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Tuesday, July 27, 2010

"Panama" Van Halen Isolated Guitar Track

It wouldn't be fair to play only the backing track to Panama without hearing the really energy of the song - Eddie Van Halen's guitar. Here's the isolated track.

1) Eddie has a slight mis-picked note at :28 when he plays the harmonics. Never bothered me before though.

2) Ed is a great rhythm guitar player and he's really exceptional at going back and forth between lead and rhythm without the bottom falling out of the track both in sound and energy.

3) Once again, the guitar sound is signature Van Halen. There's a medium length delay on the guitar which in turn feeds a medium decay reverb. On other songs it's easier to pick up when there's a dry guitar panned left and the effect right, but it's basically the same thing.

4) I'm not sure if the very end of the track is cut off or if it was a slightly late mute for the vocal ending. Anyone know for sure?



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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

These tracks are most likely taken off the Guitar Hero: Van Halen game. I could say the same from all the other videos, they're taken from either Guitar Hero or Rock Band Games.

Bobby Owsinski said...

Yes, they probably are. But many that don't have access to the game still might find them interesting.

Derek said...

Amazing -- almost the entire greatness of the song (which I listed as my #1 brainless fun hard-rockin' song of all time a couple of years ago) is there in Eddie's guitar part. Plus, it starts with three killer riffs in a row that another band might have turned into three entirely separate songs.

The fascinating part for me comes around 0:19, where he hits a harmonic that I always thought was actually David Lee Roth giving one of his yodely whoops. But no, it's the guitar.

I also always thought there was more than one guitar track on this song, but that's not true either. I'm not a hard rock or metal guitarist or even that much of a fan of the genre, but Roth-era Van Halen were definitely something special.

Anonymous said...

I really love listening to these isolated tracks. Especially when I am really familiar with the song (or in VHs case, tried to play many of them). There is an intensity that come through that is lost in the mix. Great stuff.

Shane Hendricks said...

Fantastic! Proves why Ed is one of the greatest ever.

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