The Smiths Guitar Effect How Do I Get...?

[vanessa]

How do you get that tremolo effect that Johnny Marr's getting on the song "How soon is now?". Delay? 2 Tremolos? Ugh!

[skiraly017]

Not only have I been listening to "How Soon Is Now?" for the last two weeks, this is the second thread I've seen about this song today. Someone once told me that Marr used multiple Twin Reverbs with the tremolos "synched up" to get the effect. Rumour has it that recording had to be stopped and started again because the Twins would fall out of time with each other. Old Ampegs could get the same sound if you turned the depth all the way up and adjusted the speed accordingly. The EA tremolo can also do the same sort of stutter as well. However he got the sound, there's some serious layering and multi-tracking going on. Great song.

[John Lyons]

You can get pretty close with only one twin reverb. I saw them in 1986 and marr was using a twin reverb.
I was giddy because I had bought a twin shortly before that.

John

[Khas Evets]

Johnny Marr is one the reasons I picked up a guitar. Spend some time with The Headmaster Ritual in headphones. A masterpiece.

I'm pretty sure it's two twins, one is twice the speed of other. He had a guy riding the speed of each amp to keep it in sync. Listen to the opening on each speaker individually. It's panned hard left and right.

[Bucksears]

I've always known that it was a Twin, but now remember that yes, it is TWO Twins synched up.

If you can't get a Twin, build Craig Anderton's Tremolo at GGG. I used a MAX1044(?) IC (actually, an equivalent that was cheaper through Mouser) to simulate a bipolar power supply and it worked great. I A/B'd it with my SRRI's tremolo (which is identical to the Twin) and not only did Anderton's sound identical, it was actually QUIETER (my SRRI has a more pronounced 'chirp'/click in the background). The only glitches with Anderton's are 1) the volume is a tad low and you need to max out the volume control to get it to unity and 2) below a certain speed, the tremolo doesn't have any effect. Other than that, if you have a 212 or 410 tube amp, this circuit (which uses a photocell for trem) is the best way (IMHO) to get a BF tremolo sound.

Hope this helps,
Buck

[Rodgre]

Just to clarify a little, as I read in Guitar Player back in 1990, the track was recorded without tremolo. You can see info here too

Then they reamped it through two Twins in stereo.  They sync'd the tremolos to the song, and to each other, and punched in to two new tracks on the tape until the tremoloes got out of sync. Stop, rewind, resync, punch in....

A great sound. I recall reading that Johnny wanted to have a song whose intro was as identifiable as "Layla". I think the "How Soon Is Now" intro is almost as identifiable as "Layla." I'd say that "Hippy Chick" by Soho is moreso. Now that's an awesome intro!*

* please let someone be old enough to know what I'm talking about and realize it's a joke.

P.S. "Headmaster Ritual" is one of my favorite tunes, period. LOVE the guitar chords in that one.


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On a side note, I have always loved the sound of synched tremolo, which this song is probably the ULTIMATE example of. I was a big fan of bands like Cocteau Twins and Chapterhouse back in the day as well, and I recall the moment when I said "a-ha! That's how they do it!" and it changed everything for me.... I was watching Chapterhouse at a tiny club in Providence RI back in 1990 or '91. They started playing a song which had a similar pulsing tremolo texture on the guitar and I look around.... I see a rack unit with an LED blinking in time to the tremolo (which was in time to the tempo of the song) and I had an epiphany. They were using a gate, triggered through its sidechain by a sequencer (some sound, like a drum machine sound that was short enough to just pulse in 16th notes) to open the gate, which the guitar was running through.

I went back to the studio I worked at and started messing with some gates and eventually a Yamaha SPX-90, which had a neat, and very underrated ADSR preset. I was able to trigger it through MIDI directly, if I recall (it had been a LONG time since I had an SPX-90 lying around). My next experiment was a Paia Gator and a drum machine. It was a part of my live rig for a while, with the drummer playing to a synch'd click track, until I graduated to an Alesis MicroGate, and a drum machine.

As soon as I realized that the "tremolo" could be controlled by any programmed pattern, I started to experiment with rhythmic patterns, not just a steady 16th note pulse. DIT DIT DIT  DA-DIT DA   DA   DIT..... Wow. Very cool.  I started to experiment with two gates in stereo and sending different patterns to each one. (Think the intro to "Vow" by Garbage).  Curtain Society songs like 1994's "Adrenaline," 1995's "Kissherface-remix" (VERY Chapterhouse influenced...) and Motorcycle Baby from the current CD use this effect.

Now, it's so easy to do synch'd tremolo with DAW recording programs. Draw in your automation and be done with it. Devices like the Adrenalinn and plug-ins like Guitar Rig II can do this in their sleep.  I still prefer the "modular" old school method just for fun.

Roger

[blanik]

i'm surprised about the synched tremolos, i did get a very similar sound accidentally at a rehearsal by turning on the tremolo on my twin and a delay, the pacing of the song was perfect for that effect to come out...
i guess he might have done that live...


R.

[slacker]

Yeah you can get close with just a tremolo, think you really need something choppier than the trem on a Twin though. I think the trick is in the playing, like when doing Gilmour/The Edge style of playing with lots of delay. You need to concentrate on playing "straight" rather than getting in sync with the effect, if you get what I mean.   

[sfr]

Multiple LFOs and a Tremulus Lune will nail you something pretty close - at least, I was playing the riff the other day at band practice well enough that the drummer recognized it. (If the drummer can recognize what I'm playing, I must be doing it well enough.)

[Hiwatt25]

I thought I was the only one that listened to the Smiths.  Johnny Marr is in charge.  I have an old guitar player with him on the cover that I covet.  That and my guitar world signed by Dimbag.  Maybe the first time Johnny Marr and Dimebag have been mentioned in the same post.

[d95err]

Now, it's so easy to do synch'd tremolo with DAW recording programs. Draw in your automation and be done with it. Devices like the Adrenalinn and plug-ins like Guitar Rig II

The problem doing it with a DAW is that it gets *too* perfect. I bet the small imperfections in the sync contributes a lot to the magic of that Smiths song (which unfortunately, I haven't heard yet)

[Wild Zebra]

The Smiths rule.

[Rodgre]

Now, it's so easy to do synch'd tremolo with DAW recording programs. Draw in your automation and be done with it. Devices like the Adrenalinn and plug-ins like Guitar Rig II

The problem doing it with a DAW is that it gets *too* perfect. I bet the small imperfections in the sync contributes a lot to the magic of that Smiths song (which unfortunately, I haven't heard yet)

Oh, you can replicate all those imperfections if you spend enough time tweaking it!

That was me being ironic I think.

Seriously, if drawing a volume change at the same tempo of the song is too "perfect" I suggest some other ways that I've done it. Check this one for imperfections folks... Take the kick and snare tracks of a live drum take (i.e. not a sequenced perfect track) and send the kick and snare to a bus, and put a delay on that bus, so you get somewhat of a "dub" style rhythmic echo echo echo in time with the song. Now, gate that so just the tips of the pulses come through, you'll hear a choppy pattern that's somewhere around a 16th note pattern, but kind of random.

Now, take that signal, send it to the sidechain input of a compressor. Plug your guitar (or whatever) through that compressor, and voila! Instant messy tremolo that is usually sync'd to the song, but kind of drifty.

Compressor sidechains are awesome. Any MBV fans out there? Ever really listen to "Don't Ask Why" off of the Glider ep really closely? You'll hear a strange sort-of tremolo effect on the main mess of guitar. It could just be my imagination (thank my lucky stars for that!) but it seems like it's a compressor sidechained from a drum track that you don't hear until it comes in oh-so-barely-in-the-mix by the end of the song. Neat.

Roger