Lead Guitar with no attack?

[loophead]

Its called a volume pedal Beck and Belew also use the volume pot on the guitar quite a bit.For various reasons best used after the ampsim (if you are using plugins) use any expression pedal to control the volume of (a) plugin post distortion, pre delay/verb effects.

[Hink]

Its called a volume pedal Beck and Belew also use the volume pot on the guitar quite a bit.For various reasons best used after the ampsim (if you are using plugins) use any expression pedal to control the volume of (a) plugin post distortion, pre delay/verb effects.

I used a hole saw so I could move the volume control on a 72 tele custom up like a strat...that's my number one reason for liking strats...my pinky is often wrapped around the knob...I love volume swells, but after all these years I just got my first volume pedal...that came on my xt live...I also have replaced countless pots in my guitars as a result....


btw before you freak about the tele...before that I routed the bridge position in the guitar and cut one of those big brass tele bridges with the pick-up slot for a humbucker and put a seymour duncan invader in the bridge...I also (this might hurt some) then ditched the brass bridge and routed the body and installed a Kahler whammy bar...later I sanded the body with the contours like a strat....so it lost any real value....but when I started doing that it was the early 80's...I didn't think the guitar was gonna be worth much anyhow...it never even crossed my mind...

[IvoryTickler]

Sounds to me like some of Fripp's smooth glead guitar was done with sort of controlled feedback - a tiny pluck starting the sound build-up. No attack.

Yet again it was that muckle pedal board effects thing too.

[Sascha Franck]

Personally, I'm just doing it as has been suggested. Good old volume pedal after the preamp, before any modulations, delays and reverbs.
I sometimes use the volume pot as well, but this is getting tricky with more distorted sounds (as the pot almost behaves like an on/off switch on them).
Automated swellers usually don't do it for me while playing. Especially since I have to switch them off and back on a lot, should I want some attacked sounds inbetween as well.

[Sickle]

Sascha, your sig drives me up the frichen wall..

[Hink]

Personally, I'm just doing it as has been suggested. Good old volume pedal after the preamp, before any modulations, delays and reverbs.
I sometimes use the volume pot as well, but this is getting tricky with more distorted sounds (as the pot almost behaves like an on/off switch on them).
Automated swellers usually don't do it for me while playing. Especially since I have to switch them off and back on a lot, should I want some attacked sounds inbetween as well.

you use passive pick-ups right Sascha? Volume swells from the guitar passive really does leave one lacking a lot I agree...but then you're only decreasing the amplitude and losing much of the tone as you roll off the volume, so the volume pedal is much better for passive (I'm just so use to active).

Active pick-ups and volume swells on the guitar on the other hand can be quite good friends...so there's some other variables in there as well.

It's really kind of odd tbh, (me that is)..I like as much as I can on board the guitar (no fx of course), that way it's right there. But yet on stage I find my sweet spot and stay there.

This xt live is the first pedal board I have owned, I have to admit it's having a pleasant and profound impact on how I see things now...

[Muzik 4 Machines]

Its called a volume pedal Beck and Belew also use the volume pot on the guitar quite a bit.For various reasons best used after the ampsim (if you are using plugins) use any expression pedal to control the volume of (a) plugin post distortion, pre delay/verb effects.

I used a hole saw so I could move the volume control on a 72 tele custom up like a strat...that's my number one reason for liking strats...my pinky is often wrapped around the knob...I love volume swells, but after all these years I just got my first volume pedal...that came on my xt live...I also have replaced countless pots in my guitars as a result....


btw before you freak about the tele...before that I routed the bridge position in the guitar and cut one of those big brass tele bridges with the pick-up slot for a humbucker and put a seymour duncan invader in the bridge...I also (this might hurt some) then ditched the brass bridge and routed the body and installed a Kahler whammy bar...later I sanded the body with the contours like a strat....so it lost any real value....but when I started doing that it was the early 80's...I didn't think the guitar was gonna be worth much anyhow...it never even crossed my mind...

u_have_pics_of_the_tele
i_want_to_sand_mine_as_a_strat_too,like_the_jeff_beck's_esquire

[Hink]

Its called a volume pedal Beck and Belew also use the volume pot on the guitar quite a bit.For various reasons best used after the ampsim (if you are using plugins) use any expression pedal to control the volume of (a) plugin post distortion, pre delay/verb effects.

I used a hole saw so I could move the volume control on a 72 tele custom up like a strat...that's my number one reason for liking strats...my pinky is often wrapped around the knob...I love volume swells, but after all these years I just got my first volume pedal...that came on my xt live...I also have replaced countless pots in my guitars as a result....


btw before you freak about the tele...before that I routed the bridge position in the guitar and cut one of those big brass tele bridges with the pick-up slot for a humbucker and put a seymour duncan invader in the bridge...I also (this might hurt some) then ditched the brass bridge and routed the body and installed a Kahler whammy bar...later I sanded the body with the contours like a strat....so it lost any real value....but when I started doing that it was the early 80's...I didn't think the guitar was gonna be worth much anyhow...it never even crossed my mind...

u_have_pics_of_the_tele
i_want_to_sand_mine_as_a_strat_too,like_the_jeff_beck's_esquire

sadly it was stolen years ago...my buddy might have some pics though of our old band...I'll ask him...

[Sascha Franck]

Yes Hink, I'm using passive pickups. But my volume controls are optimized on all axes (condensors soldered in by yours truly).
Anyways, active or passive doesn't matter - it's all about the sheer fact that distortion does add quite a load of compression, so any volume pot won't work as accurate as on a clean sound anymore. Let alone the fact that when fading in via a volume pot, the distortion amount is affected, whereas when using a post-drive volume pedal it's allways full on (which I prefer).

Mind you, I'm using my volume pot a *lot*. For instance, I almost never use a clean sound at all but prefer turning down the volume pot on a crunchy sound to clean things up. The same goes for truly overdriven sounds that would become crunchy, etc.

And Sickle: Can't help it

[Lunch Money]

Hink, most volume pedals are just volume knobs in a different form. They are still passive, and due to the nature of "bleeding" the voltage in order to decrease amplitude, they also lose some of the tone.

The old "small-valued capacitor" trick works fairly well, though. I did it with my Tele-style guitar... I can't remember the specifics (easy enough to find) but you just put a .1 picofarad (or somesuch) capacitor to the wiper lug.

Greg

[Hink]

Mind you, I'm using my volume pot a *lot*. For instance, I almost never use a clean sound at all but prefer turning down the volume pot on a crunchy sound to clean things up. The same goes for truly overdriven sounds that would become crunchy, etc.

you've said that before...and I am the same way...but I am quite surprised you don't use active systems...because tbh the reason I do is because when you roll off the volume you lose too much high end on passive systems and the active systems stay more consistant and controllable...but that's just for me...part of your sound could be liking that effect on passive systems...then it makes perfect sense...that's what's so great about all this...there's something for everyone...

[Har]

I would think a volume pedal would be moot for this on a stick (I sold a stick and got to have a lot of fun with it)...the fact the strings are so slack on the stick, and the fact that the stick is a hammer-on instrument lends itself perfect for such sounds....

Not really a moot point, actually: if anything the Stick by nature tends to have a very percussive attack but can also sustain very nicely (and thickly) as well depending on what you're doing with it, which can lend a great tone for slow-attack swells and effects...Tony Levin does this all the time with Peter Gabriel and King Crimson (one example, on Gabriel's "San Jacinto").

I usually use my Morley volume pedal on my Stick (as well as guitar...passive pickups by the way, and sounds quite nice ) for these kinds of effects...I often do a lot of ambient/pad sounds that way. For me anyway, I prefer using a volume pedal that way over any kind of "automatic" processor as I like to have complete control of the attack/swell speed (control-freak that I am... ), and since I'm tapping with both hands on the Stick it's not very helpful to just grab the volume knob on the instrument as you might on a guitar.

That said, I believe Tony Levin instead used to use a Slow Gear pedal (or something similar) for the volume-swell effects he's done live on his Stick with King Crimson and Peter Gabriel, as often his feet would be nowhere near a volume pedal to do so that way. For example, I saw him on one of his solo tours where he was getting the slow-attack sound from his Stick, but he was sitting on the edge of the stage with his feet hanging over the edge (and whilst singing in Italian )...

I've recently been doing a lot of stuff with eBow on my guitar, which can give somewhat of a slow-attack bowed effect if desired...though I've been focusing more on using it for the endless sustaining and pseudo-feedback effects. However, when combined with the volume pedal together, you can get some great bowing effects.

Another trick I've used for some cool effects is using a heavy stainless steel pedal-steel slide bar to "bow" in a circular motion across the the strings while "blurring" the attack somewhat using the volume pedal...it's an old Dave Gilmore trick (you can see him do it on the "Live In Pompeii" movie) that can get a very nice, delicate "bowed" texture out of the guitar, especially with careful use of timed delay/echos and perhaps some compression to thicken things up a bit.

[Hink]

Har, unfortunately I didn't have enough time to really get use to the stick and I really just tried it here and there...I was just thinkng as a hammer on instrument...but you would know better than me...Chapman had to fax me the tuning.

Greg, I realise that volume pedals (well some like the boss) are just volume pots with a pinion gear and the pedal is attached to a rack...it's all mechanical and passive (another reason I never bought one). There are some with pre-amps and imo a wise axman would customize a passive volume pedal by adding an EMG PA2 turned down real low or building a pre-amp circut.

[Hink]

greg please take note that Sascha said he put the pedal after the pre-amp which makes a little bit of a difference...

[Sascha Franck]

I don't lose trebles on any of my guitars when turning the volume down, due to the capacitor trick Greg mentioned.
And I don't find active PUs to suit my taste of sound too well, for whatever reasons (only liked them EMGs in the Steinberger I once had... sold it in a moment of complete dumbness). I'm not a vintage dude at all, yet active PUs just don't seem to make it for me.