A beautiful type of guitar sound, often called violin guitar sound, produced with combining long sustains and fast picking is found in bag of tricks of many famous guitar players. Truly, it is very effective, keeps the listeners attention and allows individual technical abilities and style of a player to show. This sound is not easy to produce and it belongs to those little secrets of each player. Moreover, it sounds different for each guitar player. Jimi Hendrix, John McLaughlin, Robben Ford, Robert Fripp, Eric Johnson, Dave Navarro, Buckethead to name just a few, all used different techniques and different gear to produce a guitar sound reminiscent of a violin, and all of them sound different. In this post I will try to analyse distinctive ways few great guitar players used to achieve that sound. If you are after this kind of sound you will most probably need to find your own way and tryin to achieve the exact sound of your guitar idol will probably be frustrating or even impossible, but I will try to provide some basic guidance. So, lets start.
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JIMI HENDRIX
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The pioneer of electric blues, guitar sound effects, experiments, wild technique and pretty much everything a modern rock guitar is, used this effect extensively. Jimi used two basic ways to get this kind of effect. The first is reverse tape as used on Castles Made of Sand solo. Basically what Jimi did is he recorded a regular guitar solo and reversed the tape (played it backwards) and mixed that awkward sound with the rest of the song. At that time it was a groundbreaking studio technique, never used before but often used after (check out Jon Lord organ solo on Deep Purple song Noone Came from Fireball album) and was impossible to use live or outside the studio. Today many delay stompboxes or rack effects have this feature built in so you have an instant reverse playback and can even mix the amount of reversed signal with the original signal. This allows you to create many different interesting sounds and truly express youself and let your imagination take off. If you hook reverse delay with some distorsion you can get pretty close to Castles Made of Sand sound.
The second method is way less neighbour friendly. It requires very loud amp and a fuzzbox or distorsion which will create a lot of feedback. Controling the feedback with your left hand is something you have to work on if you want to avoid the mess. But once you figure it out a sheer sonic energy will start coming out of your speakers. A fuzz can help you to get long sustained notes but the amount of fuzz must be dialed carefully not to overburden the overall sound but to keep some transparency while sustaining the tone. This is where the violin guitar sound comes from. Jimi used this method live a lot and it can be found on many if his live recordings. Just check out the ending few minutes of Machine Gun live or the solo on the following recording.
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JOHN McLAUGHLIN
In his early days, John McLaughlin did not rely on sound effects but rather on his wild jazz-rock technique to create his significant sound that had much to do with the violin guitar sound. His early 70s band Mahavishnu Orchestra established virtuosic and complexed fusion of electric jazz, rock and Indian influenced music. In those days McLaughlin didnt use much sound effects except for wah, some phaser and occasional minimoog module. His raw yet tasteful sound that was proclaimed by Guitar Player magazine as “50 Greatest Tones of All Time” came from a 100 watt Marshall amp driven very hard (Mahavishnu were a very loud band) combined with his superb playing technique. Dont try that at home, but if you are lucky enough to play in a venue where you can turn a 100 watt Marshall to the max, give it a try. The most interesting thing about Mahavishnu is that they actually had a violin player (Jerry Goodman and later Jan-Luc Ponty) and John often interchanged his solo lines with the violin player or theye were played in unison. At some point it is hard to tell wheteher it is a violin or a guitar you are hearing. Listen the following tunes to see how similarly can a violin and a guitar sound.
Celestial Terrestrial Commuters
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ROBERT FRIPP
It is an unfavorable task to make a list of all the equipment and gizmos that mr. Fripp uses or used. I can only guess that for this type of sound he uses a fuzz, compressor (which helps to sustain the notes) and a harmoniser (set an octave or two up to produce very high notes that a guitar is phisically incapable of producing). If you have a harmoniser or a Digitech Whammy you can play with intervals (you can set a 3rd, 4th, 5th, an octave etc. to be reproduced along with the original note) and get many interesting Fripp-like sounds. Regardless of what Robert Fripp uses you can get your violin-like sound with aforementioned gear. Here is one King Crimson live recording from 1984. I was completely blown away the first time I heared it and it is hard to belive he doesnt have a violin player stashed behind his rack.
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ERIC JOHNSON
Eric Johnson is another great guitar player famous for his refined signature sound and technical abilities. He uses violin kind of guitar sound a lot and it is (besides his playing style) produced by Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face, Maestro Echoplex tape echo and/or Electro-harmonix Memory Man delay and occasional MXR dyna comp compressor running thrue a pair of Fender Twin reverb or Deluxe reverb amps for clean sounds (and with a fuzz on for dirty as well) and a Chandler Tube Driver thru a 1968 Marshall 50 watt for some dirty sound. His dirty sound is at times a bit dark and a little muddy but he makes it sound very musical. The number of pedals he uses is small compared to many guitarists but it is his unique technique that produces all those great sounds.
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I would like to summarize everything from this post with few tips for those who are after a violin guitar sound but can not seem to find the way to get it. How to get this sound is not something someone can teach you. You have to find it on your own. However, here are few tips and tricks:
1. Regardless of what equipment you use, this sound (as most of them do) come from your playing technique. Try fast interchange between long sustained notes and short fast notes. A few short and fast ones should follow a long sustained one and should fill in between two long notes. Also, alter soft and hard pressure of your left hand fingers. This is very important. You may adjust your right hand picking attack as well. This is not heavy metal shred type of playing but is essential in fusion jazz rock style. It may not be easy but it is very rewarding.
2. If you usa a fuzz find the amount of drive that is not overwhelming but produces semi-clean “singing” sustain.
3. Use some delay to cleanse the distorted sound and help sustain the notes. A nice touch of delay can really help for this type of sound. Do not use too much delay time, 350 milliseconds is a good place to start .
4. Octaver or a harmonizer can expand your sonic palette even further. Some really high notes commonly produced by violin are impossible to produce on a guitar without a harmonizer.
5. A compressor unit can also help if dialed in correctly.
6. Use a volume knob while playing a lead melody line or a solo. This is a very simple yet effective trick. Turning the volume knob rather fast from min to max while playing can bring violin sound to you without any additional gear. A volume pedal can be used instead a volume knob.
7. Play as loud as you can
8. Have fun
So long.
Review by
how to play guitar, January 21, 2012
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