Steve Hillage delay settings

Bodde

Bodde

Fractal Fanatic
Anyone have any idea what delay (and effect) settings Steve Hillage is using in the beginning of the song "Meditation of the Snake" from the Fish Rising album?
Think he used an Echoplex back in those days. I can hear a wah (or filter) and delay combined with some fast hammer-ons. But I can not hear how the delay is set exactly.

Playing along with those old Gong and Steve Hillage records again. Great stuff!



EDIT: toyed around with it a little more today. Think I got it. It's a long delay set to about 690-700ms (or 1/4 dot). Not sure how long the delay times of the original Echoplex were?
The long delay is combined with a wah with a lower frequency range at the heel position. Left hand playes fast open string hammer on sextuplets.

Here is the patch. Any improvements or suggestions?
 

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  • Hillage Snake Meditation .syx
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Pretty sure delay is not straight eights but 1/4 dot. Got it from this video (2:30). He is playing sort the same thing here. See my edited post for preset.
Like your idea of completely panning the echo with only one repeat.

 
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yes you are right. It's the Brian May thing but in a faster tempo (Brian May's delay setting was 900ms if I remember correctly) Here is my changed preset with the one repeat panned to the left. Might not be the exact sound (think he has more repeats) but sounds great this way.
 

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  • Hillage meditation snake pan .syx
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my preset is your first preset with my tweaks. not your second preset with your tweaks and my tweaks on top

:)
 
ok, thank a lot. Like it! What is the reason for the volume block after the reverb?
Love that old Hillage stuff :saturn:
 
Try it on headphones. Look at the balance parameters of the volume block and the delay block
 
ah, I see it. I thought the panning was only the delay itself.
This all inspired me for another very nice preset which I will post when I have a sound clip ready. It involves a wah and volume block in reverse in one expression pedal then going through two multi tap delays and then through the tape delay. Being able to do all this is the greatest thing about the Axe fx and also why I got this machine in the first place!
 
Just run into this Echoplex EP software emulation. Sounds really nice. Best Echoplex emulation I have heard. It is not cheap though 129$ and you have to buy an UAD-2 drive to run it.

 
wow! looks really good...and more versatile then the Echoplex emulation. Do you own it? Is it also working in Ableton Live? just bought a new Macbook for my guitar (looping) setup. Can use some nice plugins/Vst instruments. Anymore tips for the ambient delay loop stuff? I also like the Lexicon PSP plugin.
 
yes, i have it. it's awesome. it comes as an AU plugin, so works in Logic, Ableton etc on mac. the lexicon is also very nice. i can also recommend Expert Sleepers Augustus Loop, Meringue and Crossfade Loop Synth.
 
Thanks for the tips! Yes, tried the demo of Augustus Loop. Very nice indeed for the long delay looping stuff. Think this will become my main looper/delay. Somehow I prefer this over the more complicated Mobius. Mobius of course is more versatile. Think I just prefer the Frippian delay type of looping style instead instead of the punch-in and out looping style. But I need to explore Mobius more. Working with two different looping software might be too overwhelming and confusing for me.
 
yes, start simple and build up as you understand your needs better. augustus is really great, especially if you run several instances in parallel with different delay times. assign some buttons on your controller for half speed and reverse as well, for extra fun.

meringue is a delay that runs forwards and then backwards, which is nice, but crossfade loop synth is even better....with three tape heads, the ability to pitch the playback of those heads and make them play in various directions. run one in parallel with an instance of augustus loop and you can get some pretty nice textures. that's exactly what i did for my "live at tuesday's post" recording. i didn't want to take a footswitch with me , so i took my little akai nanokontrol and just assigned the faders to input and feedback. really easy to set up and control.
 
oh and here's a top tip for ableton. if you want to easily control when you send audio into a looper or delay, use the little "utility" plugin in front of it. you can assign the "mute" button in that plugin to a toggle on your control surface and allow audio to pass into the looper and then mute the utility plugin to prevent it

i've been messing around with my stuff today. it's been a while, so i'm familiarising, tweaking and making a few changes...

ableton_loop.png


loop_plugins.png
 
wow thanks!!! That is really great stuff. Have to digest all this information. Will check out crossfade synth as well. So much things to do! Problem with all this is that you have to use it regularly otherwise you forget how you have set it all up and you have to start over again.
 
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