The SECRET to Angus' Who Made Who Guitar Riff? AC/DC

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This is a video I've wanted to make for a little while, talking about what I believe to be the secret to playing the Angus guitar part to Who Made Who by AC/DC!
It's known for being quite a tricky riff/guitar part to play and for good reason! It's a simple arpeggio type riff which repeats over and over but the note choices and their place on the guitar lends itself to being nothing short of awkward - that is, if you try to play it in standard tuning!
In the studio from time to time bands will use little hacks to get certain recordings a little cleaner, neater and more precise. I have a hunch that this is no exception and Angus Young may have tuned his guitar slightly different to be able to play it a lot easier, as I demonstrate in the video.
I hope you enjoy the video, definitely leave me a comment with your thoughts and feelings on it!
Thanks for watching!
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#acdc #whomadewho #acdcwhomadewho
who made who / who made who acdc / who made who guitar lesson / angus young who made who / acdc who made who guitar lesson / the secret to angus who made who guitar riff acdc / malcolm young / brian johnson / phil rudd / simon wright / cliff williams / chris slade / acdc guitar lesson / acdc 2020 / Rob galley

[@chrisrobertson2002]

What blows my mind is, even if you master the method/technique to play this riff, Angus also throws in the duck walk while he does it. Legend.

[@mr.kincaid2513]

I feel this is their most underrated song. Absolutely love it. Great job!!

[@tarzanmike7836]

Have you heard the extended version? It really rocks!

[@crazyman6655]

I think send for the man is way more underrated than this

[@Simmo_Cars]

Someone hasn’t heard of Two’s Up!

[@orlowski2018]

Rockin' All The Way anybody?

[@orlowski2018]

@@crazyman6655 That defiantly a rlly good song, also love back in business

[@guitarcleveland]

For ten years my brother and I have talked about how this song was recorded in a different tuning and that everyone on KZbin was playing it wrong. You did a great job demonstrating the correct way.

[@Hologhoul]

I always assumed it was open strings. If using standard tuning, the way to do it is fingerstyle or hybrid, but you lose the pick attack which is the giveaway for how Angus did it on the record (as you demonstrated). Great song!

[@BAR-ct7ti]

At 43 years old, I’ve listened to AC/DC every since middle school, and I’ve always been the most fascinated by this guitar riff than any other. There is just something so unorthodox about it and how it just keeps looping up-and-down. So ingenious!

[@dvs60]

This makes so much sense, and I agree the tunings make it sound much more like it does on the recording.

[@RobGalley]

Thanks for watching! Glad you agree 🤟

[@davidzemann5859]

Ohhhh finally, someone has successfully explained this properly!!! Thank you!! You've made this a LOT easier to understand...and play!

[@ispodnule]

Dude, I think you’ve finally solved the mystery of this song! You nailed it! My fav AC/DC song of all time. Well done. Thanks!

[@RobGalley]

Glad you agree! Just seems to make sense to me for a recording!

[@ispodnule]

Rob Galley Yes! And I guess Angus used that specially tuned guitar live. Then again, the chorus chords wouldn’t sound right with that tuning 😅

[@smith981]

@@ispodnule I'm gonna have to look at footage bc I was thinking the same thing. But remember, he had his brother playing rhythm, so all Angus would have had to do to fit in was change a couple chord shapes to reduce the number of strings being plucked, and it would still "fit" bc Malcolm was holding it together with the big chords.

[@teaserrocks1768]

@@ispodnule- I okay it tuned like this, and there is a way to play the chords, but dying the chorus, Angus plays the single notes - which can also be played in this special tuning. One just has to learn the fingering

[@ciw28]

Bloody fantastic post Rob, great being able to have a go at the tune.

[@RobGalley]

Thanks Chris! 🤟

[@DominicaRepublica]

Your videos are so helpful Rob! thank you so much and happy news years!

[@leshanty]

This was such a brilliant studio trick and you are spot on! In this time period AD/DC were starting to experiment and this was a perfect way to confuse people trying to learn it. Then they top it off with a badass tapping solo. This song is highly underrated!

[@MichaelTaylor-rz4wm]

Excellent video. So happy i found your channel

[@joeasharp]

Great analysis bro! Totally enjoyed this video! I played it this way with a special tuned SG guitar years ago on gigs! ...but Angus actually did it in standard tuning in concert! I have seen him so many times do it in standard. I believe he done it this way in the studio.

[@shaalis]

Well done! I've always wondered if there were other ways

[@kenhanna9551]

So jealous of ur playing. AC/DC is my favorite band. Wish I had the patience and time to learn. Kudos to you Rob

[@RobGalley]

New Years resolution? 😏😂 thanks Ken!

[@paulmccusker4305]

Excellent man, makes sense to me wish I'd thought of so cheers for the lesson 👍

[@RobGalley]

Thankyou!

[@tommypearson6319]

You are 100% correct on this one! I figured this out too back when the song was first released. You can easily hear that it's all pulloffs to the open root notes of the chords. It makes it a hard song to cover live unless you have an extra guitar pre-tuned for it. Great explanation.

[@RobGalley]

Yeah it definitely sounds like pull offs to the open strings, So I’m glad someone else had the same thought!

[@tatoruano1910]

Great lesson my friend. I have a 54 years old and I listen AC/DC since 1976!! Good!!!

[@CanadianDupa]

You can hear that’s what angus is doing by listening to the song

[@shaalis]

Ya I think so too. his playing is so clear n clean that string jumping just would muddy the sound otherwise!

[@daxvictor7526]

a trick : watch series at flixzone. Me and my gf have been using them for watching a lot of movies recently.

[@enriquekristian7772]

@Dax Victor Yea, have been using flixzone for years myself :)

[@scorchedearthdj]

Nice work. I think that sounds perfect.

[@simongreenwood8436]

Dude you've got a hell of a talent playing and teaching 👏 Keep it uo love your work!!

[@RobGalley]

Thanks Simon, really appreciate it!

[@GuerrillaGuitar]

That's really awesome man! I always thought it was tuned differently

[@RobGalley]

Makes a lot of sense!

[@slycooze150]

I bet this is what he did! I tried this tuning about 10 years ago and figured it’s the only way to play it smoothly (at least for me to play). Awesome video!

[@gtsix]

Neat explanation, and agree on the hypotesis of a different tuning used for the studio recording! I was also thinking about tapping as a third alternative way, to make it sound more like the studio version and get that pull-off sound (sort of)

[@stanlee6694]

You did a great job!!

[@willjones1557]

YEEEEEEES! Absolute LEGEND!!!!!! (Honestly thank you so much this is so helpful!)

[@RobGalley]

Thanks for watching 🤟

[@laurentmuller2732]

Brilliant as always 👏

[@RobGalley]

Thanks so much 🤟

[@durkar3791]

Nailed it Rob, I think you're right.

[@RobGalley]

Thanks! It’s just a logical guess hah

[@miniheckler]

Thanks! Great stuff.

[@KnapfordMaster98]

If you watch very carefully near the end of the music video, you can see Angus doing exactly this, in fact he does pull-offs. He does it on the D string which is wrong for that part of the song, but it's still very interesting. As others have said, when he plays it live he either just does it the hard way or he uses open strings (D, then A, then G). I've found if you hold your pick far out and sorta loose, kind of like a beginner would, and if you *really* focus on leading with upstrokes, the hard way is doable.

[@johncho8766]

Great video. Alternate tunings really open up the possibilities of the guitar, but I think the studio recording sounds like it's actually done on two strings. This method is indeed easier, but the two string method isn't miles harder - if you use hybrid picking.

[@fidelio1566]

What the hell of a sound! great great great!

[@josephland8649]

That does sound great, this being one of my favorite AC/DC songs ive actually done this your way before. I really think Angus played it in standard tuning though. They played this song live for about 10 years. I know its hard but Angus is a way more badass guitar player than me and i believe he could do it. Maybe that's why they took it out of the setlist in the mid 90s, maybe he got tired of it hahaha

[@RobGalley]

Quite possibly! I more meant this was probably his he recorded it rather than how he played it live!

[@jaecenwhite2590]

He has a whole crate full of SGs and would swap out for this song, which probably means he had a guitar tuned just for this.

[@blacksabbath1022]

Angus played it the hard way live because he's a badass. It's hard to find up close footage of it. I found one video from TRE tour in 90'. For a very short time at about 1:16 of the video you can see that his middle finger is on the C and he's switching strings. kzbin.info/www/bejne/oJjPl6CsjalnpM0 In the studio that part is pretty much played throughout the first half of the song. Angus probably played it clean a few times and they looped that section but he does play it. You can really hear it on Live at Donnington. It is tricky as hell to get it down clean at that tempo.

[@blacksabbath1022]

Some reason that link ain't working but search Who Made Who(live Auburn Hills Detroit)

[@jaecenwhite2590]

It was a lot harder to loop back then, it’s doubtful they’d have done it without non-linear editing

[@russbeard3665]

Yes, definitely hammer on - pull offs... I'm doing it with two hand taps because of my Floyd Rose, and it is a good challenge tapping and pulling in sequence.

[@danielburke9881]

That was cool. Cheers👍

[@rickvalens276]

Totally agree....ty for lesson.

[@torque91]

The transcriber for Guitar for the Practicing Musician chalked this up to a sped up sampler back in the day

[@SGslaya]

I'm sure this is what he did in the studio but I've seen him play it the other way live. I also read somewhere he taped his strings in the studio to record thunderstruck.

[@guyprovost]

Wow... nice find !

[@daveinDc]

So to play it live, if you have a Variax and a Firehawk1500, Helix, etc. , basically a setup that supports Variax guitars, you can copy the lead patch and alter the tuning per patch. I have played it this way live without the hassel of switching guitars. I start out in standard, then stomp patch #2 for the custom GACGBE tuning, then switch back to patch #1 for the EADGBE tuning for the other parts

[@beatatomaszewska5009]

Great Rob !

[@RobGalley]

Thankyou!

[@oldtimerf7602]

I never investigated, but I always knew from listening closely that he played the whole lick on individual strings like you did it.

[@luisbarillas7768]

U R absolutely right!

[@redstar7311]

Thank You SIr!

[@neilhaywood5381]

I agree, I think live at donnington '92 they transpose it. Then you can play open strings in standard tuning. Which of course helps live.

[@Kennelmouth]

100% that's the way Angus plays it. It's clear from the audio that he's doing pull-offs. It's also the kind of thing Angus loves to do. You can also see from the official music video that this is what he is doing. I'm honestly kind of shocked that there aren't more guitar tutorial videos that cover this, and that most tutorials tell you to string-skip. So thanks for that.

[@scottamendola3909]

God Bless You Brother! I knew it sounded like Angus Was using 1 string for the riff. The Outro, it has that violin type sound if you listen closely. Thanks for lesson

[@markowersonst2178]

Nice idea

[@wodenoftheangles3339]

Excellent.

[@dannyc7839]

Makes total sense

[@sacheenheartbreakkid]

Great stuff my friend 👍🏻

[@RobGalley]

Thanks so much Sacheen!

[@sacheenheartbreakkid]

@@RobGalley Happy new yr buddy! Let's collab next month!

[@TimmyOzman]

This video makes a lot of sense. I have some old tabs for it that had it in standard tuning but in the key of D instead of C (without giving any warning that they had it in a different key). In D, they had the fist part of the riff as 0-4-0-5-0-7 on the forth string, but for the others they had on the fifth string doing finger taps on 6-2-7-2-9-2 and then down to 0-4-0-5-0-7 on fifth string. It sort of works, but you can't play along with the actual song.

[@TheNonautomatoN]

I think this is exactly how they did it. I've heard that Angus took all the strings off except for the B string to get such a clean sounding Thunderstruck riff too.

[@teaserrocks1768]

Saw an interview with Angus - they just taped the other strings down so only the B string would be playable

[@mainadas]

awesome dude...

[@kjellesperas5132]

Nice mate 👊

[@transtremm]

I remember reading somewhere (where?) in the studio this line is played by synthesizer using a simple arpeggiator. This would account for the pace, tone, and attack of this line.

[@docdaytona108]

For what it’s worth, WAY back in the day, ‘Guitar for the Practicing Musician’ had this song transcribed, and in its Performance Notes, the transcriber openly speculated that it sounded suspiciously like a sequencer. But they had it transcribed for Standard tuning, probably because Angus hadn’t revealed any secrets at that point. If Steve Morse had played it meticulously up to tempo, alternating strings with each note, I could believe that. But not many others. Angus never seemed like the type to take the path of greater resistance.

[@peteroberts3273]

What's Rob, great job man, I need to stop making excuses and learn how to play my SG, going to a party and taking my SG and Marshall amp and playing AC/DC riffs would be so much fun.

[@RobGalley]

An ACDC guitar jam party does sound cool hah, I gotta get to one of those at some point!

[@AlienIntervention1137]

Awsome video . Close up where your fingers are positioned but grasped most of it . Cheers new subscriber

[@RoccoGD]

Yeah you are right, this is the best way! I never got this riff out of my head and love it, since seeing the move Reah M from Stephen King with AC/DC Music. I always played the riff on the open A-String and was always wondering how he plays it. Cause like you showed its not possible to get this smooth sound over 2 Strings and yes i have seen footage where Angus plays it live like this. It sounds ok, but its not the same. Great Job!!

[@RobGalley]

Thanks for watching 🤟 It’s a killer riff for sure

[@hungfao]

Very interesting.

[@ivomols3262]

Great, thanks!

[@RobGalley]

Thanks for watching!

[@kpex7509]

Makes sense to me dude ..sounds great ..I got that same guitar by the way I just wish I could play it as good as you do ..thanks for the video’s sounds close to the movie maximum overdrive🖖🏻🧔🏻‍♀️

[@gwenmollo]

You're completely right, thanks !! at least !!

[@davidchurchchurchy3674]

Some cool guitar knowledge.

[@germanjahn9981]

Excelente!!! So smart!!!👍

[@RobGalley]

Thanks! Just seems more logical than smart hah 🤟

[@smalllicks]

Awesome ...

[@TerryVon]

Yours sounds great. Having said that - Angus played this with a pick/fingerpicking combo (top string with pick, bottom string with finger). Same with the guitar solo on "Rock & Roll Ain't Noise Pollution".

[@Hologhoul]

Possibly. That's how to do it at the right speed, but the pick attack seems present which implies open strings/tuning.

[@mariomiron2206]

My ears hears the same. Your on top of it.

[@rallekalle9092]

Great job. I am pretty sure Angus used that special tuning when recording. With standard tuning you cannot get that clear sound. Live he uses standard tuning because he is not changig guitars during the concert. He also used a trick for recording Thunderstruck by removing all strings but the b-string.

[@jfkandthedinosaurs6575]

Did anyone else start freaking out at 6:27

[@KozumaHeiji]

Good catch! Yeah, agree with you. This is very likely how he played in the studio. I think I had very poor timing to reupload my old tutorial on this song (back from 2009) - back then I used a live video as a reference, so I played it with the fretted pedal note in std tuning - I'm getting quite a few comments complaining about this. I think it's your fault! (just joking!) Live, Angus definitely played it with the fretted pedal note (as you can hear on the LIVE album - it's not as defined, etc) since it's pretty much impossible to play the rest of the song with that tuning I think. One misunderstanding I can see just by reading the comments - he is NOT playing with pull-offs - all the notes are plucked. Watch Rob's video carefully - it's downstroke for the fretted note and upstroke for the open string. You can hear that in the song too. Just one small criticism - you don't play the root of the first C chord in the chorus arpeggio (no big deal) ;) Cheers!

[@sheldoncaldwell1510]

I’ve been trying to alternate pick this song in regular tuning with no luck in getting up to speed ( angus speed) to the point where I use it for a warm until the blood is flowing . 25 plus years later and I still can’t play the damn riff lol but what your doing is way better than the fake it until you make it hammer one and offs that sound like crap . Nice job and there’s no wrong way of the notes happen . It’s kinda like using your thumb to make a G chord in open d tuning , the notes are all there just a different road to get there! Awesome job

[@calbraid3328]

You're not full of rubbish....you're right! Thanks, brother. Way cool. It's kind of like the Thunderstruck video where Angus is shown using hammerons and pulloffs, but it's deceptive, because in the recording you can clearly hear the pick attack.

[@davidgressner3988]

I think you're correct. The ONLY way to play that background riff is to tune the strings to the chord root notes. And the articulation of such sounds EXACTLY like the recording.

[@RobGalley]

It does to my ears too! Thanks for watching!

[@techdeathhippie6319]

You are right about this . On the ACDC LIVE album you could him even pulling off to the open strings . It’s louder and more obvious. So he has to have had an extra guitar for live playing of who made who . Good work

[@Hologhoul]

Or he skipped the open strings and the live one was studio dubbed? Hard to tell as the bootleg videos aren't clear enough.

[@philyates7670]

Thanks for this. They may have just made Thunderstruck a bit easier if I apply alternate tuning for that track too.

[@bonscott6353]

Hmmm..?? Not really, the thunderstruck lick is all on the b string anyway.

[@hiseminencetheholymacdiarmada]

I used wreck my brain trying to figure this out. I eventually gave up and just did what you did and tuned the strings differently. I do have a suggestion though. If you listen to the studio recording, when he drops to the A, he only plays the 3rd and 4th, then on the G, he goes back to playing 3rd, 4th, and 5th. But… on the live recording he plays 3rd, 4th and 5th on all.

[@buckers3672]

Good theory. To me it always sounded like he used subtle volume swells too...(left hand = hammer on ; right hand = volume swells)...sort of like EVH did on Cathedral.

[@bobby1970]

I'm a brand new newbie at guitar, and wow, I learned something very valuable in this video about palm muting the strings. I've heard the term before, but I'm shocked at how much better it made it sound. I wonder how often palm muting is used in guitar playing of rock and metal music?

[@RobGalley]

A lot! It’s not just palm muting. There’s learning to mute all the strings you don’t intend to play with both hands - that will be a game changer for your playing/technique

[@lauraandrews8319]

I knew that riff was way too difficult for an Angus riff, thank you for enlightening me!

[@RobGalley]

Thanks for watching!

[@danielgrohl6971]

this is true of any song once you get the tuning right everything will make sense. I had a guitar instructor tell me that Angus has mastered his tremolo picking, and this may be but i am quite sure that this is the right way to do it. Just purchase a guitar with (2) fret boards so you can get back to standard tuning be quick or be dead! :)

[@hardrockerdave94]

Makes a lot of sense that they’d had done it like this in the studio! They’ve done all sorts of tricks over the years like this, like with Thunderstruck it was recorded with a guitar with all strings but the B removed

[@icecreaminc8013]

track down an interview with Jason Becker, who was recording the David Lee Roth album Lil aint enough in the stuido next door to ACDC while they recorded Razors Edge. He talks about hearing Angus playing thunderstruck's legato and solo, and later being invited in. Angus nailed the legato into without much issue, but his solo apparently took about 12 takes. Why the single string story is bullshit, is Angus used the Thunderstruck intro for a finger stretching exercise before live performances for many years before it became a song.

[@andrewkramer4021]

@@icecreaminc8013 post a link

[@hardrockerdave94]

Icecream Inc I’ll try and find the interview with Angus from a couple of years ago where he said about taking the other strings off He’d been doing that as an exercise for years yes, but I assume they removed them for the studio just to get rid of extra string noise that you’d notice in a studio but not live

[@MrOztrailGuy]

That’s one way of playing that ‘ then you look at Carl Brown’s hybrid picking lesson on Who Made Who ‘ Which is done with an index finger and thumb which sounds more realistic

[@aaronpaterson1615]

your sound is like Angus's sound, I'm sure you nailed it

[@AustinBoil]

Nailed it! I always wondered why the studio version sounds so much better than live. They typically do but the live versions of other songs aren't so noticeable as in this one. One of my all time fav's too.

[@JMP_2203]

Nice video! I've thought this for years but just like you I've searched for the proof but never could find it. I've played it both ways and the alternate tuning sounds much closer to the album. But then again, how did Angus play it live? The only videos I've ever found of him playing it live are grainy and barely even show him doing the riff but he must be in standard tuning because he has to play the solo and even plays part of the riff an octave up (on the g string). Either way he's a virtuoso so he can probably play it fine either way. If anyone's interested I have a cover of this song on my channel where I play the riff in standard tuning - it's hard but can be done.

[@contrarian8870]

Is also done like this live? You can switch guitars between songs but not really during a song. Can Angus play the rest of the song with this tuning?

[@rauljcarn]

I agree with you. It sound a lot better changing the tune

[@corporalrich]

Can you do the solo in that tuning and where is the guitar change live? That's the problem.

[@boweed420]

You beat me to making this video. You can actually play some interesting chords in that tuning that I think Angus did in the studio. I thought I did see Angus playing it in a video standard but I stinky did record it with those open tunings

[@user-uu1tw7nj7z]

But with the D, A, and low E string tuned differently how do you play the solo

[@beadinmehmedi1693]

Perfect Guitar Player

[@RobGalley]

Thanks my man!

[@Grim177]

I've suspected this was the "secret" of the studio version for 3 decades. However from the footage there is of live versions, he played with standard tuning the hard way. I've also seen one or two tribute band Angus' doing it the hard way and nailing it. They are in a very small minority though!

[@charlessarver8350]

I just watched a potato quality live version and in that one at least he's playing it this way. He was playing partial chords on the sections where he joined in on the rythm

[@Grim177]

​@@charlessarver8350 Do you have a link?

[@jamespottschmidt6104]

I play in an AC/DC tribute band, and I use a specially tuned guitar JUST for this song! G - A - C - g - c - e This tuning allows me to both the intro, chords, as well as the solo! I'm not sure if Angus uses this tuning... But he SHOULD!! 😀

[@RobGalley]

That’s one way!

[@WhitePointerGaming]

There's a few videos of performances of this song over the years, though none of them are high quality enough to see what his hand is doing specifically (and one that would have been high enough quality, annoyingly focuses the camera mostly on Brian's vocals during that part and not Angus' guitar). But it is clear that he doesn't change or adjust the guitar during the performance, so if he does change the tuning of those strings, I'm not sure how he manages to play the rest of the song, including the solo.

[@vandebem]

While I do think you are correct regarding the studio version, and Angus plays it the 'hard' way live, this tribute band has a THIRD method demonstrated. Finger capo version? kzbin.info/www/bejne/b3i1fWZ8hqempJo

[@TORREX-A.D.]

Yeah that's right I've learned a long time ago that have something seems too hard thrn Angus didn't plant that way. Solos were hard enough

[@quayscenes]

I call this the "Thunderstruck" method! Another clue to this theory is on the live recording at the end. He jumps up to the 3rd string at the end of the song. I think he definitely re-tuned (or maybe just changed the speed) in the studio. But playing live he just goes for it in standard tuning. There are other ways to fret it to make it "passable" in standard tuning - and also you still have that open A for a little reprieve in the middle. A small part of me also wonders if the live recording has that part dubbed in (or is Angus just that freaking good)? However, why on the official video do they show his feet instead of his fingers?!?!?!? [The magic re-tune at 0:35 ] 🤩

[@poorthal]

Some how, I'm hearing "Hysteria" from Def Leppard, when you play it slow. Interessting.