World's Most Popular Christian Band?

[JesusisGod2]

Hmmm.... another JS thread?

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What's a JS thread?

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Jessica Simpson.

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Who is Jessica Simpson?

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A self proffessed christian who is also an entertainer of questionable scruples?

I am trying not to sound judgemental or gossipy

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oh, O.K.

But I still think U2 is overrated!

[Gerioke]

Hmmm.... another JS thread?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What's a JS thread?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Jessica Simpson.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Who is Jessica Simpson?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A self proffessed christian who is also an entertainer of questionable scruples?

I am trying not to sound judgemental or gossipy

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oh, O.K.

But I still think U2 is overrated!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agree. U2 could have Mother Theresa doing backups and they would still be overrated as far as bands go.

[Constant]

I never got into U2. Why do you think they are overrated?

[Gerioke]

I never got into U2.  Why do you think they are overrated?

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Because they had to be super saturated in echo to sound good and they always had that annoying droning sound in most of their songs. By the third album I was wondering if the guitar player new any chords. He must have learned one , because I thought I heard a chord on the 4th album. But then again , it could have been an echo trick.

[RGR]

Brother,

I hear you on that echo effect! It seems like no one is doing real music anymore. We get tortured up at work with Muzak junk and one of their favorites to play is (I think this is who it is) is Phil Collins. This guy isn't even on par with any of the greats of music such as Hank or Elvis, etc. That the guy can't sing is shown by the fact they have to throw echo in on everything he does! I heard one of his songs the other day and it was so drenched in echo it reminded me of how RCA used to ruin Elvis' recordings by "reprocessing" them for stereo with that false echo!

[yomotalking]

echo?

Off the stadium walls?

Or what?

[Gerioke]

echo?

Off the stadium walls?

Or what?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Digital echo or reverb processors.

[dgolvach]

Home

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A Study of The Edge's (U2) Guitar Delay

by Tim Darling ( tdarling@amnesta.net )

(I may update this page in the future. It was last updated in June, 2005.)

Norway, 1983. Photo © Hans Arne Nakrem

Overview / Summary Go to the list of songs

What's so interesting about The Edge's guitar delay?

Most of us won't ever play in a U2 tribute band or try to cover a U2 song in the studio, but discovering how The Edge uses his 'trademark' guitar delay is not limited to that. How his delay sounds and how he uses them are a great resource for any serious guitar player. If you're happy with just plugging in a digital delay pedal and tapping it in time with the song you're playing, then you probably won't care to read much further. I put this page up for the people who realize how much difference the attention to detail can make and who won't ever be happy getting things '95%' right.

The most common question posted about U2's sound on websites and chatrooms devoted to that subject is "what is The Edge's delay setting on Where the Streets Have No Name?". The usual answer is "set it to 3/16 tempo, about 340-350ms". (The same answer is roughly given for questions about any of their songs actually). So out of curiosity, I studied the audio tracks closely and calculated the exact settings he used for that song and others and I found out that the real answer is a little more interesting. That's good news though: maybe the reason that The Edge sounds a little better than you when he plays 'Streets' is because of his 'secrets' that are revealed here. Hopefully it will help you think a little bit differently about how you use delay in your own songs.

Note: This page is strictly limited to discussion about The Edge's delay times. Occassionally I mention other things like the modulation effect of the SDD-3000 delay unit and I include some tablature as needed.

The Edge usually uses 2 different 'types' of delay in any given song: short (reverb-ish) and long.

The Edge's usual signal path:

Guitar --> [some effects] --> short delay(s) --> [other effects] --> signal split to A/B:

(A) --> long delay #1 --> amp #1 (usually a 1960's Vox AC30)

(A / B are sometimes panned left/right)

(B) --> long delay #2 --> amp #2 (usually a 1960's Vox AC30)

Note that The Edge also seems to use a good compression on his guitar. That's a key piece to getting the delay

to sound right. I won't discuss it much more here, but it's probably used on almost all of the recordings.

Disclaimer:

The above is a generalization. See the pages for each of the individual songs for specifics.

Futher, for the purposes of these pages, I'm not really concerned about his signal path. I presented the 'evidence'

for the types of delays he's using - where, when, how long for each of the songs.

From that, I reconstructed what I think would be the most likely signal path.

And also, for the most part, I only studied the album recordings. For any given tour, he may change his setup.

The short delay / Reverb (5-20ms, 3-4 repeats) is not audible to the naked ear as a delay. The Edge uses it to thicken and warm his guitar sound.

In all cases, the short delay is earlier in the signal chain than the long delays. (Since Edge usually uses 2 long delays at a time in a song, then if this were not true and the short delays were placed after each of the long delays, then his initial attack would sound muddier since there would be more than one short delay units hitting right after the attack- one from each of the long delays' signal chains).

For the short delays, the settings rarely need to be changed and he appears to leave it on all the time.

Occassionally, Edge chains 2 of these short delays together - see 'Wire' or 'Bullet the Blue Sky'. Also, occassionally, Edge doesn't use this (at least with as noticeable an effect) - see 'All I Want Is You'.

Arguably, the 'short delays' could be reverb that was added post-production to the final master track. However, note how similar the short delays in 'Wire' (where it's obvious the delay times were specifically set) are to the other songs (say 'Streets' live) in the waveform graphics that I posted for the songs. Whether the short delay/reverb was added for most songs post-production, though, I don't know.

Update: There are some people who claim that the 'short delays' I propose he uses are caused by either his guitar picks or room echo. Both are possibilities, here's more info. Discussion of Edge's guitar picks is out of the scope of this discussion, but I'll mention it as it could relate to a 'delay' effect:

For the guitar picks: Edge's guitar picks (Herdims) have a dimpled half and a flat half. The dimpled half is supposed to be where you hold the pick (it gives it a better grip). Apparently Edge holds the pick either backwards or sideways so that the dimpled part of the pick grates the strings, causing what some have suggested could create the 'short delay' sound (its main effect is to sharpen the sound and give it a slightly grating punch - what some people call a 'chime' sound.) I studied the effect of the Herdim dimpled picks on a guitar signal and I posted the results here. The result: the Herdim picks are not the cause of the 'short delay' effect.

Further points: The short delay effect is very consistent during a given song. For instance, it's exactly 4-5 repeats and they're all the same speed (5ms or 20 ms). A pick effect would not be as precise. Further a pick effect would be more consistent from song to song, whereas I hear a much longer 'short delay' during Streets (20 ms) and it varies from song to song. Incidentally, people have emailed me saying that Edge started holding his guitar pick backwards because he never had any formal training and had been doing that incorrectly from early on. He was using the Herdims at least by the Unforgettable Fire, and perhaps earlier.

For the room echo: This may well be a good argument. I think room echoes tend to have 1 bounceback and then get muddy. The short delays I hear are very precise. I don't know though. It's possible this could be a room echo. Listening to the effect in live recordings maybe a good clue (for instance, I heard the same 20ms short delay in the Streets record version as in the live version). But recording in a good room that gives a good echo is about the same as having an echo pedal, so I'll leave that for someone else to decide.

The long delays (150ms-550ms, almost always set in tempo with the song) make up a big part of Edge's sound. He uses modulated delays which add a vibrato/chorus effect to the delay repeats. In most songs, he uses 2 long delays in parallel set to different tempos and sends them to different amps, as in the diagram above. Occassionally (such as in 'Streets'), he chains the 2 long delays together so that the later delay is fed the delay repeat (wet out only) of the first delay.

His Korg SDD-3000s are mostly used for the long delays. Though the SDD-3000 is a digital delay (it allows you to exactly dial in the delay length which is crucial), the modulation section of it adds a nice warmth. He splits usually his signal at the end of his other effects chains and runs it into 2 SDD-3000s. Those feed directly into his amps (usually Vox AC30s). One reason he does this is to make use of the +10dB output on the SDD-3000s, as Daniel Lanois explained in the quote below.

[dgolvach]

Personally, I prefer Page.

Dan

[Gerioke]

If there are actually guitar players out there who are that fired up about edge's echo sound, I would suggest that they take some time and learn a couple of chords. Honestly, who really cares?