I could understand not identifying who's who if they all played with similar lead tones, but come on. If need be I can go over every solo in Maiden's discography to show you the characteristics of each player 
I hear that there are different styles and especially tones, I've just never bothered figuring out who is who. But go ahead. It's something I SHOULD know. Maybe you can just pick one album and go over that.
I'll go through
Brave New World, as it sounds like you know it well enough.
The Wicker Man:
-2:14/3:10: Adrian Smith. Listen to the way the solo, in each section, builds up (or down) to a specific point. It also features at 2:47 a scale that he uses a lot on runs, typically to finish solos.
Ghost of the Navigator:
-4:35/5:03: Janick Gers. A very shreddy solo; as I mentioned before, he has a real bite to his guitar tone, which makes the switches between neck and bridge pick-up more noticeable. His solos are less constrained by structure than the other two guitarists; the time signature often has no real bearing on when (or where) his phrasings will start or end.
Brave New World:
-3:59/4:33: Janick Gers. Another solo that's pretty quick. He likes to pick a certain note, bend it, and then shred around it (usually with the pentatonic scale). Also, it features another one of his trademarks, long pauses on bends. Just interesting that he combined it with one of his faster solos.
- 4:33/4:48: Dave Murray. This solo is done entirely on the neck pick-up, and you can tell. It sounds very smooth and clean. The solos itself is extremely fast, yet fluid; he likely only needs to pick the string around 20 times to play this solo.
Blood Brothers:
-3:11/3:25: Dave Murray. Another one done on the neck pick-up. Still lots of legato.
-5:45/6:11: Janick Gers. An uncharacteristically slow one. This one's actually quite similar to the sort of style Adrian uses, but a lot less structured. I like how it wanders. A great one.
The Mercenary:
-3:02/3:20: Dave Murray. Not much to say here; it's quick, fluid. It employs something he does a lot: quick alternations of high Es and other notes on the first string.
-3:21/3:37: Adrian Smith. Another weird one; sort of uncharacteristic for him to use such hurried phasing. But the way it builds into a high note, which is then bent to finish is very typical.
This song is very strange in that it's one of the very few in Maiden's catalogue where the writing guitarist does not get a solo. This has to do with the origin of the song.
Dream of Mirrors:
-7:25/7:47: Janick Gers. Blackmore influences are on clear display here. A habit of his at 7:44: he employs a pattern of notes that is then immediately repeated at a higher pitch.
The Fallen Angel-2:35/2:49: Adrian Smith. The difference in guitar tones is on full display on this song. Listen to the slight touches of wah, delay, and reverb on Smith's guitar that makes it stand out.
-2:49/3:02: Dave Murray. This contains a good example of another habit: he likes to "meander" in between fast sections by playing in a very confined range of pitches while repeating lots of notes.
-3:03/3:16: Janick Gers. Gotta love how dirty his guitar sounds, especially exploding out of the clean sound of Murray.
The Nomad-2:56/3:11: Adrian Smith. Likes to use the whammy bar, which is shown off here.
-3:19/3:33: Janick Gers. Shredding and tone set him apart, again.
-3:34/3:49: Dave Murray. Lots of legato in this one, which is helpful because his sound his a lot more chunky on this one.
Out of the Silent Planet-3:51/4:20: Janick Gers. Another one of his slower ones. It's a good example of how his slow work differs from that of Adrian's; it's far less constrained by structure or time signature. It wanders from one place to another, rather than adopting a strict meter. Great stuff.
The Thin Line Between Love and HateI'm not going to bother timestamping these solos. There are four of them and they're all Dave Murray. Some great guitar work on this track; he gets down into a sort of dirty blues feel on some of the solos. In doing this, he actually sounds a lot like Janick in some cases, but I'm still pretty sure they're all Dave's.
Topic: THE Iron Maiden Thread (Read 436419 times)
