@Spiral: @BrentW: I think Spiral is quite right; check out some other videos by Michael Angelo Batio on YouTube, the guy is extremely impressive, although excessively boring :(

Lythium

@Strangelove:

its a guitar technique called tapping, Eddie Van Halen was the first to do it in his solos.

mergedwarrior

@BrentW:

...i'm sure michael angelo can do what zack kim does with ease.

Spiral

Man, he was so smug during the Chocobo Theme, he must have all the babes in an assembly line coming in and out of his room!

Man, he's got Seoul!

mjpm

Paul Gilbert signature guitars?

hehahohee

Pshaw. But can he play Dragonforce on Expert?

Kyle81

@tsathoggua: That guy is impressive as well but if you notice how little his hands move up and down the frets, the other kid is by far more tallented than that guy. The kid is playing the two guitars as if two people were playing the other guy seems to just be playing the same notes over and over again and then moving his hands to a new position and playing the same notes over and over again.

BrentW

holy shit

Bleeeee

Have you seen his expressions on the other ones? Haha priceless.

kevinyung89

Get this kid in Rock Band, NOW!!!

ghnvt

@BrentW: That's nothing.

+ Watch video

Granted, there's the age and equipment difference...

tsathoggua

I wana see how he plays Guitar Hero

Lanhoj

Loved the chords at the end of Tetris; good stuff.

Spiffyness

@Lythium: By 'this' I meant the Zelda theme, forgot about the other vids. *duh*. I do have the means to attempt this myself though.... hmm.. :D

Lythium

So awesome... and @Strangelove: check out this video is awesome too!..

+ Watch video

Mike918

Ahh, I have had this as my cellphone ringtone for quite a few years now, that and Splash Wave from Outrun, and the world theme from Shadow of the Beast (yes I'm sad). This was some impressive guitar work, however. and it's also nice to see another person that appreciates Paul Gilbert!

(If you don't know what I mean, then the guitar was a design favoured by said guitarist)

Lythium

This guy is my Guitar hero

BrentW

Is that really old? Damn I've never seen anything like it. I would love for him to play in the room with me while I made love to a woman. When he was of age and stuff, all legal.

collinc

One of the absolute best renditions of the chocobo song I've ever heard. Simply amazing.

tinkyXIII

Wow, It takes alot to get me impressed. so, well...

just wow...

Acunia

That's awesome, but it occurs to me that the guy is playing the guitars like some sort of modified piano. The possibilities ...

Strangelove

Awesome meter overloaded.

Oldness officially forgiven.

Moonshadow101

Anyone who goes on the web and shows a clip of themselves playing a song from a video game helps how how important games are to everyone. Kudos.

aevanko

Why do koreans pwn us at everything? including playing two guitars at once? look out mab theres competition, and its korean :/

D Mitsuki

@tsathoggua: Gah! Those cuts are making me nauseous!

Doomstalk

@D Mitsuki: Seriously... my Korean friends own me at everything I do...

Lancehead

while this is essentially the equivalent of playing the piano, its impressive because it's two guitars. right on.

Konstrix

@BrentW the rock star guy as we are calling him is actually ripping like crazy and i would imagine it needs some concentration. He is actually playing rhythm and solo guitar and in some cases doing 2 solo's at the same time but he is actually playing guitar and not tapping as the young kid is doing in his videos. Im not trying to say one guy is better than the other but looking at these video's they are not even in the same League.

gnudna

Very cool, I imagine he's not terribly old and it helps that he's doing video game stuff!

Of course that Chocobo theme sounds incredibly difficult, it's like two songs playing at the same time-- of course Uematsu made it to sound perfect in unison.

Absent Blue

fake.

anglon

@Lythium: Alright I will give you that but the guy seems like he is missing something. Although what he is doing is exciting, he has no emotion for being a "rock star" he is stone faced and like you said really boring somethings wrong it's like some kind of machine is playing.

BrentW

I want to hear this kid actually just rock out on one Guitar. Im assuming this kid can just shred like there is no tomorrow.

PS: big chance this kid is not joe shmoe next door. and might be a prodigy when it comes to guitar.

gnudna

@Strangelove: Yeah, that's a technique called, simply, "tapping". Look around on YouTube and you'll find some fantastic stuff.

Like this cover of Ryuichi Sakamoto's song "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence", by Kotaro Oshio!

[uk]

+ Watch video

Hell yeah!

108

[Otto]: You know those guitars that, like, double guitars...?

APPROVED

the-hypnotoad

I didn't know the Tetris song had a name! I know it as Song A... Some things are better off not being known.

DONNYchiban

I swear that the chocobo one has been on Kotaku already. I know I've certainly seen it, and I don't exactly go scouring the internet for this sort of thing. It might have been Digg where I saw it, but I don't think so. Anyone?

Evin

@gnudna: Maybe cause it just sounds like noise to me, I don't enjoy the noise that his guitars are making so it's hard for me to appreciate how amazing the rock star guy is and what he is doing. I play the violin which is kind of different so I have no bearing when it comes to the guitar and after listening to that my ears literally hurt.

BrentW

Personally, I prefer my game music a bit more metal, ala Kurikinton Fox

+ Watch video

TheCleaningGuy

@BrentW: Michelo Angelo Batio makes it look easy. It's not. I play the guitar, and I used to play the viola, and whereas on the violin/viola shifting requires lots of practice to do accurately, on the guitar there are frets to guide you, so it's not difficult -- how much he shifts on the neck isn't indicative of how difficult the piece is.

Secondly, I'm guessing you didn't watch the whole video. 4:40 in, he turns the guitar upside down -- I think the guitar is actually entirely unsuspended, the whole time, and at all times he has to hold it in place and finger, which is another reason for why he doesn't shift much. There's also a part where he flips his hand around the opposite sides of the neck to hit a descending scale, and his hand moves so fast that you can't even see his hands moving.

In conclusion, yeah, that kid is good. But he doesn't compare to MAB, who is a god among guitarists.

tsathoggua

Wow. That Tetris theme was downright pleasant. I've never heard that song and thought, "you know, I could really relax listening to this." More songs need to be done on guitar.

...although I suppose it does help that he didn't speed up.

Fierfaerie

@TheCleaningGuy:

Actually, that's just him performing the Black Mages version of the song:

Tarthus

Jesus.

ZaerApollo

the tetris theme song forever haunts me in my recurring nightmares X_X

hrabbit

Wow... That was pretty cool. Wish I could do that, but then I realized I don't even know the first thing to playing guitars.

Eternal BPM: Insanity's Requiem

well, in his other vids, he also did mario, canon, fur elise, and many others

holysocks

zomg, its the koreans again! if they could do this and send a zerg rush or even both at the same time, well, they could build a damn A bomb! quick ma' tell the presidents!

genebeef

Epic, your on my hero list, I still needed a reason to remove Jack Bauer, so sad

AntiZERØ

these clever asian kids make me feel like the dumbest thing on earth, perhaps just slightly above the intellect of a rather stubbornly dense rock. im still trying to learn my alphabet and waste my time with things like trying to count past ten with my fingers without reusing any. im going to go crawl back into my rockband wannabe hole now on the snares.

bl0ven

He should just arrange them for solo guitar. It would be a lot less gimmicky and a lot more impressive.

ethic

That kid has some sick ambidexterity going on there. I'm impressed.

Captain Impulse

I remember the first time I saw this guy play at a gig. I was just resting after my band's set and while his band was setting up,he played the guitar on his lap like a piano. Totally blew me away.

Sad that he had to leave his band then because of National Service.

lamusiqa

Pretty cool, but not all THAT impressive, seeing as most of the skill he's using can be directly applied to piano- and I've seen far more complicated/difficult things done with a piano and the coordination of two hands.

EmTeeZ

ethic: Yup. There's nothing that creative here at all (he's very far from the first to do this as well); he's just replicating the theme.

And it is in fact a lot easier, and a lot less practical, than it looks as the second guitar (which ensures you don't have to consider the arrangement whatsoever) is held in place by a stand.

EgoMonk

This is so awesome it makes my teeth hurt.

Infradead

SMB-theme is A LOT more impressive on a 12-string.

rainofwalrus [XBL]

You guys are so easily impressed.

Philudo

He hit a wrong note. The third 16th note at 0:26.

I am such an a-hole.

Seriously neat though. So much coordination involved. All
you haters need to show me that you can do better.

stonefry

I'd honestly be more impressed if he did that with just one guitar.

Dex

if i could do any thing with my left hand i would try to do this.

_Ted_

Awesome on a whole new level.

knetworx

There's an instrument which eliminates the need for such zaniness. The Chapman stick. Seriously, look it up.

perrinbar

I'm truly impressed. One reason being, your doing two different things at one time. (The tune) .. So its impressive that he can either empty his mind where he doesn't think to much on what hes doing or can focus enough to where he doesn't mess up.

I can only imagine the amount of time he put into practicing.. or he might not? He's Asian after all.. They seem really gifted.

--Core--

represent!

The Mario theme he did... Man.. it spoke to me.

Seoulfood

@--Core--: Although this is impressive it's about the same as playing piano in regards to playing two parts at once.

krunkjuice

I wouldn't call that "shredding" so much as "playing really well." Nice work.

Evil Jim

Actually, that could be done with just one guitar.

Still, very, very awesome though.

Antihippy