Tag Archives: Guitar Gear

Swells and Ambient Noises

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I love making ambient noises and swells in a worship set where it’s needed. Where it’s needed is probably the key phrase in that last sentence. I think it’s important to know when to stop playing. Dynamics are big and you don’t always have to play! Sometimes it should just be acoustic or keys. Or acoustic and keys. Or just drums. Or drums and bass and so on. However, sometimes it adds a little something to play some ambient stuff. Or maybe you don’t have a keys player and need to pad a little.

I made this video a few years ago about a neat and easy way for a guitar player to run some good sounding pads while playing, but I’m going to talk about swells and ambient stuff on the guitar more now. You could go buy all the same gear I have or run the pedals the same way, but that’s not being true to yourself and it’s not the only way (and definitely not the best way) to do it. So this post is not going to be about settings and certain pedals, but how to get swells and ambient stuff in general.

When doing swells, the biggest parts are being able to swell the volume smoothly and having the note or notes carry over while you swell in the next note. Volume pedals are obviously the easiest way to swell, but you can definitely use a volume knob with a lot of practice. Be sensitive to the volume so that you don’t overpower who is speaking or praying over it. I typically turn off drives, but will sometimes have a little boost on if needed.

From an effects standpoint, it’s important that you get a long tail on that note or notes that you play. Most of the time, you may want a few delays on for this. I find that an analog delay with a long repeat and some modulation gets a great swell sound. I use my Memory Man for this, but I really like the Echo Park sounds as well. I also have a great analog setting on the DD-20 that has a long repeat I’ll use with the Memory Man. If you put the feedback or repeat up right before it gets crazy and doesn’t stop repeating, that typically sounds pretty good. There’s also this cool reverse setting on the DD-5 you can use where you put the effect in just a little, repeats pretty long and the time can fluctuate.

I typically will also have some reverb on there. I stick to the modulation setting on the RV-5. You don’t want it repeating forever so that all your notes get muddy, but you want it to transition smoothly between the notes, without any dead space. I also occasionally like to add some octaves (not too crazy but helps with a fuller and sometimes organ sound), or a slow tremolo with not too much depth. If you use a wah pedal, you can also sweep the frequency and it sounds pretty cool, but that’s obviously very hard to do while use the volume pedal too. Which brings me to my next point…

I really hope someday, some company makes a swell pedal. All it needs to do is swell…and be small…and cheap. The Line 6 DL4 has an awesome auto-volume delay patch that makes an amazing pad sound when you dial it in right and combine it with some other effects. What this does is eliminate the need for swelling the volume pedal or knob and it swells automatically. The thing you have to watch out for with this is how it can be sort of choppy and the transitions between chords and notes aren’t smooth. When I had my POG2, I had a preset that did a swell setting really well too, but it didn’t have any tail at all. I honestly liked the POG2 more for ambient stuff and swells than for octaves. There was another setting on that pedal that would keep my dry signal coming through but add a shimmery octave and verbed out sound behind it. All this to say, if you have something swelling for you, it makes it easier to use the wah pedal like I mentioned earlier…and it’s not as much for you to have to do. I’m sure there are lots of great patches in many other units as well. Feel free to share those in a comment on this post.

But you don’t have to have these pedals to play ambient stuff. One trick for doing some ambient stuff is to turn on a few delays and/or a reverb and turn the tone knob back all the way until it’s really dark sounding. You can pick through some partial chords and let the feedback carry it to make some ambient stuff. The DD-5 reverse setting does well with this for me. Try switching the pickups some too…that always seems to give a different, but nice sound.

I’m not pro at this and my ways and tips aren’t the best or the only way to do it, but I hope this helps spring you to discover some new things and share them back here.

Gear Talk: Daniel Carson’s Dashboard

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I posted this under Daniel’s Gear Talk post, but thought I’d update here, as I’m not sure how many of y’all looking for it go there often. Thanks to everyone who posted comments about of found videos or pictures. You can check out a video of his setup at Frequency under videos. And check out Dashboards, soon to be coming out with a new more cost-conscient line of boards.

The only different thing is that he’s now back using two DD-5′s and a Timefactor. He said the Timefactor was something he was just going to try out and see if it was just a cool studio tool or how much he could use live. The feature we talked about most was using the stereo delays to send different timed delays to different amps.

He’s also using a Matchless SC-30 he got earlier this year for the record. He said he used one all the time at Ed Cash’s for recording and liked it so much that he found this one and grabbed it. He’s using it with the AC-30 most the time these days.

Summer 2010 Rig

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Sorry it’s taken me so long to get all this up here. I know many of you have been curious about what I could be running now that I basically sold my entire board in the nathanwright.org Yard Sale. Here it is:

Signal Chain:

  • EB Volume Jr.
  • Diamond Compressor
  • EHX POG2
  • Paul Cochrane Timmy
  • Xotic RC Booster
  • Fulltone Fulldrive 2
  • Eventide Timefactor
  • Line 6 M9
  • Boss RV-5

My whole idea is to trade lots of pedals doing a little to a few pedals doing a lot. I use the Timmy for most of the drive and layer it with the RC Booster (which I use for lighter drive or to compensate for the tonal difference between the Starplayer and the Tele). The FD2 is used for beefier stuff (and sometimes normal drive on the Tele). I use the M9 for some modulation effects, delays (what my DL4 did and more) and a few verbs from time-to-time. I use the Timefactor for most of my straight up delays I used the TF, DD-20 and DD-5 for (there’s a small tap ran to the bottom of the board). I traded out having a Whammy and a Micro-POG for the POG2 and like it so far. I’m more impressed with it’s ambient settings that the octaves I think. I kept the Boss Verb because it sounds good and it’s a pedal I frequent a lot. I’ll occasionally throw my Wah up front as it’s nice to have for a few things here and there.

It’s a little harder to navigate around with this board so far because of all the presets the scroll through and get on top of it, but I like it a lot. I’m running through my old AC15 or AC30 or through both stereo.

Overdrive: Amps, Pedals and Everything in Between

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There’s been one thing that I’ve noticed about tone over the years. You can play without any delay or reverb pedals. You can play without compression. But you cannot play without good overdrive. I’m sure each of us can think back to our first days, months and years of playing guitar and remember the awful tone. A lot of that came from not knowing enough: What should it sound like? How should it be EQ’ed? Is that too much drive? Too little?

I started as an acoustic player and didn’t have to worry about overdrive. When I switched over to electric, I borrowed a friend’s stuff for the first 6 months or so until graduation when I could afford to buy my own stuff. I had his American Fat Strat, a small Orange solid state amp, a Line 6 DM4 (that’s the distortion modeler that you rarely see used) and a DL4 (that was the only thing that was mine…same one I have now still). The Orange could get decent tone for a small solid state amp (of course, I’m saying that not knowing if what I thought was “tone” was really tone). I used that DM4 and had no idea what I was doing. I remember sitting down and trying to figure out what were 4 good sounds I could program in. I found a few but who knows if they sounded good.

Since then, I’ve only progressed in finding a good drive sound. I’ll share what I’ve learned and how to get a good drive sound.

  1. Your amp – Good tone starts first in your amp. A crappy guitar can sound pretty good through a great amp (why do you think Keith Urban still sounded so ridiculous on that song he gave away that cheap guitar on?). Tube amps are where it’s at. They allow for clear, transparent overdrive. Quite honestly, all drive pedals attempt to make overdrive sound the way that it sounds coming from an amp that’s pushed. Different people approach amps differently. Some run their amps super clean, some a little dirt and some a lot. I like to clean mine so that I can get a great clean sound out, and a driven sound when I dig into the strings. If the amp has a master volume, I try to run it pretty loud and just adjust the gain to my taste. A lot of times, you can’t turn it up really loud though (especially in the type of settings a lot of us play in) and that’s where it’s important to have a good drive pedal. If the amp is run TOO low though it starts to sound really saturated, and ultimately sounds thinner (I’ll come back to this in #3). Regardless of how you run your amp, it’s the start of your good drive tone.
  2. The pedal(s) – I’ve learned that good drive isn’t always up to your amp, guitar playing and how you set up the pedal. Sometimes it’s not up to you at all. Sometimes the pedal isn’t a good pedal and therefore causes the drive to sound not as appealing. It’s hard for me to take a Boss Double Death Metal Zone and get a good sound out of it (I think I made that pedal up, but if I didn’t, I have no idea how it really sounds so I don’t mean to offend you!). I’ve never really been through a lot of overdrives, but have played with some and know what sounds good. The great thing about drive pedals is that you can get good ones for cheap, and also spend a lot on them and both sound good. Ultimately all pedals try to sound like a driven amp or like the classic Tube Screamer. Although there are other good pedals, here’s a few that I like a lot and sound great: Boss Blues Driver, Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive, Fulltone Fulldrive 2, Xotic RC Booster (heard good things about the AC Booster too, but never tried it), Divided by 13 Joyride and, my personal favorite, Paul Cochrane Timmy.
  3. Settings – Having the right pedals and a good amp sound is a big part, but not all of it. You have to dial in good settings on the amp and pedals. I’ve already talked some about the amp drive settings and now I’m going to talk about EQ tone for amps and pedals. There’s not a certain right way to EQ your guitar tone, but it’s important for it to be balanced…not too bright or too dark. The same is true for your pedals. If you dial in more high’s, your guitar will cut through the mix more, which is nice when you’re using a pedal just for leads. But other than that, a balanced sound is pretty good. I’ll typically dial in just a bit more high’s so that it cuts, but without losing the presence from the bass.

    Some drive pedals have a volume and drive/gain knob. It’s important that you don’t set that volume too low or it’ll sound saturated. I used to set my volume based on where I could turn it off and on without being able to tell a big difference in volume between the pedal bypassed and on. I now try to set it around 1 o’clock to stay away from the saturated sound. I hear anywhere between 1-3 o’clock keeps that saturated sound away. Then you use the gain knob to dial in the drive to your taste (depending on how driven the amp is run). The more you turn the gain knob you’ll hear the difference between clean and the pedal sound. Find a balance and tasteful drive (depending on what you need). Some pedals sound great for heavier stuff and some sound better lighter drive. Don’t make the mistake of turning down your amp, only to turn up the gain on your drive pedal to compensate. That’s bad news! Put the volume up to around 1-3 o’clock on the pedal and use the gain/drive as almost like a volume knob to finding the good drive sound.

    It’s good to run a drive pedal with not a huge difference between the bypassed and on volume (especially for the sound guy), but it’s important that it doesn’t start to sound saturated. When dialing in the sounds on the pedals, keep that in mind. I like my drive to make it a little louder, but not so much louder that I can’t hear well once it’s turned off.

I hope this helps some. Drive is big part of tone. If you have any questions, comment away.

Change[s]

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Right after I had my board the way I wanted it, I kept it like that for a few months.

Two months later, I posted it for y’all to see.

A week later, I caved and changed it again.

I’ll put up another picture/video this weekend.

Do you prefer a picture or a video?

Spring 2010 Rig – Part 2

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Thought I’d elaborate a little more on my gear in this video. Here we go:

  • The board is a Showcase Black Bullet, “On the Road” size. I love it…just put the case on top and go.
  • I have a Pedal Power 2+ and a PedalGear.net JuiceBox underneath powering all the pedals. The Eventides are tricky, so I ran a power supply to one and the other feeds off of the PP2+ (and it’s lack of powering very many other pedals).
  • I’m using all Lava Cable patch cables now. It’s small and allows for saving space on the board and the sound is awesome and true.
  • The tap tempo’s run underneath the board to the DD-5, Modfactor and Timefactor.
  • I am running into a Dr. Z Maz 18 Jr. NR head and typically a 1×12 cab with a G12H (although I’m using a Marshall 2×12 cab in the video) and a Bad Cat Cub 2R head and 2×12 cab with a Blue and Vintage 30.

Here’s another run-through of the board with more details on the pedals:

  • Budda Wah – very wide variety of frequencies in this wah
  • Whammy IV – put at the beginning of chain and before the volume to keep it from sounding TOO glitchy. I mainly use the dry and octave up sound or use the foot controller to go up an octave. It’s all about being tasteful while doing it and it’s not always easy. Jack is making me a true bypass for this right now.
  • Ernie Ball Volume Jr (with Boss tuner out)
  • Catalinbread Serrano Picoso – a clean boost I leave on all the time as a buffer and to make it sound better all around.
  • Diamond Compressor – I used to use a compressor on all the time and am still trying to figure out how I like to use a compressor best. Great sounding compressor that I use for a lot of single line melodies and leads right now.
  • Zvex Fuzz Factory – I got this pedal to get some Muse sounds. I haven’t used it live much yet, but just found a cool setting that I like and could actually use in a church.
  • Paul Cochrane Timmy Drive – Still my main drive pedal…a medium gain drive.
  • Xotic RC Booster – Used for light drive and light boost.
  • Fulltone Fulldrive 2 – I only use the regular channel and use it for higher gain stuff.
  • Electro Harmonix Micro POG – I replaced my Whammy with this (before getting another one). I use it for that dry and octave up sound mainly but also add in a little sub octave.
  • Boss DD-5 – Used mainly for dotted 8th delays…it’s the best one I’ve heard and continues to be my favorite for that sound.
  • Boss RV-5 – Used for really ambient sounds.
  • Eventide Modfactor – Used for tremolos mainly, but also some rotary, chorus and uni-vibe sounds when needed.
  • Eventide Timefactor – Used for more standard delay sounds with a few stranger sounding delays in between.
  • Line 6 DL4 – Used for stranger delay sounds.

Hopefully this gives a little more guidance and clarity. Feel free to ask any questions away as well…