Sound on sound, delay pedal, loop pedal? Some thoughts

[Zben3129]

I'm trying to create the sound on sound effect used by david gilmour in the beginning of Shine On You Crazy Diamond. The DD-7 (Boss, delay), says In addition, "Hold mode allows up to 40 seconds of input to be recorded for creating "sound on sound" performances."

How can I get this hold function without buying the DD-7? Is this something I could add on to the rebote 2.5? Is this something I could make a pedal specifically to do? Do I need to build a looper?

Zach

[DWBH]

The trick is using a very long delay.
Gilmour used to do it with a Roland delay which as set 1500ms, lasting like 15 seconds or more. He used a pedal to blend in the delayed signal (that fed amp 1) with the dry signal (that fed amp 2).
My suggestion is that you use a digital delay, with a fairly long delay second, and crank that feedback knob (the mix knob too).

I don't know if there are any DIY pedals that sound that clean and that are that long. However, there are many budget-options out there.

[frequencycentral]

http://www.geocities.com/thetonegod/payback_v11/payback_v11.html

[Zben3129]

Hmm...is there a confirmed layout for that anywhere?

Zach

[The Tone God]

The problem with v1.1 is that the ISD1600B ICs are difficult to get now as is sounds like the DIP package maybe dropped. You may still be able to find 25xxs for v1.0. A new version is on the drawing board.

I have built a sound-on-sound version called Double Payback.

Andrew

[Zben3129]

The problem with v1.1 is that the ISD1600B ICs are difficult to get now as is sounds like the DIP package maybe dropped. You may still be able to find 25xxs for v1.0. A new version is on the drawing board.

I have built a sound-on-sound version called Double Payback.

Andrew

Is there going to be a public release of the double payback or is that one private?

Also, would it be possible to feed one ISD your guitar signal, and then use the playback to not only send to the amp but also to record into another ISD? And have them on some kind of timer/relay so that you could get unlimited playback time?



Zach

[flood]

The problem with v1.1 is that the ISD1600B ICs are difficult to get now as is sounds like the DIP package maybe dropped. You may still be able to find 25xxs for v1.0. A new version is on the drawing board.

I have built a sound-on-sound version called Double Payback.

Andrew

Is there going to be a public release of the double payback or is that one private?

Also, would it be possible to feed one ISD your guitar signal, and then use the playback to not only send to the amp but also to record into another ISD? And have them on some kind of timer/relay so that you could get unlimited playback time?



Zach

frippertronics!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frippertronics

also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundscapes_by_Robert_Fripp

[The Tone God]

Is there going to be a public release of the double payback or is that one private?

Double Payback is just a testbed I made for myself that allows me to test out ideas with the ISD ICs without have to breadboard or build something every time I want to play around. I can change it's behavior just by tweaking the software in the controller.

Also, would it be possible to feed one ISD your guitar signal, and then use the playback to not only send to the amp but also to record into another ISD? And have them on some kind of timer/relay so that you could get unlimited playback time?

Well each IC has about two minutes and I can chain them if I like. It can accept ICs with up to 16mins each. So I guess the question is how much time does one really need but to answer you question yes it can do that. I can treat treat each IC as its own loop, one as bypass recording loop and one as engaged recording loop, sound on sound, faux analog delay, chorus/flange, and a bunch of other things. It just depends on the program I load into the controller.

Andrew

[Ben N]

By chance I was looking at this today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6Dmf9Tyu8c, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmMCt3AVjQ4&feature=relatedand also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am9BjptNA6o.
Intrigued, I tried it using the looping function on my Headrush. It worked, but was very clunky, requiring a lot of stomping of two switches at every chord change, and had too much attack coming through, even when I triggered the looper after strumming the chord. I haven't tried it with just a long delay setting. From the acoustic clip, it looks like the volume pedal (or vol knob/pinky) swell is key to getting the background sound right.

[Ben N]

Yup, better with the pinky on the vol knob.

[slacker]

That's a cool trick Ben. I can just about do it with the hold function on my DD3, only it's not really long enough. Like you said the trickiest part is making the loop smooth.

[Ben N]

LOL. I tried it with a DD3, too, and from the sound of it, I didn't even get close to where you did.

From the video, I get the impression that the DD6 has, besides longer delay, a tap-on, tap-off function, unlike the DD3 that you have to hold. That seems to me to be better than either the DD3 tap'n'hold or the Alesis 2-switch jig. But it doesn't quite anwer what is going on in the Gilmour video, where he is using one foot to gently rock back and forth on a volume pedal, with the other one planted firmly on the ground, making it all look quite easy.

C'mon, Ian, you are now the official Resident Delay Guru!  You have to come up with a DIY solution!

[slacker]

When I do things like that with the DD3 I normally "cheat" by then running it through a flanger or phaser and a another delay. That basically masks any glitches in the loop and makes it sound more like a continuous sound.
I can't really tell on that video what Mr Gilmour is doing with the volume pedal, I think I did read about how he does that effect somewhere but I can't remember where.

Thanks Ben, I'd love to be able to come up with a DIY solution but as far as I know none of the PT23XX chips can be made to have a "hold" function. Apart from the ISD chips that The Tone God mentioned I don't think there's anything else available unless those FV-1 chips can do big delays, but then you're into messing about with surface mount stuff.

I think the best bet for that sort of stuff is to admit defeat and buy a Boss RC2, that's what I did

[Zben3129]

the thing that shocks me is that I can't do this with my pod xt live?? Every possible effect under the sun, except this one 


Zach

[fogwolf]

Found this:

Gilmour strums a chord and makes a volume swell with the volume pedal assigned for the Sound on Sound effect. The signal travels to the Sound on Sound unit (basically a high quality A/B box) and into the Roland digital delay, which is set to 1500ms lasting about 20 seconds. The signal then travels into a Hiwatt and WEM cabinet used only for this effect. Gilmour lowers the volume pedal and plays a solo fed through the "normal" signal path, while the Sound on Sound pad is sustained by the long delay. The pattern is repeated for each chord.

[slacker]

Yeah that was it.

[Zben3129]

How would this volume pedal work? Is it a panner type volume control (pan between sending the guitar to normal amp or SOS amp), or is there some electronic switching that knows when the volume pedal is on?


Zach

[slacker]

I think it just pans between the 2. So he starts with set to "normal" hits a chord and sweeps the pedal to "SOS" swelling the sound into the delay so you don't get any attack to the sound. Then he sweeps it back to "normal" killing the sound to the delay and letting him play over the top.
With a delay set up right that should be fairly easy to copy and you could just put a mixer after the delay to blend the clean and effected signals rather than using 2 amps.

In fact you could probably mod a delay by splicing an effects loop into the wet side of the circuit before the actual delay section. Then you could shove a volume pedal in the loop and use that to swell the signal into the delay. The clean sound would just pass through the dry side of the effect as normal.

[Ben N]

This is what I am not still getting--what happens at the chord changes? If the delay is set for infinite repeats, how does he clear one chord out of the delay before playing the next one, without switching the delay off? And if the delay is set for a fixed duration, does that mean that changes have to occur at fixed, equal intervals, say every eight or twleve bars, and if you need a change after four bars you are out of luck?

BTW, this is a great thread, and Ian, I was only kidding about dumping the challenge on you.

Here is the Sound on Sound Unit (whatever it does):
http://www.petecornish.co.uk/sos.html

And per Cornish:
"There is also listed on your client list a Sound on Sound interface for David Gilmour...What is this? What does it do?

This unit allows him to re-create the 30 second sustained guitar chord over which he soloed on acoustic guitar in "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" (Meltdown DVD) . This time the sustained chord will be produced by the electric guitar, with any effects that are available on the All Tube Pedalboard, and he can then solo over the chord with the same or different effects. The S-O-S Unit receives signal from the All Tube Pedalboard output and then sends it, suitably buffered etc. to a digital delay unit and from there on to a Vintage HiWatt 100W head/4 X 12 cab which is completely separate to the other Vintage HiWatts and cabs which are fed from the All Tube Pedalboard."

[slacker]

I was messing about with my DD3 this afternoon and by setting it to the longest time with a lot of feedback and then swelling the chord into it using the guitar volume knob I could get a similar sound. The trick seems to be to hold the chord for a bit longer than the delay time so that the repeats layer up with the input signal, this seem to smooth out the sound.
By carefully setting the feedback I could sustain the chord for several minutes.

Like Ben I can't figure out how you make the chord changes work though, because it doesn't sound like Gilmour is letting the delay die away before playing another chord. Perhaps there's more to it than Pete Cornish is letting on.