New P/T Tremelo Trick

[Oliver Straus/Mission]

Hey out there...

I just got these sessions from Aire Studio in london to work on. These guys protooled the life out of everything (but that's for a different post).So I put the faders up and this amazing stereo trem guitar just take my head off. Pretty cool how they did it

Here's what they did...
Left right guitars... pretty much the same sound, playing footballs
Outputs to buss 1 and 2
Stereo Aux input with inputs at buss 1 and 2 with a crappy p/t gate on the insert
Set the Key input to buss three and create an audio click track (sidestick) with its output to buss 3

So now you've got perfectly timed trem / on -off guitars

What's cool is that you can manipulate the speed by moving the clicks...ie make it slow down or speed up.

Take it a step further and left/right the movement... 2 aux tracks/2 clicks

Of course you could just record it that way in the first place.

Those wacky Brits

[BrianK]

That's the classic SMITHs guitar tremolo - listen to "How Soon is Now" and several other tracks. Useful trick.. hard to do live, but not impossible.

[Rodgre]

Yeah, the Smiths trick is pretty legendary (knowing that they supposedly reamped it through two or four Fender Twins or Supers (I'm fuzzy on that detail) and synched the trems, punched in for ten seconds, until they fell out of sync, and then resynched them...on and on...

Years ago, I started doing this trick in the studio AND live, by setting up a sequencer triggering a pattern, which in turn went into the trigger input of a noise gate (or two for stereo), with the drummer playing to a click.

With enough workable parameters, you can get a pretty round and authentic sounding trem if you set the attacks and decays just right, but it often sounds best when you keep it choppy. I ripped this idea off after seeing/hearing Chapterhouse and Cocteau Twins live in 1990. I Looked in Robin Guthrie's rack and noticed a box flashing in time to the song, and hearing the guitar doing a 16th note trem in time to the song...DING! I went back to the studio the next day and started on my way to triggered tremolo!

You can do this with a compressor too for "ducking" effects.

In Protools, though, I usually have the track set up with a tempo grid and I can draw in varying volume tied to the grid, to create tremolo effects.

The cool thing about doing it these ways (not using a standard tremolo) is that you can do morse-code-like patterns that aren't just 16th notes. You can program a measure of a straight whole note, then 8ths, then 16ths, then do triplets.....etc.... You can program the whole song to have all kinds of interesting rhythms.

Another way of tying in a triggered gate tremolo AFTER the fact, is putting a 16th note echo on the kick and snare to create a straight 16th note pattern out of a track not played to a click track. As long as the tempo is pretty consistent, you should be able to make it work.

Roger

[corinpills]

Wow. "How Soon Is Now" has always struck me as the epitome of a Vox AC30 trem sound, but now you've got me wondering. Does anyone know for sure? The foundations of my faith are being shaken.

[Roboburger]

let it be clear that you don't need ProTools for this- buy a crappy stereo drum machine off of ebay for 40 bucks and program whatever back and forth rhythm pleases you, and use this machine into the sidechain/ key inputs of a regular analoge gate unit. if ya search good enoughyou could prolly get both for under 150 total.

I used this method years ago on a metal/NIN sounding tune where I recorded distorted scrams of "NIIIGHTMAAAAREE!" on two tracks, panned them L/R, and then had them hard trem- really bad ass in the headphones. Too bad the band sucked ass.

the hold and release parameters are interesting too, because you can make slight overlaps.

my $0.02 Curt.

[Rodgre]

Hey Corin!

Yeah, I read in Guitar Player in 1990 (Johnny Marr on the cover) about how that track was made, and while it does sound AC30ish to me as well, there was no mention of Vox... it was either Twins or Super Reverbs. I'll have to dig up that issue, and I'm dumbfounded that you don't own that issue yourself, sir.

Roger

[psychicoctopus]

buy a crappy stereo drum machine off of ebay for 40 bucks and program whatever back and forth rhythm pleases you, and use this machine into the sidechain/ key inputs of a regular analoge gate unit. if ya search good enoughyou could prolly get both for under 150 total.

the Valley People Dyna-mite processor is cheap and does all kinds of ducking, gating, all those VCA effects.., with control voltage input & output. Of course it's not hi-fi, but its decent, right? I've been running synth sounds thru it and triggering it with a drum machine, for cool n freeky effects.

[Catoogie]

I'm not a big Smith's fan but that Guitar Player interview (1990) was GREAT!!! I am now a huge Johnny Marr fan!