Guitar Sound Effects

Adrian Belew – Elephant Talk

Nov 12, 2009 Guitar Sound Experience
Posted by Fila

Adrian Belew is another guitar sound wizard that  is always exploring new sonic grounds and new guitar sound effects. Whether in other projects (David Bowie, Talking Heads, King Crimson,..) or projects of his own, he always uses an embarassing ammount of gear and is always keen to try new devices. Belew says that his inspiration for  new and unusual sounds doesnt primarly come from listening to music  but from things around him like insects, car horns, traffic and mainly nature (he admits that he has some kind of romanticised vision of Africa).

In a King Crimson song (a band he was a part of  from 1981 to present day) called Elephant Talk which is an opening tune for their 1981 masterpeace Discipline, he emulates a sound that reminds of herd of elephants running thrue the african steppe.

The sound of the most of the song is pretty simple. A fair amount of chorus thruought the most of the song and some pitch shifting during the verse part (I think that Fripps parts are pitch shifted but Im not sure about the Belews). I will post the exact settings for shifting when I figure it out correctly.

The chorus is probably the most interesting part of the song. It is the part where Belew emulates the sound of elephant and the part that makes this song so special (I remember some people freeze for a moment after hearing this part for the first time).

ELEPHANT TALK

Adrian Belew uses a fuzz and a flanger for that elephant tone, making sure that the flanger curves up and down in big vawes which gives a kind of elephant trumpet sound. Then he slides his finger up the guitar neck on a single string (the second string I think) and holds a note somewhere around the 15th fret.

The problem however is that you wont be able to get this sound this way easily. This is because Belew always uses additional gear like compressor, EQ (and God knows what else) and it is very hard to figure out all the settings. Without all that gear it is hard to get that big sound, and playing on a single string with just a fuzz and a flanger may sound very thin (closer to a bee than an elephant).

However, I found a way  for this part to sound right using only distorsion and a little chorus. The trick is in your left hand technique. Place your index finger on a  2nd fret of the 2nd string and your middle finger on a 3rd fret of the 3rd string.  Do not squeeze the strings very hard, rather touch them gently. Hit those two strings with your right hand and then start sliding up the neck. While sliding start gradually pressing the strings harder and harder with your left hand. Just before you get to the 12th fret on 2nd string change the position of your fingers so that the index finger (2nd string) is on the 12th fret and the middle finger is on 14th fret and continue sliding . When you get to the 19th fret on a 2nd string and 21st fret on a 3rd string (the E note), bend the E note on the 3 rd string for the whole note and hold that for a while and squeeze the strings very hard (you can strum it two or three times for a greater effect). This kind of bending the lower string while holding the note on a higher one is very common in blues and rock guitar playing but is used here in totally different context.

This may look a bit complicated and it might take some time to get it done properly, but after a while it should come to you naturally.

For this sound I plug my Strat straight into the Marshall Valvestate 8240 amp. I use the distorsion channel and some chorus. The settings are:

Gain – 11 o clock , Bass – 12 o clock, Middle – 2 o clock, Trebble – 10-11 o clock, Contour – 9 o clock, Volume – 1 o clock

Chorus: Depth – 2 o clock, Rate – 12 o clock

Reverb: 9 o clock

Most of distorsion boxes or overdrives with enough gain can be used for this sound if you play it my way. Transparent overdrives (eg. Marshall BB, Tubescreamer, Boss OD and SD) will not produce the desired effect due to the lack of gain. Try Marshall Govnor, RAT, Visual Sound Mr.Hyde or T-REX Bloddy Mary instead.

I am posting  just two parts of this song that we played in our garage (the elephant part). I do not want to post the whole song because of the poor quality of the recording due to the lousy recorder (we are not fortunate enough to rehearse in a studio) but you should get the picture.

HERD 1

HERD 2

So long

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Tags: Adrian Belew, Chorus, Distorsion, Elephant Talk, Flanger, King Crimson, Marshall