Women In Love clean intro tone

[rgalpin]

i'll have go back and listen - but if memory serves, i'd say strat, eventide, and double tracked. i mean why not? he used the eventide on a lot of stuff on VH II so it makes sense to throw it on this as well. it's a defining signature sound of ed's - when you boil it down ed has a couple little tricks that he just uses over and over - it's almost a little bit shallow when you think about it... he's got the phaser, the flanger, the eventide, and the echoplex. what else? he just uses those effects over and over and it's ed. point being, the eventide is an ed staple so it only makes sense that it's in there when it sounds like it's in there which it does on that.

[OdgeUK]

More importantly,

What is the best way to recreate this live at a gig? Anyone done it? I've never tried it, but I assume I would turn down the vol on my guitar and use my Boss DD3

[Gainfreak]

More importantly,

What is the best way to recreate this live at a gig? Anyone done it? I've never tried it, but I assume I would turn down the vol on my guitar and use my Boss DD3

you can get that sound Live at a gig with a compressor, a chorus , a good clean setting on your amp, a delay set to have a quick repeat and a guitar with a 5 way selector set on the notch position.

I hope this helps


~R~

[T.J.Fuller]

i'll have go back and listen - but if memory serves, i'd say strat, eventide, and double tracked. i mean why not?

Agreed

I still believe it's double tracked too, I should've said that.with an Eventide

But, there is a setting on those old units that fattens the sound in a weird but very cool way.

Again, listen to the tone of those bass strings,,,strange but so cool.

Also, of note ...Brian May is actually tapping out those chords and it looks like Eddie built on that technique for Women in Love intro.

But, Brian was first on that one

[Gainfreak]

i'll have go back and listen - but if memory serves, i'd say strat, eventide, and double tracked. i mean why not?

Agreed

I still believe it's double tracked too, I should've said that.with an Eventide

But, there is a setting on those old units that fattens the sound in a weird but very cool way.

Again, listen to the tone of those bass strings,,,strange but so cool.

Also, of note ...Brian May is actually tapping out those chords and it looks like Eddie built on that technique for Women in Love intro.

But, Brian was first on that one

I think what you are refering to is a dutune patch in the harmonizer where it takes the main sound and detunes it a few milliseconds. Totally fattens up the signal but if you use to much of it you get the swirl whirly bird sound lol. That said, and on another note, Brian May took that concept from Jazz guitarists and Guys like Les Paul and Chet atkins, so even Brian wasn't the first to do it!!

~R~

[sah5150]

i'll have go back and listen - but if memory serves, i'd say strat, eventide, and double tracked. i mean why not?

Agreed

I still believe it's double tracked too, I should've said that.with an Eventide

But, there is a setting on those old units that fattens the sound in a weird but very cool way.

Again, listen to the tone of those bass strings,,,strange but so cool.

Also, of note ...Brian May is actually tapping out those chords and it looks like Eddie built on that technique for Women in Love intro.

But, Brian was first on that one

I think what you are refering to is a dutune patch in the harmonizer where it takes the main sound and detunes it a few milliseconds. Totally fattens up the signal but if you use to much of it you get the swirl whirly bird sound lol. That said, and on another note, Brian May took that concept from Jazz guitarists and Guys like Les Paul and Chet atkins, so even Brian wasn't the first to do it!!

~R~

Yeah, you guys are talking about micropitchshifting, which is the main thing Ed used Eventide harmonizers for. The basic idea is that the main signal is simultaneously micro-tuned up and down, panned left and right and usually delayed different amounts left and right. The up/down tuning is measured in +/- cents (not milliseconds which would represent delay). I use it all the time in my clips as Ed did just to add a little "icing on the cake". If you add too much you get the chorusy, washed out sound Ralph describes...

Steve

[MrDan666]

Thanks for all this info guys!!

I was playing around trying to mimic that tone yesterday. I used my GMW strat into the clean channel on my Boogie MKIII into my Marshall 4x12 with greenbacks. I put my rocktron intellifex in the loop and set it on a nice big reverb, and some quick mod delay so the delays get that slightly chorus'ed sound.

It sounded gorgeous! I bet i could make it sound even more lush with just a bit of compression too, i always like a little bit of comp on clean sounds.

It definitly sounds like Ed was using micro pitch shifting on that clean tone. It has that sound thats not washy sounding like chorus, but it fattens it up and makes it chimey sounding!

[AtomicChunk]

I have a studio pic from the Best of Guitar Player VAN HALEN issue where there is a STRAT in a guitar stand...

[LypsLynch55]

Yeah, thanks jculb69!

Edit: Ed used a Strat with Telecaster pickup (!) , double tracked.

On VH II he introduced his false-harmonic technique ('Dance The Night Away'). That's what you hear in the beginning sequence.

The song was in the live setlist of the 'WACF'-tour. Ed mimiced the doubling (NOT DELAY) with a harmonizer then. Probably an Eventide H949 model, as this produced a stable, deglitched pichting/doubling. The delay time of those first units (H910 and H949) was too short for the delay effect of this intro, and in combined mode (pitch+delay) even not freely adjustable. This changed with the H969, introduced in 1982.

There are lots of chorused/delay doubled, maybe electronically harmonized solos on VH II, but Ed got more interest on harmonizer sounds on rythm guitar in 1983. This is subtely present on '1984' and full force audible (L-R spreading of rthm git) from '5150' onwards.

As an audio engineer I know how harmonizers work and sound. It's easy to hear a difference between real double tracking and static doubling done with harmonizers.

Sorry, I just answered the initial question explicitly. Go and recreate authentically the studio version with a H949/910 - not possible.

End of story.



Jost

+1

The tape is double tracked. The delay effect is done by slowing one track down slighly (think 25 ms) behind the other. Old school stuff.

[emma88]

Agreed

I still believe it's double tracked too, I should've said that.with an Eventide

But, there is a setting on those old units that fattens the sound in a weird but very cool way.

Again, listen to the tone of those bass strings,,,strange but so cool.

Also, of note ...Brian May is actually tapping out those chords and it looks like Eddie built on that technique for Women in Love intro.

But, Brian was first on that one

I think what you are refering to is a dutune patch in the harmonizer where it takes the main sound and detunes it a few milliseconds. Totally fattens up the signal but if you use to much of it you get the swirl whirly bird sound lol. That said, and on another note, Brian May took that concept from Jazz guitarists, and Guys like Les Paul and Chet atkins, so even Brian wasn't the first to do it!! He is just someone who wants to live his boho life in his boho dress.

~R~

Yeah, you guys are talking about micropitchshifting, which is the main thing Ed used Eventide harmonizers for. The basic idea is that the main signal is simultaneously micro-tuned up and down, panned left and right and usually delayed different amounts left and right. The up/down tuning is measured in +/- cents (not milliseconds which would represent delay). I use it all the time in my clips as Ed did just to add a little "icing on the cake". If you add too much you get the chorusy, washed out sound Ralph describes...

Steve

That's a great point about the micropitchshifting, Steve! It's fascinating to think about how Brian May and Eddie Van Halen both drew on the same techniques used by Les Paul and Chet Atkins to create unique sounds. It's really cool how two great guitarists developed their own signature sounds while still being inspired by the same source.