"Hold the Line"...How did Toto make that sound?

[octoruss]

Hola amigos,
For those of you familiar with this song, the main riff consists of 4 chords, and at the end of the 1st and 4th chord, it sounds like the player is sliding his hand down the fretboard or he's using his whammy bar to get a "decending" sound. I don't think it's the former because the "decend" sound is more subtle than sliding your hand down the fretboard, but I can't figure it out.

I'm trying to replicate the lead guitar part to this song, but can't figure out how he got that subtle "decending" sound to the chord. Might anyone out there know how it was done?

[Progger]

My guess is he just slides. A hit on the trem would be logistically inconvenient.

[Armistice]

I've never tried to play it, but I always assumed it was just a slide down - presume he was only playing two or three strings though, all at the same fret - doesn't sound that hard. Don't have the song on record anywhere so can't be of more assistance - good luck!

[Cyrokk]

I agree. To me it sounds more like a slide of the fingers than a trem. With the right technique, subtle slides can be quite effective, even if you are only sliding up or down a couple of frets or sliding for only a short duration. In this case I think it has more to do with the warm yet dry sound of the guitars double or triple tracked with the slide played consistently by the same player.

[Toonsmith]

How did Toto make that sound?

Simple, they sqeezed his b@lls!

Seriously, as I recall from the video, (showing his age), he's just sliding down the fretboard. With lots of distortion.

[octoruss]

Thanks for the thoughts amigos. But Cyrokk and Toonsmith, you then bring up another interesting question--

Cyrock states "it has more to do with the warm yet dry sound of the guitars double or triple tracked" and Toonsmith thinks its with a lot of distortion.

So the next question would be, how do you think he was able to get that dry, unmuddied sound when lots of distortion was used, especially if double or triple-tracked?

I'm not actually trying to learn to play the song, but rather replicate the slide and sound/tone of that crunchy yet powerful guitar without it being muddy.

[Cyrokk]

Typically guitarists use much less distortion on their guitars in the studio than one would believe. Too much gain will bury a guitar in a full mix of instruments. I suspect that the guitars were recorded in a fairly dead room with just enough distortion to the give the guitar sound a little grit. This allows for the tone to come through more than the distortion itself. Having the guitarist play the part two or three more times and you triple the tone of the guitar, triple the distortion, and add slight phase differences that significantly increase the power of the guitars and allows them to take up much more room in the mix that the other instruments can complement.

[Toonsmith]

Yeah. Cyrokk is probably right.

A band I was in a long time ago used to play a song live that had the same kind of slide in it. and about the only way I could play it on stage at that point was to give it distortion. Oh the good old days. That's all you needed back then. At least that's what everyone used to want to listen to.