What makes Dimebag so great

[Securb]

I was listening to Rebel Meets Rebel and Dime never sounds the same on different projects. When you listen to Beat It you know it is Eddie, not a bad thing. Clapton...well he always sounds like Clapton. You know when you are listening to Steve Vai. Dime seemed to be able to not only change his tone but his style project to project. If you listen to his music there is not real "Dime" sound. 

Pre-Phil Pantera



Classic Dime 



Rebel Meets Rebel 



Kid Rock and Dimebag Darrell - Saturday Night's Alright 


Damageplan 

[Agileguy]

I haven't listened to all of Dime's stuff, but I have listened to Rebel Meets Rebel and Damageplan, and I definitely hear the "dime sound." Actually it's not so much the sound/tone as it is more his approach to playing.

[Securb]

His tone definitely changes as he moves from the 500XL to the Dimebucker and the Randall to the Krank. But you are right his approach definitely changes as well. The big thing with Damageplan is the Whammy abuse throughout the album.

[JB From Hell]

It's a shame Damageplan never got the chance to develop. By and large, the album is a bit weak, but there are a lit of hints of greatness.

That said, I'm a big Phil fanboy, so I'd always miss his voice on any Dime project.

[karpathion]

[FORMULA73]

Jesus. I'm going to have to come back to this tomorrow.

[Securb]

It's a shame Damageplan never got the chance to develop. By and large, the album is a bit weak, but there are a lit of hints of greatness.

That said, I'm a big Phil fanboy, so I'd always miss his voice on any Dime project.

I love every track on that album

[FORMULA73]

What really gets me about Dime is that towards the end, he very nearly parodied himself.

What really gets me about this post is that I don't have the time to really go all out on it, but here are the conclusions to which I've arrived over several years of contemplation, and bear in mind this is all from a guy who saw 'Diamond Darrell' in a GW mag in 91ish and decided that's what he wanted to do with his life.

1. Damageplan SUCKED. Since Rex has next to no personality in a band setting (much like Dave Ellefson, who you'd forget in the blink of an eye), and most of the writing was done by Dime and Vince, I realized there was something missing.

2. That 'something' was Phil. Phil brought the anger and the dirt to Pantera. It's easy to see if you look back to the albums before CFH.



I think Dime and Vince dug what they dug, which is why Pantera was largely forgettable before they found a singer with something to bring to the table:

[FORMULA73]

The 'Dime tone' to which you refer was always there. You can hear snippets of later things in early clips that are floating around. Dime was always a riff master and from a lead standpoint, he was just a ripping 80's rock player with a pentatonic scale, lots of chromatic licks tossed in, super-smooth legato, and wide, powerful vibrato.

You actually have to listen to his playing to find the commonality, as opposed to his eq. He used the RG100s for a long, long time, as well as the L500L, later XL (never really used the Dimebucker much), and a lot of his riffage was shaped by whatever new toy he found to toss into his rig.

To be continued...

[FORMULA73]

BTW: the only Dime I hear in that shitty Elton John cover is the lead, which is pretty much from the worst time in his life: when Pantera fell apart.