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Part 2
The first thing I did to find this sound was to lower the pitch of my guitar into bass range of a cello. For this I used the HOG’s “Octave Bend” feature and the supplied expression pedal.
To tune the pedal more accurately than by using my foot I adjusted the pitch by hand using the fine tune knob located on the left side of the pedal.
Keep the foot pedal in the heel-down position with the HOG’s Exp. Reverse switch in the on position. Turning the fine tune knob clockwise will now lower the pitch of the guitar.
I lowered the overall pitch of the guitar down to the key of A. This is actually the range of a baritone guitar.
(The optional HOG foot switch controller allows you to save different tunings as presets!)
Normally a cello is played using a bow made of wood and horse hair.
The action of a bow on the cello’s strings produces a note with an attack much slower that that of a guitar played with a pick or fingers.
To slow down the attack of the guitar (in order to emulate the cello sound) I lowered the “lower” slider of the HOG’s envelope section.
The result was a slightly slowed down envelope, which was just the effect I was looking for.To add the proper ambiance or space to the HOG’s sound I used the Holiest Grail reverb.
I chose a setting to mimic a small concert hall. I discovered by adding a small amount of the Grail’s “Spring” effect, a midrange resonance boost brought the cello sound to life.
STRING PADS
At 32 seconds into the recording I added a string section to the cello’s repeating line. To produce the string section sound I recorded two tracks using the effect chain seen below.
The Black Finger Compressor increased the sustain of the guitar to allow chords to ring or float for a long period of time.
OPTIONAL: Soul Preacher version.
CELLO CONCERTO for GUITAR AND EFFECT PEDALS
Part 1
In Episode 3 of Effectology we present the Electro-Harmonix Orchestra performing a original composition called “Cello Concerto for Guitar and Effect Pedals.”
Using a series of EHX pedals I was able to transform the sound of a regular guitar into the sound of a cello, string section, and solo horn.
In this post I will explain how I produced the cello and string section sounds.If you do not own the pedals listed below, experiment with similar effects you have at your disposal.
There is never just “one way” to do things in music. By experimenting with different elements you may discover new sounds that are all your own!
THE CELLO
The first sound heard in the Concerto clip is one very similar to a solo cello. The pedals I chose for this sound were the HOG and the Holiest Gail Reverb.
There are four major instruments in the string family. Listed from highest pitch to lowest are the violin, the viola, the cello and the double-bass. They are all built the same way. The instruments are made of many pieces of wood glued together. The body of the instrument is hollow, creating a resonating box for the sound. Four strings (sometimes five on the double-bass) made of animal gut, nylon, or steel are wrapped around pegs at one end of the instrument and attached to a tailpiece at the other. They are stretched tightly across a bridge to produce their assigned pitches.
The violoncello or cello is the tenor voice in the string family. While shaped like a violin, the cello is much larger and is held between the player’s knees.
Thanks nneekolas,
I want things to come from my guitar strings not a sample or triggering some other midi device!
On top of it all its pretty hard to feedback a synthesizer
The pedals just have a more spontaneous and organic feel to them.
Personally I feel more connected to the sound.
And you are right its a LOT more fun!!Bill Ruppert
Part 2
THE RECORDING
To start my “On the Run” recording I needed a sequencer to play a repeated synth line over and over like the one heard on Pink Floyd track.
A great pedal for short loop recording is the Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai.
I recorded a short loop of a bass line using the Microsynth into the Hazarai. To make the riff sound even more like a digital sequencer I played the line at half the speed. I then sped the riff back up using the Hazarai delay knob.
Below is the Microsynth bass setting and the effect chain.Next I fed the Hazarai loop into the Frequency Analyzer and manually twisted the shift knob as the loop played over and over. I recorded this into my computer on one track in Pro Tools recording software.
Speeding the Microsynth line up with the Hazarai puts the synth line an octave higher than recorded. To bring the loop back down in pitch where it was recorded — but keeping the faster speed — I fed the Hazarai back through the MicroSynth using the Sub Octave slider. This was recorded in Pro Tools on a separate track.
The helicopter sounds were a unique challenge.
I needed a white noise effect and found the Big Muff Pedal was perfect as a noise source. Plugging a guitar cord into the Big Muff turns the unit on, but
having a cord connected to the input creates a lot of buzz which I did not want. I wanted just the hiss noise.To solve this problem, use a dummy 1/4″ phone plug to turn the Big Muff on without it actually being connected to anything. You can get a 1/4″ plug at any Radio Shack or music store.
All the knobs on the Big Muff were cranked to the max to produce a wall of noise. This was then feed into the Mirosynth and into a Pulsar pedal for a choppy square wave tremolo.
I manually moved the start frequency slider on the Microsynth to brighten and darken the chopper sound. The final pedal in this helicopter sound was the Hazarai set for a reverberant delay.
A second helicopter pass was done with the guitar connected to the Big Muff playing a low E note while dipping the vibrato arm slowly. This additional pass gave the sound the weight of a giant helicopter engine.
To capture the female voice as heard in the Pink Floyd track the Big Muff pedal saved the day again.
With such a high gain pedal, I was able to actually hold a portable AM radio speaker against guitar pickup and process the voice of a woman announcer. The Hazarai pedal gave the sound a weird loudspeaker echo effect.
Each sound was recorded direct in to Pro Tools and mixed in stereo. No guitar amps were used. The guitar I used was a 1988 Ibanez floral JEM.
Below is a screen shot of this Pro Tools session.I hope this clip gives you some new ideas about how to use these great effect pedals. With such innovative musical tools at our finger tips, all that holds us back is our imagination
Thanks for listening!
Bill Ruppert
Part 1
This Effectology clip was a lot of fun for me to record as I was able to emulate one of my favorite vintage synthesizers: the EMS Synthi AKS.
The EMS Synthi AKS is a portable modular analog synthesizer with a built-in keyboard/sequencer made by EMS in England starting in 1972. The EMS line of synthesizers was used by Pink Floyd, Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream, Stereolab, Yes, Aphex Twin, The Who, Todd Rundgren, and many more.
The picture below was taken during the actual recording of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of The Moon” album. On the right side of the picture you can see David Gilmour setting up the EMS AKS Synthi for a recording.
The EMS synth has:
1. three oscillators
2. a noise generator
3. a ring modulator
4. a low pass filter (VCF)
5. an envelope generator
6. a spring reverb unitBeing way ahead of its time, the AKS also sported a mono 256-note digital sequencer to playback recorded phrases.
While this may seem like a tall order to emulate using just a guitar and floor pedals, you will find that almost all the components listed above already exist in various EHX effect pedals!
The crafty part is just putting the pedals together to produce the EMS Synth sound.
1. The EMS analog synthesizer starts with an oscillator to create the pitch.
That’s easy! We have our guitar string that functions the same way. By adding distortion and filtering to our guitar we can create different “wave forms” just like an analog synthesizer.2. For a noise generator, I cannot think of a better one than a Big Muff pedal on 10. Think about it: if you stop playing, what you’ll hear is a wall of noise. It is basically just what an analog synth does within its noise module.
3. The ring modulator function is a snap. The EHX Frequency Analyzer pedal is a ring modulator and performs much like the ring-mod in the EMS Synth.
4. A low pass filter is found in many EHX pedals like the POG, POG2 ,HOG and the Microsynth. The Q-tron, Bass Balls and Bi-Filter are also low pass filters that respond to the way you play your guitar. Technically speaking these are called a VCF or Voltage Controlled Filter. (Your picking strength controls how the filter opens and closes. Think “Auto-Wa”.)
5. An envelope generator can be found in the EHX Microsynth, HOG, POG2 and for that matter even a simple volume pedal can do the trick.
In simple terms an envelope generator controls the how long it takes for you to hear your guitar after you pick the note. It can also control how long the note you pick will sustain or how long it takes to fades away.
The envelope generator is an essential tool for making the guitar sound like other instruments.
6. Lastly the EMS spring reverb is also very easy to emulate as there are several EHX reverb pedals that produce not only the spring sound but a digital studio reverb as well.
Here is the reverb setting I used in the Blues Harmonica clip.
The Holiest Grail was set to sound like the clip was recorded in a small club.
The decay time slider is set low and the damping and diffusion sliders are set low as well.The damping and diffusion controls the amount of sound that bounces around in a space or room.
Damping acts like a giant carpet or curtains that sucks up the reflected sound.
A room full of people in a club would soak up more of the sound that bounces off the walls and tables.
For this the sound the Danping slider is set low.
For an big empty reflective room the damping slider would be set higher up.
Here is the setting I used in stereo.Bill Ruppert
