I need some guitar effects

J

jdavidb

New member
I need some guitar effects. A few sounds I'm interested in coming close to are:

When Eddie VH does those little arpeggios at the end of Jump. They sound like they're doubled (echo) with lots of attack and presence.

The little distorted guitar chord in Electric Avenue... the way it is very flat, but the attack and the release are undetectable. It's also quite smooth even though it sounds all gritty.

Whatever that is that people like Edge do now where it sounds like infinite sustain without any attack. I said Edge, but delay isn't what I'm asking about. It just sounds like one string that never got hit by a pick, and it never decays. Of course the guitarist controls the release, but you don't hear that either.

So what should I get? I've got guitars & amps. I need effects... preferably one unit that'll do it all.
 
I can't remember what the arpeggios sound like in jump.... :confused:
Have any other examples?

If I am remembering correctly, that guitar sound in electric avenue is maybe a sample that is possibly chopped up???? Probably why it sounds so much unlike a guitar. I would say any ole distortion pedal and finger (hybrid) picked chords and muting. I wouldn't really know of an effect that would do this.

Your 3rd question.....no pick attack, infinite sustain, no decay?.....
sounds like an EBow to me! I use one quite often!
 
Yeah I guess my description does sound like it could be an Ebow, but it's something else. I found a song (thanks to a video I saw this morning)... it's City of Blinding Lights on U2's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb album. That song has that infinite sustain and no attack sound in it quite a bit. There's also some car commercial that's played by guitar with an effect similar to that, but it has more of a screaming type tone.

They have samples (that are longer than amazon.com's) of these songs at fye.com and cduniverse.com.
 
I will try to check out these songs....
Could what you're describing be a sustainer pickup in the guitar? Ever listen to Steve Vai?
 
No I haven't looked into sustainer pickups. I will check those out & see if that's what I'm trying to do. Good idea.
 
the arpeggios at the end of Jump are palm muted. Each pluck is pretty much all there is for the duration of each note. Remember it? It's not on those samples at the cd web sites since it's at the end of the song. I can probably figure that one out with an echo that has very controllable timing parameters, but I'm wondering if it's actually more like a synth octave/follower/envelope that adds tone body and not a timing sort of echo doubler.
 
Ahhh - suddenly that sound is coming back to me! :D
I can't listen to it right now but for some reason I'm thinking that part had the trademark Phase 90 sound happening? Similar to the intro to "Ain't talkin' Bout Love". I may just be remembering it wrong...sorry. I use a phase 90 for stuff like that. I also use a Boss Super Shifter which has a detune effect that sort of doubles up the guitar but with a slight flanging/chorus sound too it, but it doens't sound like a flanger or chorus if you know what I mean. It works great for adding a unique edge to arpeggios like that.
 
jdavidb said:
Yeah I guess my description does sound like it could be an Ebow, but it's something else. I found a song (thanks to a video I saw this morning)... it's City of Blinding Lights on U2's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb album. That song has that infinite sustain and no attack sound in it quite a bit. There's also some car commercial that's played by guitar with an effect similar to that, but it has more of a screaming type tone.
Click to expand...

They are correct that it is basically the sound of an EBow being used on a guitar. Edge actually had the idea of an EBow built into one (or more) of his guitars, which he then called his Infinite Guitar. It's basically just using an electromagnetic pulse wave to excite a physical motion in the guitar string without ever actually touching the string...hence the infinite sustain with no attack.
 
That sounds just like the fernandes sustainer. I don't know about the edge but I know Mr Vai uses them, and George Lynch used a similar pickup (sustainiac?). It is basically the same concept of an EBow only in a pickup. When you switch it on, it stimulates the string to sustain indefinitely, but it also doesn't hinder your normal playing like an EBow would. It has an on/off switch and one of Mr Vai's guitars has a dual mode switch kind of like the newer EBows that introduces wild harmonics to the sound. I'm guessing this is a newer feature on the sustainer? Definitely check them out for that sound! The drawback is the modifications you have to do to your guitar to fit it all in there, that's the only reason I don't have one....yet :D
 
Thanks for the replies. No wonder it was hard to figure out if it's pickups or electromagnetic pulse waves and not effects. I'd be happy with an effect that does something like it because I just bought a guitar that's got enough sustain on its own. I know there will be some decay and the releases will probably show up, but I can deal with that. I mainly want something that will disguise the attack like a common synthesizer parameter but not make it sound like all the notes are being hit late.
 
jdavidb said:
I mainly want something that will disguise the attack like a common synthesizer parameter but not make it sound like all the notes are being hit late.
Click to expand...

Have you thought about a compressor? You can set it up so that you can't really hear your pick attack, but you get lots of sustain out of the notes. The Boss CS-3 would be a starting point.
 
I have a compressor, but it won't do that. It does push the volume of the attack down, but the attack is still real audible. If I get a chance to try other compressors, I will. There might be one (or a bunch) out there that does it.
 
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