recreate WOWY intro

[marik]

does anyone know how to reproduce (or something close to it) the With or Without You intro on guitar. I don't have an e-bow, or infinite guitar, but i do have an effect unit that has almost every effect known to man. any suggestions?

 

[discothequeLP]

what do you mean the intro? you mean the loop that plays throughout the song or the actual guitar riff that edge plays? you really do need an ebow for that

 

[marik]

i meant the riff. there's no way you can do it without an e-bow? no messing around with sustain? whats the next best way than? (cuz now all i do is repeatedly pick the notes fast, but it doesn't sound that good)

 

[marik]

what about whammy bar? can any combo of things do it?

 

[Mark Freedman]

The Edge had something custom made for his guitar to get that sustain. I'll have to look for the article describing it.

 

[discothequeLP]

edge has infinite sustain. . . i know that with a line 6 pod xt you get have an infinite sustain effect that creates the sound

 

[marik]

i have a BOSS GT-6 if that helps at all.

anyone...

 

[Mark Freedman]

Here's an interesting site: http://www.amnesta.net/edge_delay/index.html

 

[Mark Freedman]

Check this out: http://www.sustainiac.com/

 

[ThomasH]

I have an XT and it has nothing that will get you infinite sustain.

I'm sorry. There is really no other way to do it than get an E-Bow or have the sustainer system built into your guitar. Of those two options the E-Bow is the cheaper one.

 

[OffAxis]

You could probably do something where you set the feedback of your delay to be controlled by the expression pedal, so that when it's all the way forward it is infinite. In other words pick the note then rock the pedal forward so that it doesn't repeat the "pluck" sound. Then you rock it back the sound will die because the repeats are not infinite. Let me know if it works. It just popped in my head.

 

[ahmad]

or if you don't have that much money... put your guitar on zero volume, pluck a string, and turn the knob. works well with a delay pedal.

 

[notandanafn]

You are describing a part of Edge's sound that has been called "Shimmer" on several forums, I can't remember which ones though, sorry ;(

However you should be able to Google it.

The Shimmer thing is an elaborate effects routing, basically the plucked note sent to a regular delay as well as a side-chain consisting of a harmoniser (pitch-shift) feeding a delay line with a high feedback setting and then into a reverb if I remember correctly.

A little bit of compression is used of course, but no infinate sustain (or whatever the Fernandez-gizmo was called) nor an E-Bow.

Live Edge uses a different guitar for WOWY only (e.g. U2 Go Home, Live at Slane), which seems to be loaded with Fender Lace Pickups but he definately is not using an E-Bow.

On that particular occasion some of the Shimmer-notes are played live, but some are triggered samples from the original recording (i.e. backing tracks), I believe you can hear an example of that just before the 1st verse.

Hope this helps,

cheers,

LP

 

[marik]

zootv from sydney video what is he using? is that an e-bow?

 

[gragravar]

Yes.

 

[ThomasH]

A little bit of compression is used of course, but no infinate sustain (or whatever the Fernandez-gizmo was called) nor an E-Bow.

Live Edge uses a different guitar for WOWY only (e.g. U2 Go Home, Live at Slane), which seems to be loaded with Fender Lace Pickups but he definately is not using an E-Bow.

I'm sorry, but you are wrong. There are two aspects to his sound. One is the infinite sustain, which is played either with a sustainer equipped guitar (Strat type with the sustainer system in the Joshua Tree era, and customized Fernandes Native Pro guitars, also with the sustainer system, since Popmart) or an E-bow like on the Zoo-TV tour, where he played With Or Without You on his cream Les Paul Custom.

You are right about the stuff needed to make the shimmer-sound, but the shimmer is not what is giving the infinite sustain. The shimmer gives him a sound, almost like a string patch on a synth, which he can turn up/down with a volume pedal. He does use the shimmer on With Or Without You, but it's not on all the time. You can hear this string-like sound fading in a couple of times during the first half of the song.

 

[Canadiens1131]

I have an XT and it has nothing that will get you infinite sustain.

I'm sorry. There is really no other way to do it than get an E-Bow or have the sustainer system built into your guitar. Of those two options the E-Bow is the cheaper one.

Actually I use a Digitech RP100 guitar processor, and basically what I do is give the guitar signal Delay (digital, not analogue so the signal doesn't degrade and get quieter) with a very short time (10 - 40ms abouts), and then a nice big reverb. So, when a note is plucked, it basically just repeats itself but with the combination of delay and reverb it sounds like one continuous tone.

How do I play the infinite guitar parts then?

Well, I turn the volume knob down to 0 on the guitar, pluck the note, then slowly "violin" (turn up the volume knob) the note up to desired volume and then quickly flick the volume knob back to 0.

Not perfect but you get a very passable rendition of the Infinite Guitar portion of the song.

 

[schoo2]

edge actually used the fernandes decade elite guitars in the popmart tour and the custom native pro for the elevation tour and now uses a fernandes retro rocket elite for the vertigo shows.