How did Roger Waters get this sound ?

[jazzpunkrock]

Could anyone explain how did Roger Waters get this sound in ´´One of These Days ´´ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XJuWcls7CA starts at 3.01)? Did he use only some kind of delay or something more ? And how should I set up my delay ( I have Roland V-bass) ?

[mvw356]

you need to grow two more arms and hands, buy two delays and another bass. and lots of practice

[UncleBalsamic]

Sounds a bit like a tremolo to me, but I know little of effects.

[mvw356]

sorry, i might have confused you even more. the orginal was played by gilmour and waters together, so two basses. the youtube version you linked is a live version, and the section you refer to is actually more keyboard sound effects than bass (imo)

[MakiSupaStar]

You can create that sound with a simple Boss delay and a kind of bouncing slap with your thumb on the d-string.

[thobbinghotrod]

I love a nice clip like that, very soothing. I've had similar sounds with a panning effect like some guitar processors have. You need to run two cabs and amps set up in stereo out of the multi effects processor.

Now that i'm writing it, I bet he used the crazy guitar rig that must have been in the studio already. Pink Floyd is known for it's incredible guitar tones.

[jazzpunkrock]

Thanks UncleBalsamic ! I´m agree with you !

[smeet]

Originally Posted by MakiSupaStar

You can create that sound with a simple Boss delay and a kind of bouncing slap with your thumb on the d-string.

He's not referring to the intial delay part. The section starting at 3:01 sounds more like a tremolo on the bass, or since it's Pink Floyd, the bass being run through a VCA modulated by a square wave LFO...

[BigOldHarry]

Given the time period, I'll bet he was using a tape eco set with big feedback - not something easily duplicated live - and having seen floyd a few times try to pull this off, it never quite sounds as good as it did on the album.

As anyone tried the new Boss Space Echo (a digital version of the roland space echo from years past)? I'll bet it would pull this off...

[MakiSupaStar]

Originally Posted by smeet

He's not referring to the intial delay part. The section starting at 3:01 sounds more like a tremolo on the bass, or since it's Pink Floyd, the bass being run through a VCA modulated by a square wave LFO...

LOL. Oh my bad. Carry on, just ignore me. I'll be the shortbus picking his nose in the corner.

[bigchiefbc]

That section of the song is definitely not echo, because there is no attack on the notes, even though he changes notes during the riff; it just swells in and out. It's almost certainly tremolo. Now, whether he did that with a trem pedal (which I don't even know if they were made yet in 71), an amp with built in trem (called vibrato because guitarists are stupid), or with a synth module, I have no idea. But the best way to play it now is with a trem pedal.

Here is a clip I did about two months ago, playing this very song using echo and tremolo. The tremolo part starts at about 1:00.

[jazzpunkrock]

Thank you friends (especially bigchiefbc). Now I have to buy tremolo but which one is the best?

[Gashaponcito]

Originally Posted by bigchiefbc

Here is a clip I did about two months ago, playing this very song using echo and tremolo. The tremolo part starts at about 1:00.

Amazing, what did you used man =O

[idoru]

I've got a Floyd tribute in the works, so I've been digging around for info on all the tones. I agree with bigchiefbc, it's tremolo.

My settings, running the delay INTO the tremolo.

Delay - 312ms, 7 repeats
Tremolo - synced to the delay, full squarewave.

For the interlude, I trem pick at the echoed tempo with the tremolo engaged. Our keys player had the section sampled, and everybody agreed it was very close. When you listen to the recording, it still has that ambient echo quality, it's just all chopped up.

For the record, I'm using an Ibanez DE-7 in echo mode and a Boss TR-2 (later edition, without so much volume loss).

[Edit] The Floyd recording used the Binson Echorec tape delay, so any delay with a hi-cut / echo degradation is preferable.

I get one of our guitarists to play the thumpy bass in the left channel with an octave down effect while the other guy plays the lap steel.

c-

[kevteop]

Sounds to me like it's just a square wave tremolo, with maybe a light phaser on top.

[TSL2]

It's tremolo and it would be interesting to know if it was a tube type or an early pedal. The studio engineer may have doubled the base track with a slight delay and then phased both tracks before final mix. Studios are so much fun!

[bhagiti]

It's definitely trem. There was the Arbiter Trem Face (cousin to the Fuzz Face) in those days:

http://filters.muziq.be/model/dallasarbiter/tremface

Originally Posted by bigchiefbc

It's almost certainly tremolo. Now, whether he did that with a trem pedal (which I don't even know if they were made yet in 71), an amp with built in trem (called vibrato because guitarists are stupid), or with a synth module, I have no idea. But the best way to play it now is with a trem pedal.

[idoru]

From Guitar World, Feb 1993:

"One of these Days"

GW: Another technical point: the instrumental "One of these Days" was born when someone plugged a bass into a "Binson Echorec". What is this device?

DG: The Binson was an Italian made delay unit. It was strange because it didn't utilize tape loops. Instead, it used a metal recording wheel. [Binson's Echorec was basically a wire recorder - a precursor of magnetic tape. It had six knobs: an input volume, on to control the length, volume and tone of a swell, a three position selector knob. The selector accessed either echo (one repeat), repeat (more than one repeat) or swell (reverbs cleverly devised by feeding the outputs of the heads back to themselves), while the switching knob accessed 12 variations of these - GW Ed.]

You could get some wonderful delay effects that aren't attainable on anything that's been made since "One of these Days" evolved from some of my experiments with the Binson, as did "Echoes" [also from Meddle]. One day, Roger decided to take some of the techniques that I was developing and try them out himself on bass. And he came up with that basic riff that we all worked on and turned into "One of these Days".

For the middle section, another piece of technology came into play: an H&H amp with vibrato. I set the vibrato to more or less the same tempo as the delay. But the delay was in 3/4 increments of the beat and the vibrato went with the beat. I just played the bass through it and made up that little section, which we then stuck on to a bit of tape and edited in. The tape splices were then camouflaged with cymbal crashes.

GW: So you played the bass on that track?

DG: Yes. The opening section is me and Roger. On "One of these Days", for some reason, we decided to do a double track of the bass. You can actually hear it if you listen in stereo. The first bass is me. A bar later, Roger joins in on the other side of the stereo picture. We didn't have a spare set of strings for the spare bass guitar, so the second bass is very dull sounding. [laughs] We sent a roadie out to buy some strings, but he wandered off to see his girlfriend instead.

This backs me up on feeding the delay into the tremolo; however, I didn't realise the delay was in 3/4.

c-

[kevteop]

Originally Posted by idoru

From Guitar World, Feb 1993:

Interesting. I was nearly killed by one of those amps once. The "vibrato" on it was quite cool though, when it wasn't trying to kill me.

[bigchiefbc]

Originally Posted by Gashaponcito

Amazing, what did you used man =O

Thanks, here's what I used on this clip:

Bass -> Electronix Submarine -> Boss DD-20 -> Boss FDR-1

The DD-20 was set for Tape mode, about 330 ms, feedback a little past noon. Delay was on for the entire clip

The with the FDR-1, I had the reverb at 2:00, and the "vibrato" tap tempo'd to the beat, but turned all the way down. Then in the middle section, I had my buddy turn the "vibrato" knob up all the way, then back down again at the end.