U2/Edge sounds - Zooropa

[mouellette]

so lately i've been fascinated with some of the sounds Edge makes on the Zooropa record. Most specifically - his shimmering/vibrating/tremming/ihavenoidea sound on 'Lemon' - i've watched him play this part live several times, and it's obvious he's just strumming chords through some kind of rhythmic effect(s) similar to a hard tremolo/chopper that is synched to their MIDI clock or whatever they sync to live - but there's more to it: there's some kind of modulation in there as well, or somthing

so i'm sitting here with my g-major, ****ing with tremolos - adding phasers, flangers, anything. it's driving me crazy and i have the feeling that it's either something retarded-obvious that i'm overlooking, or it's something completely tech-complex coming out of one of his eventides that i'm never going to be able to replicate.

anyone have any input/ideas/concrete knowledge about this? my life will not end if i can find this sound, but i think some (most) of you can identify with the feeling of Having to Know hehe, geek-style.

any other ideas, comments, suggestions about his sounds from this record are welcome as well - thanks!

[ousheen]

Allthough I haven´t listend to the recording of "lemon" again before writing this, as far as I can remember it´s a lightly distorted (mild overdrive) tone plus

1. either a recktangle-shaped tremolo, which he then holds for as long as you can hear the chords;

2. or a delay with exactly as many repeats as you can hear (10-12) without the level of the delay going down.

I´ll listen to it again, and see if I remembered it rightly.

Hope this helped you anyway...

[ousheen]

...I forgot: in the 2nd case he would have to only hit the chords VERY short to get such a rhythmically correct sound...

[alexisbatman]

Ok, the Edge is in one of the biggest bands of all time and as a result is very rich and can afford LOTS of guitar gear. Watching the Boston DVD you can see that his rig is very complicated. he's got lots of stompboxes, racks, compressors, customised pedals etc.
To be honest I think it's very unlikely that it's possible to simulate these with a couple of pedals in the bedroom. You might get something close(ish) but I think to hope to be able to recreate the sounds you're looking for is abit of a long shot given just how much stuff the Edge owns. sorry

[hewesy]

From what I remember it's...

Tremolo - quite a hard wave, with fastish shallow speed/depth

Pitch Shift

Phaser

Ambient delay/reverb to add some space

That should get you close enough to tweek with.

The chords are fantastic as well, great song, great album, fantastic player...

Certainly top 3 in my list!!

[idealflaw]

okay, like the last guy said, edge is rich and and talented.

you are NOT going to be able to copy that sound.
HOwever, I use a SIMILAR effect and it works like this.

You HAVE to have your delay (short delay time with a bunch of repeats) BEFORE your tremelo pedal.


Also, an octave pedal before the tremelo also..

Next, you'll need a second delay AFTER the tremelo synced to the same rythmn as the tremelo, most effectively if it's a stereo ping-pong style delay.

This makes the note overdrive and sustain before the tremelo, which "chops" it up, and the delay makes the tremelo chopping thicker and more 'glossy'.

I don't know how to explain it, but it worsk this way.

But even after all this, I can't get the lemon sound either. Zooropa is a favorite album of mine.

also, here is one of the secrets of Zooropa:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2535038509&category=38070

If you have one, you'll know exactly what I mean.

[LennyNero]

Hi,

though not specialiced agood adress to ask for edgy sounds is the u2-recordinggroup on Yahoo.

Good luck,
Lenny

[elv1s1sal1ve]

There's a great article on the Edge that covers a pretty good spectrum of his signature riffs throughout his career in the Feb 2001 issue of Total Guitar (www.intermusic.com).

Their take on the Lemon tone was "...you ideally need to use a severe tremelo with a square setting and a speed set to semiquavers at 115 bpm. Otherwise set the speed so that the sound chops approximately four times a beat. The synth-like tone comes from using a pitch shifter set up one octave, coupled with some slow phasing and ping pong delay set to repeat on the dotted crochet and dotted quaver..."

[red embers]

Zooropa is one of my favorite U2 albums too, often their most overlooked.

Without intending to, I think I found out how the Edge does the beginning of the song Zooropa (after the piano/noise intro). I was playing around with my e-bow and delay, tapping the e-bow against the strings.

You can get the same exact sound with the delay time set at 370 ms, tap the e-bow over the D-string, playing the D at the 12th fret (I might be off on the exact note, but it's close). After the first tap, tap again right after the first echo. The exact timing would be in triplets, where the first tap is 1, the echo is 3, and the second tap is 1 for the second triplet.

This is probably kind of confusing, but if you set your delay to 370ms and just play around with it using an e-bow, you'll probably figure it out on your own.

[pianoguitar]

http://www.u2sound.de

I've been to this site before and it lists everyone's gear. I don't remember if it said much about "lemon" but it does make some specific references. Hey, if you're rich, maybe you can buy some of it too!