 Hello everyone and welcome to Blackstar Potential. My name is Lee Fuge and I'm here today with MusicTeacher.com and in this video we're going to be breaking down the intro riff to the Iron Maiden track Two Minutes to Midnight. So this video is part of a new little series we're doing with Blackstar where we're going to break down classic riffs and licks. Now this is where you guys come in so if there's any riffs or licks you guys want to see us break down in these videos throw them in the comments below. It doesn't matter what they are or what style we want to know what riffs and licks you guys want broken down. All the tones you're hearing in this video are coming direct from the Blackstar IDCore V3 that you see right beside me here. This is going direct into my DAW over a USB connection and I'm using the cab rig sim to get my speaker simulation. So for this tone I'm using the OD1 voice of the amplifier. I've got the gain on about one to two o'clock with the volume at about halfway. The EQ is pretty flat everything's pretty much up at midnight but the bass is cut back a little bit. I've also got the resonance boosted up to about two o'clock and the presence to about one o'clock. The cab I'm using is a 4x12 vintage cab which I've gone with a condenser mic option for. I've boosted the lows and cut the highs. This is a very kind of mid focused tone. If you like the tone from this video you can download the preset which is linked in the description below this video. You can download this and install the preset on your own IDCore amplifier or you can go onto the Blackstar online community and download it from there. So as I said at the start the riff I'm going to be playing is the intro riff to the Iron Maiden track two minutes to midnight. This was played by the guitar player Adrian Smith. Adrian Smith has actually used some Blackstar products on some fairly recent Iron Maiden albums. Although this album was not recorded with the Blackstar amp you can still dial in a tone that's very close to the record. So here's the riff in full and then we'll break it down. So this is a great effective heavy rock riff that uses some double stops on the D and G strings and a palm muted open A. So most of this rhythm is actually pretty straightforward. We're doing things in groups of three but we're actually playing straight eighth notes for most of this riff. So straight eighth note is going to go one and two and three and four and so there's not a lot of weird timing going on here. So the main pattern of this riff is pretty easy to get to grips with. We're starting with two open A strings which are both palm muted then I'm playing a double stop on the D and G strings. So I'm placing my index finger on the fifth fret of both of those notes. So I'm combining that with the open strings so it's one and two. I hit that double stop on the two. The next thing I'm doing is playing another two open A notes and then hitting another double stop but this time on the seventh fret. Now you can use whichever fingers you want for this whenever I do it I use my third and my little finger at the same time. You could just play this with a single finger if you wanted to though. So now if you put those two parts together you get this. So with this being straight eighth notes that takes us up to the end of our third beat. One and two and three and so we've actually hit that second double stop on the end of three. On the fourth beat there's just two more open strings. So the first part is and then if I play that one bar at full speed this is what it sounds like. So the second bar now is going to start with that fifth fret double stop once more on the first beat then we've got another pair of open strings on the A followed by another seventh fret double stop. This comes on the end to end. So if I put those two bars together I have the entirety of the first bar and then in the second bar I have one and two and. So this is where we deviate from that note length slightly so instead of playing straight eighth notes at this point I'm actually holding that final seventh fret double stop for an entire beat. Even though it falls on the end of two I'm holding it until the end of three. Then I'm playing it again on the end of three holding that for a full beat and then on the end of four I'm playing it once more. On those second two repeats so on the end of three and on the end of four I'm actually applying some vibrato to this as well. This is why I prefer to play this with my little finger and my third finger I just find it a bit easier to apply that vibrato. So here's those two bars slowly and then at full speed. This riff also has a second part so the next bar is going to be the same as the first bar and then the fourth bar of the riff instead of going back up to that seventh fret double stop I'm coming down to this A power chord. So that's the open A string and the second frets on the D and G. Still doing the fifth fret double stop before that on the one followed by the two open A strings. Then I hit that A power chord on the end of two and let that ring for the entire rest of the bar. So here's the back half of the riff slowly and then at full speed. So now we just have to put both halves of that together so here's the entire riff start to finish all four bars slowly and then once more at full speed. So there you go there is a breakdown of the riff from the Iron Maiden track two minutes to midnight. Let me know down below in the comments how you guys have gotten on with that riff and also let me know if there are any other riffs or licks from classic tracks you'd like to see us break down in these videos and if you are using an idcore v3 amp don't forget to download the patch and apply that to your own amp as well so you can get in the right ballpark with the sound. Thank you all so much for watching I hope you've enjoyed this lesson don't forget to check out Blackstar Amplification on YouTube for more video lessons just like this and if you're looking for a guitar teacher please head to musicteacher.com and check out the Music Teacher Database there's a network of great teachers all around the country waiting to help you guys out. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you soon.