Women In Love clean intro tone

MrDan666 · Post by **MrDan666** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 4:52 pm

Anyone know what Ed used on this song for the clean intro? That has to be one of my alltime favorite clean sounds, its gorgeous!!

Sounds like a slight bit of echo and chorus in there too, if im not mistaken?

T.J.Fuller · Post by **T.J.Fuller** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 10:16 pm

Old school Eventide Harmonizer

AtomicChunk · Post by **AtomicChunk** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 10:36 pm

I always imagined he just turned his Marshall down a bit.

Tone Slinger · Post by **Tone Slinger** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 7:10 am

He used a stock 3 single coil strat, also sounded like he went straight into the board.

Josse · Post by **Josse** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 8:17 am

Okay, I'll try...

It's a strat in bridge+middle-PU position. At first I also thought, like Tone Slinger, that it went straight to board. But after recreating myself I found out it has to be a clean amp, probably a Fender because the sound breaks up nicely when notes are hit hard, like those Fenders do, without the glassiness of a turned down Marshall. Also the (ultra) highs of a DI signal are missing - it's a typical clean amp frequency resonse.

Secondly, there's no harmonizer or chorus used! Instead it's (at least) double tracked, with the guitars center panned. One guitar plays the tapped beginning with e-string root notes and no delay. Another one leaves out the e-string notes in this sequence and has applied delay. The delay thing is tricky - I'm not sure if it's a eights-note delay with 2 very defined repeats (multihead tape echo?) or a combination of two delays with one repeat each, one eights-note delay and one quarter-note delay, or two delay units chained, both with eights-note value (ca. 170ms), one feeding the other, like a ping pong algorithm, without L-R panning!

There's no delay in the following picked chords.
The guitars are carefully compressed to add sustain, smack and density. Could be a stomp box (MXR dynacomp) or studio device compression. All in all it's a wondeful ringy and chimy Fenderish sound to me, embedded in a nice (plate) reverb. Ed also liked mellow guitar tones...

Jost

cary chilton · Post by **cary chilton** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 8:36 am

Here is my take. He used his Marshall that was stock. Probably a JTM-45 circuit. This type of amp, is incredibly clean, ESPECIALLY with even a slight volume roll off. My clips that I posted here, were with a power scaling cranked for maximum gain, and many here said it needed more gain. I agree, for early Ed, more gain is needed > enter recent threads, on boss GE-10 vintage eq and Ralle's clips with a mxr distortion + or Dod 250.

As I have said ALL along, check my posts, Ed's core tone is coming from a stock plexi marshall, maybe better than most, but stock. That means, his gain is not a gain monster. That is why despite that high gain ( 1176/tape saturation more importantly an OD/dist pedal) add to a roaring plexi, brings high gain, but with clarity and complexity in the harmonic content produced.

If I plug into Loudness 1 low, or Loudness 2, high or low the amp becomes more and more clean. Hell the loudness2 low, even with the gain cranked barley makes a noticable overdriven sound.

So it is VERY easy to get beautiful cleans on a plexi, period.

Josse · Post by **Josse** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 9:23 am

Hi Cary!

I think Eddie didn't have a determined appraoch for 'special' clean sounds and maybe experimented with different clean amps/DI-sounds (he did for sure in the 90s), but he used such sounds on sparse occasions (like this intro).
The amp Ed used here could have been a JTM45, as I experienced myself these clean qualities with a friend's JTM (wonderful - he uses it for 'Eagles'-stuff!). But I tend to believe, it was a Fender (typish) amp!

Anyway, on the other hand I agree with you about the amount of gain of Ed's amp, as I think it's overrated to be very high/beefed inside! One criteria for me is, how clean it gets when the guitar vol pot is rolled back - think of 'Bottoms Up!' or the clean verse of 'ATBL' (before the flanger comes in), and many other similar bits in other songs... 'Bottoms Up!' is maybe a sort of benchmark for me - the background hiss seems to be a hint on Ed's amp gain! Of course, it also depends on the PU and vol pot quality, but...

Then again, there are those unique distortion textures that indicate those boosting factors, coming from units around the amp. Dist+, DOD250, GE-10, MXR eq, who knows? Even with strong hands some parts of Ed's chops are working soundingwise only with quite a lot of gain.

My 2 cents

Jost

T.J.Fuller · Post by **T.J.Fuller** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 10:17 am

Josse wrote:Okay, I'll try...

It's a strat in bridge+middle-PU position. device compression. All in all it's a wondeful ringy and chimy Fenderish sound to me, embedded in a nice (plate) reverb. Ed also liked mellow guitar tones...

Jost

You guys are over thinking this.

A Eventide Harmonizer will do everything you are discussing( ping-pong echo), it doesn't just harmonize.

That ringy/chimey effect is all the Eventide.

It's a cool tone......That's why they go for $3000 !

cary chilton · Post by **cary chilton** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 10:43 am

TJ, I thought the thread starter was asking about the cleans. About the effects, yes, you are right.

Crunchboy · Post by **Crunchboy** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 3:27 pm

I always just thought it was his regular guitar with humbucker (doesn't sound like a single coil to me. Too fat) with his regular effects, Echoplex and flanger in use, with the Marshall turned way down, maybe on the "normal" channel.

jerrydyer · Post by **jerrydyer** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 4:19 pm

there is an effect there.

T.J.Fuller · Post by **T.J.Fuller** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 4:57 pm

There were only 2 models of the Eventide Harmonizer pre-1980
H949 and the H910.

That sound is more effect than the quality of the actual strat he used.

Listen to the descending tapped notes on the A & E string. (B-A-Ab-E)

Here are some notes about the unit that should explain what the is doing

PITCH CHANGE - One octave up, one down. The H910 preserves all harmonic ratios and thus all musical values since it incorporates advanced circuitry which actually transposes input signals. Any musical interval can be achieved by the continuously variable pitch change control. The pitch ratio selected is shown on the 3-digit LED readout. An optional keyboard allows for pitch change to be produced in discrete musical steps.

DELAY AND REVERB - The economical H910 is a versatile digital delay line. It can be used for "doubling" vocals, delay equalization in sound reinforcement, and for many special effects, including several types of reverb and echo. Two outputs are available, each with a variable delay, which allow for vocal multiplying, distributing speaker systems (especially useful for PA work), and even more effects.

ANTI-FEEDBACK - Feedback caused by energy buildup due to room resonance is decreased by shifting successive repetitions of the same signal away from the resonant frequency. The H910 incorporates a control which periodically shifts the signal pitch up and down to accomplish this. Unlike heterodyne "frequency shifters," no dissonances are introduced.

SPECIAL EFFECTS - Simultaneous use of feedback, delay, and pitch change can be used to create a variety of audio effects. Maximum delay and one interval of pitch change combined with feedback generates a musical progression of a single note. Pitch change and feedback with no delay gives an unusual robot or alien speech effect. Short delay with feedback but no pitch change gives a hollow flanging or tunneling effect; long delay generates a distinctive reverb.

jculb69 · Post by **jculb69** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 11:28 pm

http://www.vhlinks.com/pages/interviews/evh/gp0480.php

From an interview in 1980.

GP: Did you double-track the harmonic intro to

Josse · Post by **Josse** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 6:23 am

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

T.J.Fuller · Post by **T.J.Fuller** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 8:29 am

End of story for you maybe..... not me

So Ed admits to the harmonizer live BUT, not in the studio????

sounds like ED already ...doesn't it?

Who else got this beautiful clean, chimey sound on record?

Brian May - News of the world - track; It's Late/ released Oct.1977

Give it a listen.

What was he using? - Eventide Harmonizer.

Really try double tracking a strat and see if you can capture that tone.

I'll stick to my guns on this one ----- Strat / Harmonizer