How do you FX that far away sound?

robgilmo

Was listening to Eliminator tonight and the lead guitar on I need you tonight has that 80's hair far away smouldering sound, is it just a ton of reverb? Delay? Or did they record it from across the car park?

 

monquixote

Any kind of reverb or stereo chorus pushes you back in the mix.

Sporky

Also the predelay on reverb effectively tells your brain the size of the room - it simulates the time it takes for the first early reflections to get to you. Our hearing system does a lot of analysis on things like that.

You can have a lower total amount of reverb but a longer predelay to give the impression of being in a bigger space without excessive mush. 

ICBM

Delay, reverb and EQ - far-away sounds are all midrange.

robgilmo

Thanks guys, I have reverb and chorus, I will have a wee experiment.

digitalkettle

robgilmo said:

Thanks guys, I have reverb and chorus, I will have a wee experiment.

For that track...you're gonna need a delay pedal

robgilmo

digitalkettle said:

robgilmo said:

Thanks guys, I have reverb and chorus, I will have a wee experiment.

For that track...you're gonna need a delay pedal

Damn! I feel a GAS moment of weakness may be in the air.

viz

Play small. It sounds far away. 

Kurtis

If you really want something to sound far away I'd suggest some clever eq-ing  and reverb techniques. 

80s guitar solos will probably smothered in delay. 

Sporky

ICBM said:

Delay, reverb and EQ - far-away sounds are all midrange.

Stuck phaser or flanger can do it sometimes - I think tge comb filtering maybe emulates multiple short reflections over distance.

Either of those can be a useful tool for sitting instruments together when they share a frequency range too. 

EricTheWeary

Lot of delay on that lead sound. 

Billy was a keen user of the Roland Dimension D (or Boss Dimension C) so any modulation from that period tended to be that although if it’s on that solo sound it’s very subtle. Apparently Billy tours with a bunch of $15 Chinese knock off pedals these days so sounding like him shouldn’t be that expensive (ignoring the £1000s in custom shop guitars, vintage Les Pauls and signature valve amps). 

Gadget

viz said:

Play small. It sounds far away. 

noisepolluter

Sporky said:

Also the predelay on reverb effectively tells your brain the size of the room - it simulates the time it takes for the first early reflections to get to you. Our hearing system does a lot of analysis on things like that.

You can have a lower total amount of reverb but a longer predelay to give the impression of being in a bigger space without excessive mush. 

I tried this. I was surprised how much difference it makes - upped the default patch predelay from about 30mS to about 100. Sounds bigger but also clearer. 

snowblind

Whilst not quite BIlly's sound I found that a Les Paul into a TC Spark boost into a Boss HM-2 (distortion on minimum) into a delay with a bit of modulation ( I use a TC Alter Ego x4 either on the echorec setting or the echoplex2) into a reverb (T-rex room mate) gives you a pretty good analogue. Through a 100W amp with a 4x12 it is pretty biblical. Does a nice job on INYT.

Do need to be at a safe distance and watch out for structural damage to the building you are in though.

ewal

One person's far away is another person's in the room right next to you ;-) When I saw the thread title, I thought it'd be about an Explosions In The Sky tune or something!

I'm not that good at reverb settings, but as ICBM said, the EQ is important.

robgilmo

Thanks guys , My reverb is a one knob deal on the amps so cant really do much with it, I will have another play with it today, Ive got a CH-1 but its looking like I may need delay. 

robgilmo

So far Ive managed to get it sounding like a banjo in a bathroom, getting there! Having to use headphones now though, dont want to upset my neighbours, headphones arent great on my wee VOX amp.

To get that smouldering sound, is it distortion, over drive or a mixture of both? It sounds really smooth so I am thinking overdrive?

Sorry if its obvious, Ive not really used pedals much in the past.

Gadget

That sound is moderately high gain, with a lot of mid-higher mids, into a delay and reverb. So (not knowing your amp) if you can, turn up the 'gain' quite high (back off the 'master volume' first), turn up your 'mid' control a fair bit (and possibly a bit of 'treble' too) and back off the 'bass'. Turn up your 'reverb'. Alas, as others have said, you'll only get the repeats element with a delay pedal. Play on your bridge pickup.

robgilmo

Gadget said:

That sound is moderately high gain, with a lot of mid-higher mids, into a delay and reverb.

Ah, I am getting a lot of crunch type sound, tried it through the gain channel and its sounding better, I was playing on the clean chanel before, its still quite bright though, I am missing delay which isnt helping, I'm not sure my P90's are helping either.
Beer is helping though. 

Gadget

robgilmo said:

Gadget said:

That sound is moderately high gain, with a lot of mid-higher mids, into a delay and reverb.

Ah, I am getting a lot of crunch type sound, tried it through the gain channel and its sounding better, I was playing on the clean chanel before, its still quite bright though, I am missing delay which isnt helping, I'm not sure my P90's are helping either.
Beer is helping though. 

That's funny, I sound better with beer too

P90s should be okay, and yes, you want to be on the crunch or gain channel, not clean. Higher gain on the amp is similar to the sound an overdrive or distortion pedal would give you

In isolation, it will sound quite shrill. If you isolate the guitar sound from the mix mentally, that's what it is - very mid-focused. Reverb is quite complex, so having only one knob control will be limiting, but it would be the delay that would really give you that soun-from-afar effect.

robgilmo

Gadget said:

robgilmo said:

Gadget said:

That sound is moderately high gain, with a lot of mid-higher mids, into a delay and reverb.

Ah, I am getting a lot of crunch type sound, tried it through the gain channel and its sounding better, I was playing on the clean chanel before, its still quite bright though, I am missing delay which isnt helping, I'm not sure my P90's are helping either.
Beer is helping though. 

That's funny, I sound better with beer too

P90s should be okay, and yes, you want to be on the crunch or gain channel, not clean. Higher gain on the amp is similar to the sound an overdrive or distortion pedal would give you

In isolation, it will sound quite shrill. If you isolate the guitar sound from the mix mentally, that's what it is - very mid-focused. Reverb is quite complex, so having only one knob control will be limiting, but it would be the delay that would really give you that soun-from-afar effect.

Thankyou, I did just that and it does sound shrill, its the effects putting air around it that I failed to see through, Ive whacked the gain up, dont have mid so played around with treble, It sounds close, no distortion or OD and using the CH-1 to fill it out a little, my amp (Vox Cambridge 30) has mid range boost and gain boost which helps a lot and brings it all to life, missing delay though and the reverb is basic. Using any distortion or OD puts it over the edge, but its sounding good.