous point.

Buying up all of the competitors: Ma Bell. Old AT&T. That should be enough said. But, if that's not enough, now Ma Bell is nearly entirely re-formed. The US was one government approval away from having cell carriers limited to Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T. That's been spoiled, now, but I don't think it's hard to imagine that future continuing on to two carriers colluding and price-fixing (as Verizon and AT&T pretty much have freedom to do anyway). This is another quasi-natural-monopoly situation (or at least a tragedy of the commons situation), in that the radio spectrum is not infinite. To keep the spectrum usable at all, blocks of frequencies are doled out to radio/TV/cellular/military/etc. etc. with stiff penalties for interference.

Patents: Patents present a litany of problems, but the world without them is even worse. You have two things happen, both of which are bad:
1) New technology remains veiled in secrecy indefinitely; no one else can riff on it even after patents would normally have expired
2) My previous point. The marginal utility of R&D decreases drastically based on the likelihood of a competitor being able to get hold of your secrets before you can profit on them sufficiently.
This is exactly why patents were created. It's a temporary monopoly granted by the government in exchange for the promise that the knowledge will be released to the universe after X years.

Predatory pricing: If excessive, it's illegal. That's why it doesn't happen very often. In a country with anti-trust laws, you just want to hurt your competitor, you don't want to drive them out of the market.

Natural monopolies: Since you brought this one up, you can choose your energy service because the government forces the utility to lease its lines and to decouple distribution from production. That is to say, you have a free market in production because the distribution is not free. See here. My state is the same way.

Misinformation: Who vets marketing claims in a free market? My competitor says that their food is organic. Well--hell, so is mine! They're environmentally conscientious? So am I! Their drug cures cancer? Mine cures it even better!

Oh, shit. Someone caught me in a lie! Well, I'll just force the media to ignore it and ramp up my disinformation campaign.

@newtboy
"i know you are but what am i i"?

that had me cackling like a loon.bravo my friend.

please understand guys my comment is in reference to this particular thread,not any previous private or otherwise.

my commentary was also tongue-n-cheek and not to be taken too seriously.
i was poking the hornets nest...like a boss..who also happens to be a dick.

please forgive.

as for conflicting private to public messages.
well..that would infuriate me as well newt.you wont get an argument from me on that point.
that speaks to a persons character and integrity and explains a ton in regards to your attitude towards @chingalera.

our integrity is all we have.
when you take away everything,the only thing left we have to trade is our word.
our honor.
our respect for another human being.
when we lose that trust....we lose everything.

i do not know the particulars on how you all conversed in private.its none of my business and not my place to judge.

but if what you are saying is true newt (and i have no reason to believe it isnt.there is a past precedent in that regard) then i have to ask @chingalera why?

why say one thing in private and then another in public?
that is so disengenuious and un-necessary my man.
you make good solid points..often,and often i agree with them.
so why would invalidate them by interacting with such duplicity?

you cant call out newt for disregarding or dismissing your points because it was YOU who invalidated those points by your interactions with him.

and you know this.
dont act like you dont because i know your smarter than the average bear.so dont insult my intelligence by feigning innocence.

you owe newt an apology.period.

and dont prove @VoodooV right.we both were there when you flamed out and it was ugly.
and you made it ugly by taking it personal.
i never judged you for that..still dont.
but that does not mean i condoned how you played that closing scene out.
real people had real feelings hurt...including you.

now i realize this thread is destroyed and i dont even know who i need to apologize to.
so...
to the original poster:i am truly sorry for this tragic hi-jacking of your thread.

but it appears necessary.

@chingalera i realize that much of what you do is to shock people out of complacency.
to get them to perceive a situation with different goggles.
many times the weapons you use are confrontational language and a persistence that rivals the most glorious case of OCD.

those intentions are noble.
i agree and am of a similar mindset.this is probably why i can read choggie-speak with little trouble.

i understand what you are trying to do.

but how can you expect someone like @newtboy to listen to anything you have to say when you cant keep even basic correspondence open and honest?
it invalidates everything you attempt from then on out.
your words have to have the weight of your integrity behind them for them to have ANY impact.
you lose that and your words become dust.

sounds like you will have to work to gain the respect from @newtboy.i wish you well in that endeavour.

please understand i consider you a friend @chingalera and hearing this has upset me a great deal.

and @VoodooV,
you may be right brother.i do not know what the future brings.hopefully ching will prove you wrong.i know he could if he wanted.

but i disagree with keeping the riff raff out.
i dont mind confrontation or arguments.in fact i LOVE them and @chingalera has a talent for poking the hornets nest and shattering the monotone-vanilla-circle-jerk-clones into a frenzy.

and that my friend..is a good thing.

@chingalera keeps the locals buzzing,constantly challenging pre-concieved notions and ideologies and i love that fucker for that.he keeps this site interesting.his antics bring lurkers to actually comment/post and others who usually side-line to jump in.

all good things.

but...
i cannot abide the darker side.
the hurtful side.
maybe i am being naive'....i always see redemption for those who the entrenched masses see as unredeemable.i always feel i can save those who are truly lost.

i always see the human first and the actions last.

so you may be right.i just hope you are wrong.
maybe this thread will impact my friend and remind him we are all humans.

i dont know.........
i hope though...
i hope.

@ChaosEngine again,as i told newtboy,no argument here.
hopefully this derailed thread has cleared some air and brought the things to the table that needed to be discussed.

which from my viewpoint is about integrity.
you cant admonish people for being egocentric and then turn around and be egocentric yourself.
it weakens the very position you were trying to make in the first place.(ching,not you CE).
it is hypocritical.

i am a dissident.
a radical.
a subversive.
even to the church i am an apostate.
so i understand @chingalera on a certain level.he has never treated me other than a friend and compatriot.so it pains me to see how he deals with those he disagrees with,and just how far he will take a story to a painful conclusion.
this does not give be joy or pleasure.

he is a righteous dude.passionate,sensitive and creative and has soooo much to offer.
im sorry ya'all didnt get to see that side of him.
but maybe thats on him,because you all should.

there is a reason he has been invited back multiple times and its not because he whined about it but rather he truly is an exceptional human being.

maybe he should show that side more.
takes honesty and courage,but that boy has a huge capacity for that.

@chingalera
balls in your court brother.
what ya gonna do?

*note* for all those who read to this point.
cookies and milk will be served in the back storage room.
free fondlings for the ladies.
dont forget to tip your bartenders and waitresses!

Used to live next door to a piano teacher who'd play Chopin everyday, continually honing his skills with those etudes-Chopin's most famous and studied output to-date, his "studies" of the craft.

When tired of hearing long-haired noodling it was time to sneak up to his kitchen window with the alto sax and blast dissonant acid-jazz riffs till he answered the door and loaded the bong-

Anyone able to name the opening riff's sample?

Let's Get It On - Marvin Gaye -Tamla Records (Mowtown)

Every time a song originally produced by Barry Gordy is sampled James Brown screams, "WATCH ME!" from his grave.

The mediocre characters played by the Cracked cast let me pretend that I too could weave an endless sequence of riffs on popular culture into social criticism so witty that the entire Internet would want to hear it.

Some of these aren't even guitar solos as much as they are opening vamps or memorable riffs...These guys are cool and it looks like a lotta fun and all to put pop culture into the Blendtech TB-621-20....Street performing, internet resume and income-brilliant.

He really did slaughter those notes, on on such a simple riff.