Unorthodox Uses of Effects

[Pink Unicorn Horsey]

Another thread prompted me to start this one.

I'd like to compile a list of unusual and particularly ingenious ways in which artists have used effects to create new sounds. I'm listing the songs and, where appropriate, at what time on the song you can hear the sound. A few come to mind:

Artist: Radiohead
Song: Lucky
Album: OK Computer
Time(s): 1:04, 1:47, 3:18
Sound: Jonny Greenwood sends his guitar signal into a tremolo, then an envelope filter and finally through a phaser. The tremolo creates a regular volume swell that triggers the wah sound of the envelope filter. The phaser just adds color and depth to the whole sound. He seems to adjust the volume here and there as well to fade the sound in and out.

Artist: Pink Floyd
Song: Echoes
Album: Meddle
Time(s): 11:24
Sound: David Gilmour reverses the input and output of his wah (i.e., plugs the guitar into the output jack and the amp into the input jack) and swells his guitar volume pot to create unusual whale-esqe sounds, adding a touch of delay for an enhanced effect.

Artist: The Beatles
Song: While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Album: The White Album
Sound: Eric Clapton wanted his tone affected in some way to make the solo sound more Beatle-esque. During the mix-down George Martin's assistant, Chris Thomas, varied the oscillator which in turn wobbled the tape speed. Thus was the Leslie-like effect achieved.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Unorthodox Uses of Effects

For bizarre effect usage, check out any Adrian Belew (animal sounds on 'Elephant Talk'), David Torn (Looping snippets of backwards and foward guitar on 'Splattercell'), Robert Fripp (tape delay system with 2 reel-to-reels, spaced 8 feet apart on 'Let the Power Fall') and Allan Holdsworth (a rack of delays, and no attack on his notes make great string pad sounds on 'Road Games').

 

[sooperunkn]

Re: Unorthodox Uses of Effects

How about when Tori Amos mic'd her grand piano through a Marshall stack when she covered Jimi Hendrix' "If 6 Was 9". That was awesome! :32:

 

[Pink Unicorn Horsey]

Re: Unorthodox Uses of Effects

How about when Tori Amos mic'd her grand piano through a Marshall stack when she covered Jimi Hendrix' "If 6 Was 9". That was awesome! :32:

Holy crap! Where do I get a hold of that?

 

[sooperunkn]

Re: Unorthodox Uses of Effects

Holy crap! Where do I get a hold of that?

You've got mail.

 

[pac112]

Re: Unorthodox Uses of Effects

You've got mail.

can i get the mail too? sounds awesome!

Unorthodox Uses of Effects -> doorstop.

 

[sooperunkn]

Re: Unorthodox Uses of Effects

can i get the mail too? sounds awesome!

I think you've got your email address blocked :question:

 

[sooperunkn]

Re: Unorthodox Uses of Effects

Probably not what your after.... I think this is more "Unusual Effects"

Hendrix - teeth
Page - violin bow
Morello - guitar cord (plugged into Marshall) on strings
Adam Jones (Tool) - Epilady

 

[nepalnt21]

Re: Unorthodox Uses of Effects

Morello - guitar cord (plugged into Marshall) on strings

tom morello "bulls on parade" off of the album "evil empire", although he doesnt use his usual whammy pedal (or any effects, at leat i dont think so), he uses his hand to get a really cool sound like scratching on a turntable. on "voice of the voiceless" from the album "the battle of L.A." he uses his whammy pedal by keeping his guitar feeding- back, and uses the knob to change the pitch and actually makes a pretty good tune. he also does the D.J. scratch thing on "mic- check" off of "battle of los angeles", as well as makes his guitar sound like someone is brushing their teeth.

 

[Artie]

Re: Unorthodox Uses of Effects

David Gilmour reverses the input and output of his wah (i.e., plugs the guitar into the output jack and the amp into the input jack) and swells his guitar volume pot to create unusual whale-esqe sounds, adding a touch of delay for an enhanced effect.

I don't mean to doubt your word, but are you sure about this? It would be an extremely unusual and bizarre circuit that would allow signal flow though it in the "wrong" direction. Generally, guitar effects pedals are fairly conventional circuitry.

Robert Fripp (tape delay system with 2 reel-to-reels, spaced 8 feet apart on 'Let the Power Fall')

Many moons ago, I used to use a 3-head R2R with two microphones. The left mic placed in front of the right speaker and the right mic placed in front of the left speaker. The tape input/output jacks were plugged into the effects loop of my mixer. With the tape on its slowest speed I got some great analog ping-pong-echo effects.

Artie

 

[zionstrat]

Re: Unorthodox Uses of Effects

I don't know if this has been used for guitar other than tracks I have worked on, but David Bowie used a really cool effect on vocals if you have a great sound stage, plenty of channels, and some gates-

He used 3 mics at the same time- 1 close, 1 a medium distance and one a long distance- They gated the mics so the close one was always on, the medium disctance came on at medium distance, and the far mic only came on at high vol-

The effect is more than the sum of the parts- The quiet sounds are thin and intiment, while the 'room' grows with volumn due to the delay and additonal room ambiance, and increased phase interaction as each mic opens up.

Of course you can do the same with a couple of sends in DAW land and you might want to give it a try if you have the right opportunity in the studio-

 

[Pink Unicorn Horsey]

Re: Unorthodox Uses of Effects

I don't mean to doubt your word, but are you sure about this? It would be an extremely unusual and bizarre circuit that would allow signal flow though it in the "wrong" direction. Generally, guitar effects pedals are fairly conventional circuitry.

I'll wager all ten of my fingers on it. I've tried it myself at home at it works. (WARNING: It's loud!) You can see Gilmour doing it on the "Live at Pompeii" video. He also uses this effect on "Is There Anybody Out There?" from "The Wall."

It's extremely unusual and bizarre, but Pink Floyd was extremely experimental in the early days.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Unorthodox Uses of Effects

I'll wager all ten of my fingers on it. I've tried it myself at home at it works. (WARNING: It's loud!) You can see Gilmour doing it on the "Live at Pompeii" video. He also uses this effect on "Is There Anybody Out There?" from "The Wall."

It's extremely unusual and bizarre, but Pink Floyd was extremely experimental in the early days.

I can attest to this too. It has to be a "vintage" type wah, there's not much circuitry in there, it's just an active, narrow, bandpass filter, with a variable center frequency. When I did tried it, it wasn't as variable as Gilmour's, but I think he used to tone control to change the pitch.

Also on One of These Days, the bass part is obviously going through a delay set to the "quarter note, of eighth note triplets". But during the breakdown the delayed part is then run though a tremolo set to eighth note triplets.

Never mind, that's too hard to understand... lol Synched delay and Tremolo...

 

[ratherdashing]

Re: Unorthodox Uses of Effects

One of the coolest things I ever tried was this

FX send -> delay -> wah -> FX return

Hit a note, and rock your wah. Instead of echoing the wah'd tone, you are now wah-ing the echoes. This causes each echo to sound different. It's a very trippy effect.

A cool variant of this is to replace the wah with a flanger set very deep and very wet. I'm sure there are others like this.

 

[St_Genesius]

Re: Unorthodox Uses of Effects

I haven't heard that before, but it sounds like an interesting solution to the constant problem of having a single vocal take, with fairly static effects settings, manage to sound both intimate and big, in different parts of the song.

Do you know which songs Bowie used that on?

I don't know if this has been used for guitar other than tracks I have worked on, but David Bowie used a really cool effect on vocals if you have a great sound stage, plenty of channels, and some gates-

He used 3 mics at the same time- 1 close, 1 a medium distance and one a long distance- They gated the mics so the close one was always on, the medium disctance came on at medium distance, and the far mic only came on at high vol-

The effect is more than the sum of the parts- The quiet sounds are thin and intiment, while the 'room' grows with volumn due to the delay and additonal room ambiance, and increased phase interaction as each mic opens up.

Of course you can do the same with a couple of sends in DAW land and you might want to give it a try if you have the right opportunity in the studio-

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Unorthodox Uses of Effects

A cool variant of this is to replace the wah with a flanger set very deep and very wet. I'm sure there are others like this.

I was going to post this too. Very synth-like, great for pads or rhythmic noise to set up a groove. The delay sets a tempo and the flanger/phaser sets the phrase length.

 

[zionstrat]

Re: Unorthodox Uses of Effects

StG-
It was Heros, and for the fun of it I googled the prime words, not really expecting to get much back..
But surprise, here's an excellent article in sound on sound about all of heros effects- Vox is last couple of paragrphs-
Cheers
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Oct04/articles/classictracks.htm