live Edge sound vs raw Edge sound

[eventide]

Hi

Just thought that i would start a thread on live sound....
When we try to recreate Edge"s sound most of us use live material as our base. right????
Well i have noticed since aquiring a fair bit of in ear monitor recordings that Edge"s dry monitor sound differs to the P.A sound slightly. IEM recordings in my experiance offer a true representation of the guitar sound while the P.A sound offers a sound thats been mixed....What i am trying to say is that we miss some detail in the sound from some live recordings to what the IEM recordings have to offer...
Have you ever wondered why your guitar sound isnt as thick as Edge"s live sound????? I am sure they widen his sound at the mixing desk. By this i mean there is a trick that is used to widen a vocal sound that also works for guitar. Either and AMS or Eventide Harmoniser is used to create the effect. Its an old 80"s engineers trick...if you listen to Edge"s sounds dry (not thru a P.A) on youtube demos or IEM recordings his sound isnt as thick.....

What are your thoughts?????

 

[dtc]

I agree - the IEM stuff I have heard is quite different from the DVDs, which I have listened to religiously over the years and is the sound I hear in my head when I think about U2....

What I love about the IEMs is the rawness and the fact it sounds like a guy playing the guitar! What you hear from the DVDs is produced and polished, and it is difficult to get that sound.

I'd recommend that anybody who really wants to nail the Edge tones download some IEMs - the sounds you hear will surprise (and delight!) you. It's also reassuring IMHO to hear our hero sound like a mortal (although he will still be better than you - live with it ha ha!).

Eventide, what is this "thickening" trick anyway? Do you have any technical details on it, and can it be done using anything other than the gear you mention? I have an Axe-Fx and I'd be very interested to know and try to emulate it - cheers

Darren

 

[theedgeu2]

Where can you get these IEM's? I'd be extremely interested to hear some stuff.

 

[eventide]

You can download some IEMS at u2torrents.com. Type in adam iem and you will get adams monitor mix from the wembley gig....

The trick to widening a live sound is to use a high end pitch shifter like and ams or eventide. These units shift pitch in CENTS not SEMITONES like most pitch shifters.....So 1 octave up would be +1000 cents and 1 octave down is -1000 cents. 1st you would set the pitch to something as little as +50 cents (slightly sharp)and -50 cents (slightly flat)or to whatever cent you want to gain the desired effect. Mix to suit your ears and away you go...
Edge"s rig is set up as normal and mic"d up as normal. Suppose he has around 7/8 channels at the mixing desk these would then be sub- grouped together and the effect just applied across these channels.... So you would end up having original pitch + slightly sharp and slightly flat coming from the P.A speakers which would result in a wider fatter sound....Mainly used to thicken vocals but Dave Sharp (ex the alarm who toured with u2 for many years)told me that this was common practise on guitars as well....

Hope this has shed some light on it for you....