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Re: Advice sought - unbroken, seamless loops



Hi there,

I am gonna step out on a limb here, first because I have the concert DVD
of the show that you are referencing and secondly because I've been
backstage at a Pink Floyd show and and think I know a little about how
Gilmour does things -- and at least have a tiny clue as to how it 
might've
been done. Take this with a grain of salt though, it's only an educated 
guess.

Though David Gilmour does do a tiny little bit of looping from time to 
time,
if you are referring to the opening song on the Meltdown DVD where he
is strumming his Taylor acoustic, then moves a pedal forward and back to
get this "synth" sounding chordal swell that just simply develops and 
hangs
there decaying very, very, VERY slowly over several seconds it's 
actually
not a "looping" trick, per se. It's done with a AUX signal line that 
goes to
a processor developing  harmonized reverb with a just sort of near 
infinite
decay setting.

This way he plays a few licks on his guitar, lets a chord or note hang 
there a
brief second, while he moves the treadle forward sending some signal to 
the
processor in question (which is set for 100% wet). This creates this 
little
chordal "cloud" of reverb that just hangs there for 30  to 40 seconds. 
He
then moves the treadle back while it's still hanging there and continues
playing a few licks of straight guitar over it while the "chord" hangs 
there.

Harmonized reverb is one of my favorite ways of making pad-like faux
synth sounds. It's possible that I could be wrong about what Gilmour is 
doing.
But I'm pretty sure I'm not. If you watch what he's doing, and listen 
carefully
to the sound that he's creating with just an acoustic I believe it's 
pretty
evident.

Ted Killian
.
On Apr 17, 2006, at 4:33 PM, William White wrote:

> 'm a guitarist, and have been trying to recreate a looping/delay 
> effect I saw David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) employ at his Meltdown 
> performance in 2001.
>
> In essence, I'm trying to find a device that will loop a chord 
> seamlessly - i.e. will eliminate the "click" sound one normally hears 
> when one uses most digital delay pedals such as the Boss DD-3 to loop 
> a chord. The purpose of this is to create a synthesizer-like effect 
> using a guitar with one simple chordstroke. Gilmour uses a Roland 
> SDE-3000 for this purpose, although it's not clear to me whether he 
> actually loops the chord or uses some delay effect, and the it is hard 
> to find reliable information on the Roland.
>
> My guess is that the sort of device I have in mind would have to fade 
> in the beginning of the loop during the final seconds (or 
> milliseconds) of the loop (and possibly fade the loop out at the same 
> time). I have not yet managed to find a pedal which actually claims to 
> be able to do this, and would be very grateful for any advice.
>
> Thanks in advance!