Fast Echo Double Speed Riff





Here's the inside scoop on how this echo doubling trick is accomplished. I've made it pretty easy for you by laying out all the tab and giving you a drum backing track. If that's not enough, I've also provided audio samples of all the tab with and without the echo kicked in.

As noted on the tab, some of these riffs can be pick blocked for one sound or you can mute the strings with your right hand for a quite different sound. The drum machine is set for 260 BPM (Beats Per Minute). The echo delay is set for 346 millisecond delay. You must set the echo for only one repeat and the echo volume must be equal to the original volume. With all these settings the echo of a picked note will occur one and a half notes later than the original picked note. Be sure to pick the notes evenly and equally spaced. Don't get caught up listening to the echo. It may help if you listen for the bass drum and pick the top (on the tab) or 1st note of each pair of notes at the same time the bass drum hits.

There is a formula for figuring the echo delay based on the tempo. Assuming that each note is a quarter note, and that there's 4 quarter notes per measure, and that the echo'ed note should fall a note and a half later than the original note:
  • (260 beats/minute)/(60 seconds/minute) = 4.333 beats/second
  • 4.333 beats/second = .231 seconds/beat
  • At one quarter note per beat therefore, there's .231 seconds between notes
  • Assuming 1.5 note delay, 1.5 x .231 = 346 milliseconds
  • Simple algebra shows that: (90,000/BPM) = the delay in milliseconds!
With practice, you will be able to set the delay by ear just by picking a muted string with the echo on and adjusting the delay until it just "sounds" right. Although this demo is at 260 BPM you can see that it would be fairly easy to play much faster than this. The provided speed of 260 BPM is a good tempo to learn at. Don't get discouraged with this. Practice a while then set it aside for a while. It's like learning to ride a bike. All at once you go from "not getting it" to "I got it!" after a few short practice sessions. Remember to review the basic rules above to make sure you are executing properly.

Useful Tip!

Right click and save the drum track to your hard drive. Then use Windows XP or NT to burn burn it to a regular .cda file that can be played on ANY cd player. No special burner software like EasyCD Creator or Nero is needed. All of this function is already built into Windows! EMail me if you need help with this.



Description Tab Hear It Dry! With Echo Pick Blocked With Echo Muted
Drum track only at 260 BPM ---- Audio ---- ----
Tab 1 Riff Tab Audio Audio Audio
Tab 2 Riff Tab Audio Audio Audio
Tab 3 Riff Tab Audio ---- Audio
Tab 4 Riff Tab ---- Audio ----


Click on the tab images below to see them full size





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