Tone Tips | guitar TONE OVERLOAD

In Part 1 of this series of posts dedicated to the use of delay, I have shown how to create rhythmical effects “à la U2″ by synchronizing the delay to the tempo of a song. Today, in Part 2, I will first give you a few example settings showing how to fatten your tone using a Boss DD-3 and an Electro Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man. After the videos, I will explain the differences between analog and digital delays as they both have distinct sounds and when it comes to choosing a delay pedal, the analog versus digital debate is still very much alive!

Fattening your tone: the “guitar hero” delay effect

Here is a personal favorite of mine, the type of delay that countless 80s guitarists used pretty much all the time to season their fierce solos. I have reproduced it using a Digital Boss DD-3 as well as an Analog, darker sounding Electro Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man:

Gear used: American Classics Stratocaster with Kinman pickups -> Analogman TS9 -> Proco RAT 2 -> Marshall JMP-1 preamp plugged direct into the recorder

To recreate this type of delay using a software plugin or multi-effect, set a delay time around 350 ms, 3 or 4 repetitions and a mix level of about 25%. Results may vary depending on your exact equipment. As always, experiment to find out what you are most confident with and most importantly what the song you are working on exactly needs.

Fattening your tone: the slapback echo

I have written a complete post about it so I will only give the audio examples here. The slapback echo is the “mother of all delays”. It consists of only one short repetition. As simple at it may seem, it is a very effective tool as shown in this video:

Gear used: 78 Telecaster -> Proco RAT 2 -> Fender Champ

In the video, the slapback delay is generated using Cubase 5′s delay plugin with the following settings:

You can achieve the same type of tone with a Boss DD-3 and the following settings: Mode 200ms, E.LEVEL at 12 o’clock, F.BACK at 9 o’clock and D.TIME at 4 o’clock. You might want to vary the E.LEVEL or D.TIME to taste. It is easy to reproduce this effect with any other model of delay, just set the “delay time” between 70 and 200ms and the “feedback” quite low in order to have just one repeat.

Fattening your tone: Multitap delays

When one delay is not enough, use several of them! Known as “Multitap Delay”, the use of two or more delay units multiply the possibilities. Here I show the Boss DD-3 and the Electro Harmonix Memory Man together. Note that I had to reduce the delay time on the DD-3 compared to the first video, reason being that the previous settings were too close to the Memory Man and did not create enough of a swirl:

Gear used: American Classics Stratocaster with Kinman pickups -> Analogman TS9 -> Proco RAT 2 -> Marshall JMP-1 preamp plugged direct into the recorder

Again experimenting is the key here. I have used two delay settings that were quite similar but you can also use two delays with very different settings like a short one and a long one. At some stage, Joe Satriani was using three delays at once: one with a short delay time, another one with a medium delay time and a third one with a long delay time. It gave his tone almost a reverb like feeling.

The Analog vs Digital Debate

After seeing these demos you might want to go shopping for a delay pedal and must be wondering: “analog or digital?”. We have to go back in time in order to understand why there are several types of delays on the market.

The delay is a favorite effect of mine. I remember the first time I tried one, I thought I was David Gilmour for a minute. It is probably one of the most useful effects out there. It offers a world of possibilities but it usually requires some practice to master. I will explore the main uses of a delay in a series of posts. Part 1 is dedicated to the creation of rhythmic patterns using a delay and we will see how to recreate the basic “U2″ delay effect. Later, in Part 2, we will focus on the ability of this fabulous effect to fatten your tone and discuss the differences between analog and digital delays.

The Electro Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man Analog Delay and the BOSS DD-3 Digital Delay, two very popular models

The Basics

What a delay does is repeat the notes you are playing on your guitar once or several times, each repetition being usually softer than the previous one. You encounter a similar effect in nature when shouting in a valley or a cave. The time between the repetitions can be chosen through a “delay time” setting on most units. It is usually labelled in milliseconds and ranges from a few milliseconds to several seconds for the most sophisticated models. The number of repetitions is usually defined by a “feedback” setting. Most units also offer a “level” or “mix” control which determines the amount of dry signal versus the delayed signal. Often, delays are also called echos. There is a difference though: delays can have an infinite number of repetitions whereas echos have a limited number.

To clarify, a delay unit should at least offer three settings: delay time, feedback and mix/level. More recently, delays have been incorporating many other settings which I mention further down.

Delay Time and Tempo

You will often read or hear that the delay time should be set according to the tempo of the song you are playing. I don’t think this is always true. If you are using the delay to obtain a rhythmical effect (think The Edge from U2 or Pink Floyd’s “Run like Hell”), then yes the delay time should follow the tempo of the song. But if you are using the delay to fatten your tone (as we will see in Part 2), I don’t think following the tempo of the song is so important.

Using the delay for rhythmical effects: the infamous dotted eighth

The Edge, U2′s guitarist, has made the use of rhythmical delay effects his trademark. In the beginning of his career in the early 80s, he was already using a delay to make out as if he was playing more notes than he was actually playing. The trick was that the notes “played” by the delay were in sync with the tempo of the song which gave U2′s songs an amazing “pulsation”.

At the time, he was only using analog delays which means the settings had to be done “by ear” and that is not that easy. It also meant that the drummer had to play in sync with the delay. This led The Edge and U2 to drop the delay on their second album (“War”). It was of course back in full force on the subsequent albums on songs like Pride or Where The Streets Have No Name, probably helped by the arrival of digital technologies.

It is easier nowadays to get the same kind of effect using a digital delay unit or a software plugin which allows you to set the delay time to the millisecond. The basic “U2 delay effect” is obtained by setting the delay time to a “dotted eighth”. The feedback should be set so that you have about three or four repetitions and the level/mix quite high, at about 50%. Then, all you have to actually play are eighth notes, the delay will do the rest (see the audio examples below). Note that a dotted eighth is equivalent to 3/16th of a note.

Here is the formula to calculate the delay time so that it falls on a dotted eighth:

delay time in ms = (240000/tempo)x3/16.

Let’s take an example. At a tempo of 120 BPM, divide 240000/120, you get 2000. Multiply 2000 by three and divide by 16 and you get 375ms.

Here is an audio example at a tempo of 120BPM, WITHOUT any delay first:

Then the exact same thing augmented by a delay set at 375ms, 3 or 4 repetitions and mix at 50% (I have used the delay integrated into my Boss MICRO-BR recorder with the feedback at 13):

Pretty cool!

Some pedals spare you the cumbersome calculations and allow you to actually do this while playing alongside a drummer in real time, and without any prior knowledge of the tempo. They do so thanks to two extra features that most delay pedals don’t have: a “tap tempo” function and a setting that allows you to choose the delay time based on a “musical” subdivision (dotted 8th for instance). The Tap Tempo allows you to “tap” a pedal in time to set the value of the delay time “on the fly”. So on these particular models, you can select “dotted 8th” and tap alongside your drummer and voilà, the delay should automagically be in time.

These models include the BOSS DD-20 Digital delay, the Line 6 Echo Park,the TC Electronic Nova Repeater or the super duper boutique high end Providence CHRONO DLY-4. A lot of pedals have got a Tap Tempo feature nowadays but not that many have the ability to select a “musical” subdivision. A note to BOSS DD-7 users: there are a few musical subdivisions (including dotted eighth) that can be selected using the mode selector, check out the manual.

Finally, know that the dotted 8th is not the only interesting subdivision, it is just one that has been used time and again on numerous hits. As always, feel free to experiment! There are two really cool websites you might want to check out if you are into using delays for rhythmical effects: this one by Tim Darling which deals with everything “The Edge” and this one by David Battino which is more generic.

In Part 2 of this series of posts, we will see how we can sound like a guitar hero by fattening our tone using a delay. Stay tuned!

Combining two overdrive pedals is a topic that pops up often in guitar forums. I suppose the fact that Stevie Ray Vaughan used that kind of configuration at some stage in his career has a lot to do with it. I did quite some experimentation over the years in that “field”, and I thought I should share with you what I have learned.

Boss SD-1 and Analogman modded TS9

I will write here about combining two overdrive pedals and I will leave distortion and fuzz pedals for future posts. As I show in a video below, you can get interesting tones out of two overdrive pedals. Why not use just one pedal but with more gain, you might ask? Well, the answer is that two overdrive pedals don’t sound like one pedal with more gain. In addition, it gives you more tonal options since you can switch one of the two pedals on, or the two together. That makes four different tones in total if you count the clean tone.

But you have to know that some combinations work and some don’t. It is hard to predict how two overdrive pedals will interact. By not working, I mean that it might sound overly squashed or very fizzy. Getting the right settings is also very important. I find that when you use two overdrive pedals together, it is rarely a good idea to have one (or the two) with the gain maxed out. Try with lower values first.

I have recorded a video showing how my Analogman modded Ibanez TS9 plays with a stock Boss SD-1. Both pedals have the drive and level at 12 o’clock. The tone is at 9 o’clock since my Fender Champ amplifier is quite bright. The SD-1 is placed after the TS9.

The resulting tone is quite tight and focused with a good sustain. “Focused” is the important word here, this is where two overdrive pedals put together differ from one higher gain pedal.

Here is a video where I show my clean tone first, then I switch the TS9 on, and then both pedals:

The amplifier was miked with a Rode NT-4 and recorded using a Boss Micro-BR. The recording was then transferred into Cubase 5 to optimize the volume and add a hint of reverb. The guitar used is a Fender American Classics Custom Shop Stratocaster fitted with Kinman AVn blues pickups.

I recently watched a video featuring Eddie Kramer, the sound engineer of acts such as Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and occasionally the Beatles. In this video, he explains how he has worked with Waves to create a series of “plug’n play” software plugins, each dedicated to the processing of either guitar, drums, bass or vocals. The guitar plugin features compression, slapback echo, flange and reverb. And he goes on saying that the slapback echo brings a bit of an “analog” feel but that it is not an effect that is very popular anymore.

So this got me thinking. The slapback echo, also known as slap echo, was very common in the 50s and 60s. It was created by recording with a tape recorder and playing back the same tape a fraction of a second later using another “head”, generating a single repeat type of short echo. Its use is very obvious on early rock’n roll and rockabilly records, particularly on vocals. It can also be heard on the guitar on a number of Hendrix tunes like “Voodoo Chile Slight Return” where a slapback echo augmented by an old plate reverb creates a really cool dripping kind of tone. It is easy to reproduce with today’s analog or digital delay pedals as well as software plugins.

I experimented with my recording software (Cubase 5) and put together this video that shows the same tone without and then with a slapback echo. I think it is pretty cool, I might use it more in the future! See after the video for some slapback settings for the Cubase delay plugin and the good old BOSS DD-3 delay pedal.

For the basic tone I used my 1978 Telecaster with a Fender Champ tube amp and then kicked in a Pro Co RAT 2 distortion pedal (settings on the RAT 2: DISTORTION at 2 o’clock, FILTER at 3 o’clock and VOLUME at 2 o’clock).

In Cubase I used the following delay settings:

With a BOSS DD-3 digital delay pedal, the following settings will give you a nice fattening slapback echo: Mode 200ms, E.LEVEL at 12 o’clock, F.BACK at 9 o’clock and D.TIME at 4 o’clock. You might want to vary the E.LEVEL or D.TIME to taste.

It would be easy to reproduce this effect with any other model of delay, just set the “delay time” between 70 and 200ms and the “feedback” quite low to have just one repeat.