Gilmour toanz and the Big Muff ?

SRich

The Muffroom Cloud get's it spot on if my ears are identifying it correctly. I'm not knocking anyone who's a Muff connoisseur.....as if.........but as I don't play out live, trying to replicate that tone at bedroom levels leaves a lot of layers of sound covered up. 

impmann

There are many eras of his sound - the early stuff was Fuzzface driven. Well, it was a FF into a Coloursound Powerboost. Then came the Muff stuff and the Chandler valve drive. Then the early post Walters stuff used RAT, and that most under-rated pedal the Boss HM2. Then came the Cornish stuff pedals (Soft Sustain etc) and he's recently started using the Muff again, with the Chandler drive thing

To be brutally honest, the difference in tone between a good *distortion* pedal (not overdrive) and a boosted fuzz is a bit moot. And truthfully, unless you have the amp pushing a fair amount of air a Muff can sound a bit... well, reedy and disappointing. Even when boosted to bring back the lost mids, its not an easy pedal to get great (Gilmour-esque) sounds from.

As mentioned above, its not all about the fuzz - he uses mid gain overdrive quite a lot, and his clean sounds are epic. Delay is crucial, as is modulation for post Animals stuff - Animals is my fave Floyd album because of the incredible use of flange and rotary sounds, plus his sound is so much more 'fierce' and less smooth.

Gassage

I can't empisise enough how important parallel mixed delays are in getting that huge sound. Any delay with a dry kill feature will do, then mix via a Gigrig wet box or a Lehle Parallel M. You will be astonished at how big and clear the delays sound. Basically you re only then getting the original core signal in analogue and the trails in digital mixed back as one signal.

zepp76

I think the o.p should try a JHS Muffuletta, that should allow him to dial in half decent different era Gilmour tones without dedicating too much dosh to the cause.

impmann

Gassage said:

I can't empisise enough how important parallel mixed delays are in getting that huge sound. Any delay with a dry kill feature will do, then mix via a Gigrig wet box or a Lehle Parallel M. You will be astonished at how big and clear the delays sound. Basically you re only then getting the original core signal in analogue and the trails in digital mixed back as one signal.

I like the sound of that - so basically, shove the wet/dry control all the way to wet and run it in parallel?

Jonathanthomas83

@Gassage I'm running stereo, so would something like the RJM mini mixer work? Guessing so. 

Gassage

Jonathanthomas83 said:

@Gassage I'm running stereo, so would something like the RJM mini mixer work? Guessing so. 

Right, that's a brilliant question and I am ONLY aware of the Mark L MLC rack mixer or mini line mixer that'll work in stereo.

Even then, you can only INPUT in stereo on the rack version (IIRC)

To get true panning stereo you'd need quite a complex little box with 2 Inputs, 2 Sends, 2 Returns and 2 Outputs.

Believe me you've scratched an itch I have that I've ignored for a few weeks but it's in the back of my mind.

Preston @ Wounded Paw is prepared to make me a rack version of the above but it would need (I think) to use 4 separate loops to get the panning stereo.

I'll look at the schematic of the RJM. I need to sort this as about to add a Dynacord CLS222 to my rack and I'll need the stereo out last in chain.

pj310

@Gassage if only using one delay parallel mixed with the delay on wet only, how does that differ to having the same delay without the wet box but just adjusting the mix on the delay itself? I thought that would be doing the same thing?

Gassage

Palash, no.

With PM, the mixing box splits the signal into 2. One is sent to the delay, one stays in mixing box (hence it NEVER sees the ADDA Convertors and it remains totally analog). The trails (not the root/core note) are then returned from the delay into the mixer and the signal out is the totally analog note together with only the trails from the delay. So you are removing all of the digitisation of the original signal, not get a ghost root note back and even the trails are now contolable.

The other brilliant trick is you can then shove a chorus after the delay, in the return line to the return of the mixer, which gives lush chorus on the repeats only, a quite stunning effect- people always mention the CE2 era of Pulse- that it was how it was done- chorus on repeats only after delays.

Hope this helps. Call me tonight if you need further clarification. Hope your Dad's well.

pj310

That makes a lot of sense, cheers! 
The old man is well matey he says hi

ThePrettyDamned

Gassage said:

Palash, no.

With PM, the mixing box splits the signal into 2. One is sent to the delay, one stays in mixing box (hence it NEVER sees the ADDA Convertors and it remains totally analog). The trails (not the root/core note) are then returned from the delay into the mixer and the signal out is the totally analog note together with only the trails from the delay. So you are removing all of the digitisation of the original signal, not get a ghost root note back and even the trails are now contolable.

The other brilliant trick is you can then shove a chorus after the delay, in the return line to the return of the mixer, which gives lush chorus on the repeats only, a quite stunning effect- people always mention the CE2 era of Pulse- that it was how it was done- chorus on repeats only after delays.

Hope this helps. Call me tonight if you need further clarification. Hope your Dad's well.

I think even the humble boss dd-3 does this internally - ie a dry, fully analogue through signal. 

I wonder if the parallel mixing is more to give extra control to the mix and use as a wet/dry rig. So you can alter the drive (or lack of) on the delays relative to the main tone, as well as add extra modulation effects to repeats only (or dry tone only). 

I've had a modified dd-3 with an effects loop that was fun - shoving a fuzz box in the loop meant I could have a clean dry signal and bitcrushedesque delays . Maybe not Gilmour, but delays with analogue dry through and modulation on repeats are more common than those with a fuzz on the repeats! 

Edit: this is NOT in any way suggesting a dd3 nails Gilmour tone. But it would be nice if the dd3 had extra control available - it could go from being a great delay for the money to an extraordinarily useful pedal for any money. Maybe. 

Moon on a stick...