Your favorite Maiden guitar sound

Connor19

Stranger
What album contains your favorite guitar sound/tone?

I have to go with SIT or Powerslave. The spacey-ness of SIT is epic and Powerslave's tone is perfect for the songs on that album. I especially feel that the guitar sound really gives off the feel of being on a ship at sea in ROTAM.
 
I love the production in Somewhere in Time. But if we're talking guitar sound only, it's definitely Piece of Mind for me.
 
I love Adrian's guitar sound on Piece of Mind. It's gritty but had such a clear and soulful tone. I dig his sound on TFF too. He has a similar sound on PRR which is also good.
 
Right now, I´d say it´s Killers!!! As I´m actually listening to it :p But maybe Piece Of Mind or some of the more recent albums. Final Frontier is quite good, overall album is much better than what I excepted at the time. Guitars sound pretty good, even if it´s not Martin Birch producing...
 
Production, guitar sound...

What about "guitar production"?

That's more than sound alone. Piece of Mind has one of the loudest, fullest sounding rhythm guitars in the studio album catalogue. That's not just sound, but also a choice of how to bring that sound into the mix.

When you love the guitar sound on Piece of Mind, is that especially lead guitar, or overall?
 
I would say that overall production, especially how guitars are produced on Piece Of Mind. The balance between guitars is good, rhythm guitars are chunky and aggressive, leads sound piercing but clear. Compared to The Number Of The Beast which also has a good guitar-sound, Piece Of Mind is much more together as a whole, the whole band sounds great, plus those guitars especially!!!
 
Even though this album has some very nice guitar solos (especially Adrian makes a major leap from The Number of the Beast, also soundwise) I prefer the guitar work on the two consequent albums.

On Powerslave we can hear a different way of guitar playing than on Piece of Mind. Adrian often plays different things than Dave. E.g. in “Rime…” and in “The Duellists” Adrian plays open long chords where Dave plays fast rhythm guitar (powerchords). For someone who likes to hear more variation and details in the guitar work, Powerslave is definitely the better “product”! Realizing this, it's quite odd that this album features only two songs written by a guitarist (Adrian Smith)! On Somewhere in Time, again we can hear that Adrian does a lot of different things than Dave. More details, more variation, that's what I love about these albums.

Back to Piece of Mind:
Because of these loud guitars the bass is sometimes a bit in the background (especially when the guitar chords are open). The solos sound more clear than the ones on NOTB and Powerslave.
 
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The guitars on piece of mind is my favorite all time sound. Period. Music or any other noise of any kind that has ever entered my ears, nothing is better.

It is perfect. Smooth but fierce. The way the lead soars over the galloping. The transitions in and out of the solos. That magical riffing.That sound is Maiden. As great as all the other aspects of the songs and albums before and after piece are, it is the guitars on that album that make me love this band like I do.
 
^Dave is amazing on Maiden England : his solos on Killers, Heaven Can Wait, Still Life are brilliant. And he is such fun to watch. Him and Harry are really on fire on this one.
As for the studio albums, I fully agree with Foro's observations on Powerslave and Somewhere in Time, there is really more to be heard on those two records, and while Davey's playing is more fluid, more clean, Smith adds a lot to the songs. But I love the really agressive guitar sound of Piece of Mind. For me, that's quintessential Metal, Where Eagles Dare being my favorite on that respect.
 
When you love the guitar sound on Piece of Mind, is that especially lead guitar, or overall?
Everything. Guitar production is included in the sound on an album for me. If the guitar doesn't sit well in the mix I won't be able to enjoy the sound as much as I could. Piece of Mind is loud but the guitars never overpower the other instruments; I hear the bass just fine. Especially on The Trooper and To Tame a Land, the bass cuts through the guitars so powerfully, it's perfectly mixed. And that includes rhythm and lead guitars. Especially the leads on that album (and Powerslave) work very well with the rhythm section, both in the mix and the arrangement of the songs.
 
It's impossible to discuss guitar sound as an isolated occurrence. In any band or on record, it sits together with other instruments in a mix, and that relationship determines what works or doesn't work. Any guitar sound will sound different in a mix than it does on its own, and it needs to work with the bass sound, the keyboards and the drums as well as the other guitar tracks. Sometimes the mixes work, while the guitars sound less than stellar. It's a balancing act, and it really is the complete sound that matters.

I'm not really a fan of the old school production on for example Piece of Mind. I prefer my drum sound sampled and processed, with a real punch, and I want more bass in the guitars - a palm-muted guitar should really be felt as well as heard. I admit to only having listened to the 1998 CD remasters, and it may be an issue introduced there, but the guitar sound is way too mid-range heavy for me. The mixes work well - exceptionally well even, but I don't like the guitar sound or the drum sound that much.

I must say I really only have one favourite - Brave New World. Highly processed and very modern, but miles ahead of any other record they've done. Mixes that sound very good, and I also like the sound of all the instruments. The guitars sounds so damn awesome. Janick's lead following the vocal line in the title track - it sits so perfectly in the mix that I get goosebumps listening to it. The galloping rhythm of for example Out of the Silent Planet is more scooped, but it's done in a way so that it works in the mix rather than disappear into a muddy mess. What is changed? The bass has less room and isn't heard as much as the guitars do share more of its frequencies. I prefer that way of mixing, I don't want to hear the bass 'klonk' - I want to feel it.
 
Somewhere in Time. Those GK 250MLs were a fantastic idea for plugging the guitars into. Amazing notes and sound. I love Brave New World too but SIT is just the best...
 
Somewhere in Time and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. wish they would be louder in the mix though. I love how the riffs sound behind the solos like in Caught Somewhere in Time or The Clairvoyant. still, imo, the heaviest sound they ever got. which is kind of ironic in a way...
 
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