Savatage - Hall Of The Mountain King medley/tab book (Majesty Artisan content)

[dt89]

In case anyone missed some of my previous posts, I've been working on Savatage transcriptions for the past several months. At this point, I have 8 complete albums (Mountain King, Gutter Ballet, Streets, Edge of Thorns, Dead Winter Dead, The Wake of Magellan, and Poets & Madmen) and a total of 109 songs done. The full list of songs is in the video description. I hope to release the transcriptions in the coming months. Here's my latest video:

Let me know if you're interested in this project!

 

[dt89]

Here's a list of all 105 songs I've transcribed:

Sirens: Sirens, Living For The Night
The Dungeons Are Calling: The Dungeons Are Calling, By The Grace Of The Witch, Visions
Power Of The Night: Power Of The Night, Unusual, Warriors, Washed Out, Hard For Love, Fountain Of Youth
Fight For The Rock: Hyde, Red Light Paradise
Hall Of The Mountain King (full album)
Gutter Ballet (full album)
Streets (full album, minus A Little Too Far and Heal My Soul)
Edge Of Thorns (full album)
Handful Of Rain (full album)
Ghost In The Ruins: Post Script
Dead Winter Dead (full album)
The Wake Of Magellan (full album)
Poets & Madmen (full album)

 

[Tollywood]

Hall of the Mountain King is one of those albums from my youth that I really loved.

Well done - man, what a lot of work. You've been quite busy.

 

[PeteDuBaldo]

Very impressive, good work!

 

[dt89]

Hall of the Mountain King is one of those albums from my youth that I really loved.

Well done - man, what a lot of work. You've been quite busy.

Thank you! I think fans are long overdue for accurate transcriptions, and I believe it's an important part of preserving the band's/Criss' legacy. I've been in contact with Jeff Plate about the project, and he thinks it's a great idea and wants to see it happen. I plan to talk to the guys at the TSO show in Philly next month and present some of my work to them.

Very impressive, good work!

Thanks, Pete!

 

[dt89]

My medley for Poets & Madmen:

Also finished a few more transcriptions, I'm up to 90 songs now!

 

[DevRock]

Very cool! So, you did this on your own, not as a project on behalf of the band?? That's nuts! well done!

 

[dt89]

Very cool! So, you did this on your own, not as a project on behalf of the band?? That's nuts! well done!

Thanks Dev! Yes, I've been doing this project on my own, with the goal of releasing them with assistance from the band/endorsement of their accuracy. The more I looked at existing Savatage tabs, the more I saw how wrong they all are, haha. I initially started with the idea of doing a Criss Oliva tribute book, with transcriptions of some of his solos. It then snowballed into full songs, and now here we are! I think the fans are long overdue for accurate transcriptions of these songs. I even tracked down Matt Mitchell, who did the Gutter Ballet book in the early 90s, and he's impressed with my work.

 

[spychocyco]

Hope you get it off the ground. Agree that most of the transcriptions I've found for Savatage tunes online are pretty sketchy.

 

[dt89]

Hope you get it off the ground. Agree that most of the transcriptions I've found for Savatage tunes online are pretty sketchy.

Thanks! I now have someone helping me get in touch with some of the other members, and the feedback I've gotten from everyone so far has been great. Now I'm closing in on the 100 song mark, which is pretty crazy when I think back to where I started in April. I'll be posting another video tomorrow.

 

[Wahoonc]

That’s quite an undertaking—and obviously a labor of love. Very impressive, in my opinion. Can’t say I was a Savatage fan or know anything about them, but going to listen just based on your effort.

 

[Grugenhagen]

I wish you the best of luck in this endeavor. I'm a Savatage fan and would definitely buy these transcriptions if/when they're published. Please keep us posted!

 

[dt89]

That’s quite an undertaking—and obviously a labor of love. Very impressive, in my opinion. Can’t say I was a Savatage fan or know anything about them, but going to listen just based on your effort.

Thank you so much! You probably do know them from a particular song, but didn't know it was Savatage. I'll explain that when I post my next video tomorrow. It is most certainly a labor of love and I want to do my part in keeping the band/Criss Oliva's legacy going.

I wish you the best of luck in this endeavor. I'm a Savatage fan and would definitely buy these transcriptions if/when they're published. Please keep us posted!

Thanks! I know there are lots of fans all around the world that would love official transcriptions approved by the band. Thankfully I finally have some help from someone close with the band, hopefully we can get these out soon.

 

[dt89]

Here's my newest video, my medley for the Dead Winter Dead album. For anyone who doesn't know, Trans-Siberian Orchestra's most famous song (Christmas Eve Sarajevo 12/24) appeared on this album first, a full year before TSO's debut in 1996. So even if people say they don't know Savatage, they probably do since this song is pretty much everywhere!

I also just finished the entire Handful of Rain album, I'll hopefully have a video for that soon.

 

[dt89]

This album is obviously less guitar-centric than the Criss Oliva albums, but there are are some nice riffs and Skolnick solos. Stare Into The Sun has always been a favorite of mine.

 

[spychocyco]

Good stuff. And thanks for showing me just how off my rendition of Christmas Eve is.

Out of curiosity, what setup are you playing through in these videos?

 

[dt89]

Good stuff. And thanks for showing me just how off my rendition of Christmas Eve is.

Out of curiosity, what setup are you playing through in these videos?

That song in particular was a bit tricky, in terms of proper positioning/how it was played on the record. I wanted to find the oldest possible footage of Pitrelli playing that song, because there have been many different guitarists in TSO with their own ways of playing it. I found a couple of tv appearances from 1998 that were somewhat helpful. Al played the vast majority of the leads on DWD, so I referenced his positioning on some parts. And some parts are just plain hard to hear, due to the density and layering of the mix. If only I had access to the isolated tracks for this stuff. Anyway, I think I've gotten it as close as humanly possible.

As far as gear goes, it's just guitar to Axe-Fx II XL+ to usb. I'm using the Friedman HBE amp model, here's a link to my patch: Friedman HBE Rhythm

Handful of Rain was fun/interesting to do, considering the vastly different playing styles compared to Criss Oliva. I've essentially learned 5 different players' styles over the course of this project: Criss Oliva, Jon Oliva, Alex Skolnick, Al Pitrelli, and Chris Caffery. It's been cool to pick up on their tendencies and unique characteristics.

 

[dt89]

The Streets album is complete! I'm really happy and proud to have this one done, as it's probably my favorite Savatage album. I haven't transcribed A Little Too Far or Heal My Soul, since they're just piano and vocals. I did some tone-matching with my Axe-Fx for this video, I think I got pretty close!