Re: Shoegaze effects?

rather ripped · Post by **rather ripped** » Wed May 30, 2007 9:10 am

Hi
What effects would you consider essential for shoegaze sound with a jazzmaster? I want an effect-laden, but yet clear, floating type sound but am kind of blind as to how to approach this. I have a russian Big Muff,a Vintage Rat reissue, an EMMA distortion which is great, an 80's Ibanez stereo chorus, a BOSS mt2 metal zone, a homemade fuzz face and also a homemade distortion plus. I'm thinking maybe a delay pedal would be a useful addition? Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

glimmertwin · Post by **glimmertwin** » Wed May 30, 2007 9:15 am

Delay & Reverb to go with distortion would be my best guess....especially if you want it to "float".

Jarvis · Post by **Jarvis** » Wed May 30, 2007 9:18 am

I think you've got enough (maybe too much) distortion. I wouldn't keep the Big Muff, but lots of people find it essential to shoegaze/brit pop/stuff like that. I'd ditch the Metal Zone. Grab some sort of delay, probably one that self oscillates. If you don't have any (or decent) amp reverb, an Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail or a Line6 Verbzilla are really great verb choices, the latter having some really crazy effects. Oh yeah, don't forget shoes!

Tweez · Post by **Tweez** » Wed May 30, 2007 9:27 am

I suppose I've got to mention Reverse Reverb because it's almost Kevin Shields in a box. The Fuzz Face should work pretty well actually (my only experience of it is via Amplitube though), the Boss HM-2 and Proco Rat are pretty gazey distortions too.

idiotbear · Post by **idiotbear** » Wed May 30, 2007 9:35 am

Personally I'd hold onto both the Muff and the Metal Zone. Pair them with a good analog delay and a good reverb (I like the EHX Holy Grail) and you're pretty much away. Though Tweez's suggestion of reverse 'verb is a goody too. Don't know how many reasonably priced boxes do it, though.

vapourtrail · Post by **vapourtrail** » Wed May 30, 2007 10:02 am

I want an effect-laden, but yet clear, floating type sound

clear distorted sound? effect laden - you can just throw stuff into the chain and judge by ear. clear - you'd probably want to go clean or cleanish and rely on delay to dirty it up. if you're going for an mbv sound, the reverse reverb will dirty up your signal quite a bit depending on the amount of wet you use. or EQ the hell out of your dirts and distos. floating - again i suppose this pertains to mbv rather than the floatiness of slowdive - jazzmaster trem arm technique.

there are a lot of shoegaze sounds out there i suppose and how to reach them. mbv, slowdive, ride, etc. all had rather different setups and sound from one another. in my band Highspire, i really only ever used a Rat, some digital reverb, a DL4, 2 EQ pedals and a compressor when we used to play live. course i was dirt poor back then. i suppose everyones setup is different in the shoegaze scene. i've seen literally 100's of shoegaze bands setups. pretty much all different. that's part of the beauty of it imo.

Tweez · Post by **Tweez** » Wed May 30, 2007 10:30 am

idiotbear wrote: Personally I'd hold onto both the Muff and the Metal Zone. Pair them with a good analog delay and a good reverb (I like the EHX Holy Grail) and you're pretty much away. Though Tweez's suggestion of reverse 'verb is a goody too. Don't know how many reasonably priced boxes do it, though.

The Alesis Nanoverb does it, I got mine for £25.

rather ripped · Post by **rather ripped** » Wed May 30, 2007 10:53 am

I'm not using all these effects, I just listed what I've got lying around. Plus, I don't really have the sound I want nailed in my head, I just wanted some opinions to maybe point me in some direction, to get in the ballpark of typical shoegaze guitar sounds à la MBV but also Slowdive and such. You know, what types of effects in conjunction you think might be essential to achieve that kind of sound. Plus, I have nice reverb on my amp; an Ampeg V2. Thanks for all replies, so far!

idiotbear · Post by **idiotbear** » Wed May 30, 2007 12:03 pm

Tweez wrote:
idiotbear wrote: Personally I'd hold onto both the Muff and the Metal Zone. Pair them with a good analog delay and a good reverb (I like the EHX Holy Grail) and you're pretty much away. Though Tweez's suggestion of reverse 'verb is a goody too. Don't know how many reasonably priced boxes do it, though.
The Alesis Nanoverb does it, I got mine for £25.

Cool. When I said I didn't know, I meant it. Not being a shoegaze fan, I don't look out for it - not high on my GAS list, see.

Tweez · Post by **Tweez** » Wed May 30, 2007 12:25 pm

Nah I wasn't jumping down your throat, I only realised it did it because Chris told me it did.

Superfuzz · Post by **Superfuzz** » Wed May 30, 2007 4:12 pm

Tweez wrote: The Alesis Nanoverb does it, I got mine for £25.

G-A-S!

StevenO · Post by **StevenO** » Wed May 30, 2007 5:59 pm

Superfuzz wrote: G-A-S!

You had some taco bell as well?

Post by **i love sharin foo** » Wed May 30, 2007 6:22 pm

Jarvis wrote: If you don't have any (or decent) amp reverb, an Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail or a Line6 Verbzilla are really great verb choices, the latter having some really crazy effects.

I have been through a few reverbs, but I have settled on a Boss RV-5. I liked the Verbzilla a lot, but it was easy get too much of a good thing and just get lost in it. That sounds good on paper (or a screen I guess

) but not so great through an amp. A lot of people do put them to good use though. The Boss boxes have a harsher, thinenr sound that I think works a little better, especially with gain. I have an old RV-2 that I like too, but it is really noisy when set pretty wet. But, they are usually real cheap, which kind of makes up for that, especially if you're not going for super wet reverbs. With all of the Boss units, I prefer the plate reverbs for this sort of thing.

As already mentioned, delays are pretty essential in most cases. I personally prefer analog for most things. For a current production, reasonably priced analog delay, I REALLY like the Ibanez AD9s. You can tweak them for a little more delay time (although you gradually pick up more clock noise with higher times) and repeats. For digital, I have always liked the old Digitech/DOD PDS series. They're digital, but not as clear and pingy as some more recent digital units.

A volume pedal can come in REALLY handy too. You can swell into the delays and obscure the attack. Mine has always been in my setup ever since I first got it several years ago

A good tremelo can be nice to have around too. There are quite a few on the market right now, but the cheaper Boss TR-2 gets the job done for a fair price. They can be very easily modified to sound better too. I personally like the older Boss PN-2 and the Fulltone SupaTrem.

Justin

Gw10101 · Post by **Gw10101** » Wed May 30, 2007 7:40 pm

man, i have been toying with this type of music for a while. honestly i think the crew here has it right about delay and reverb being critical.

i use a ratt (duo rat actually) for most of my higher gain distortion, and a tube screamer into a closed back fender 4x12 (supersonic head) as my drive ,the other guitar player in my band uses a daddy o overdrive, a Big Muff (NYC) and a marshall Gov'ner. and they are right about not needing a ton of gain for floaty shoegazy stuff a la ride/slowdive (but those guys tend to use a lot of modulation like phase/flange with tons of reverb also) but for kevin shields MBV stuff the most critical effect pedal for me is the EQ pedal, and liberal amounts of gain (i prefer fuzz BM pi or similar)

as far as reverb goes. on my current board i have a holy grail in the front, a marshall reflector in the middle ( it has a nice reverse reverb) and the end of my set up is a line 6 verbzilla. the other guitar player uses amp verb (fender hot rod deville) and a verbzilla to good effect, she kind of gets into that mogwai territory that i cant seem to reach, nearly sigur ros as well sometimes. (our keyboard player uses a Digi verb that i hate for guitar, but you might like it... way cool reverse reverb though)

reverse reverb and a jag/JM trem are also keys to the MBV swirlyness. Kevin to my amazement didn't use a ton of forward reverb according to a pocket book i read recently on "loveless" nor did he use a ton of overdubs as i had suspected throughout the last 13 years.
i hope this helps at all

cheers
greg

brianjdc · Post by **brianjdc** » Wed May 30, 2007 9:04 pm

Tweez wrote:
idiotbear wrote: Personally I'd hold onto both the Muff and the Metal Zone. Pair them with a good analog delay and a good reverb (I like the EHX Holy Grail) and you're pretty much away. Though Tweez's suggestion of reverse 'verb is a goody too. Don't know how many reasonably priced boxes do it, though.
The Alesis Nanoverb does it, I got mine for £25.

i dont see it listed in the manual is it a hidden feature?