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U2 is undoubtedly one of the most popular rock and roll bands of recent times and has many hit songs that are played often on the radio. If you listen closely to the guitar player who calls himself The Edge, you will hear something strange going on – a sort of echo in the sound coming out of his guitar. What is that?

Digital Delay

Your ears are not deceiving you. The guitar really does have an echo. The echo is produced by a guitar effect called a “Digital Delay”. (A guitar effect is simply any device that modifies the sound of an electric guitar). The echo occurs because the digital delay internally records the last couple of seconds of what has just been played, and waits (or delays) a short amount of time before playing back the couple of seconds it has just recorded. For example, you play tra-la-la on a guitar hooked up to a digital delay. What you will hear coming out of the amplifier is tra-la-la, tra-la-la, tra-la-la.

Two Main Settings

There are two main settings that you can control on a digital delay. The first setting determines how fast the echo occurs. This is called the delay time. The more delay time there is, the more time there is in between each echo. Delay time is usually specified in increments of milliseconds. There are 1000 milliseconds in 1 second. This means that if you set the delay time to 1000 milliseconds, you would hear a repeating echo in the guitar sound every second.

The second setting determines how many times the echo will repeat itself. This number can be anywhere between 1 and infinity. A setting of two would cause two echoes to occur after the guitar is played just like in the example earlier. Suppose you play tra-la-la on a guitar hooked up to a digital delay with a repeat setting of two. What you will hear coming out of the amplifier is tra-la-la, tra-la-la, tra-la-la. This is the original sound tra-la-la followed by two echoes of tra-la-la, tra-la-la. If the number of echoes is set to infinity, the echoes will continue to repeat over and over until the digital delay is turned off.

Rack or Pedal

Digital delay effect units come in many shapes and sizes. You can purchase a rack mounted unit with lots of controls or you can go with the more traditional guitar pedal digital delay. Most guitar players like to use pedals because they have more control over the effect when playing live. You step on the pedal once to turn the delay on and you step on it again to turn the delay off. That way you can change the guitar from a “clean” uneffected sound to a delay sound during a single song.

Why Use Digital Delay?

Why would you want to use a digital delay on electric guitars? For starters, having a slight echo on the guitar makes it sound much fuller. It almost sounds as if multiple guitars are playing instead of just one. For solos and guitar parts with lots of notes, digital delay can make the part sound much more complex. The delayed notes mix together with the undelayed notes to form rich complex passages that cannot be achieved with a clean uneffected guitar.

Popular U2 Songs With Delay Times

Here are some of the most popular U2 songs and some approximate digital delay times in milliseconds:

Electric Co (275ms)
A Sort of Homecoming (375ms)
Bad (467ms)
Where the Streets Have No Name (350ms)
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For (450ms)
With or Without You (410ms)

Digital delay is a guitar effect that is used in all kinds of music styles.  Do you know what a digital delay sounds like?  Can you tell a delayed guitar from a non delayed guitar?  Here are a couple of audio examples that will help you become familiar with what digital delay on a guitar sounds like.

First, let’s listen to a “clean” guitar sound.  A clean guitar sound is simply a guitar’s natural sound before adding any special sound effects.  Here is an example:

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Now, let’s listen to the same guitar part, but we will add some digital delay.  There are many guitar digital delay pedals available at your local guitar shop.  I am using my trusty Boss DD-3 Digital Delay which I have been using for many years noe.  Note the knob controls for effect level, feedback, and delay time.  By changing these settings, you can get different digital delay sounds from the same pedal.

Here is the same guitar part I played earlier, only this time I am playing through the DD-3.  Take a listen:

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Do you hear the echoes?  The higher the feedback setting, the more echoes there will be.

Adding digital delay to guitar chords is interesting and can really fill out a song, but things get really interesting when you start adding digital delay to individual notes.  Here is an example of a moving passage of notes with digital delay added.  Listen to the complexity.

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That sounds pretty interesting doesn’t it?  Let’s listen to another one.

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Here is a slower one.  There are so many different types of sounds you can get out of a digital delay pedal.

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After listening to these examples, you should have a good idea of what digital delay sounds like.  Next time you are listening to music on the radio or your favorite mp3 player, listen closely to the guitars.  Are they clean, using a slight delay, or bouncing around like a bunch of musical ping pong balls?

Written by Robby Brewer Copyright © 2010
www.MyGuitarUniversity.com

On September 22, 2010 in Austin Texas, the Pixies performed the entire album Doolittle in order from top to bottom at the Austin Music Hall.  The Austin show was part of the Pixies Doolittle Tour 2010 which commemorates the 20th anniversary of the album.

The Pixies were one of my favorite bands during the early 90′s.  I never got to see them during their first incarnation before breaking up in 1993, but did manage to catch them at Austin ACL festival in 2004.  Although that show was exciting since no one had seen them tour in a very long time, the Doolittle show was awesome.

The show started out with a bizzarre movie playing behind the band that turned out to be “Un Chien Andalou”, a 1929 surreal film by Luis Banuel and Salvador Dali.  Once the movie started (and after a few B-side warmups), the Pixies began with the first song off of the Doolittle album “Debaser”. “Debaser” is a pretty heavy jam with loud guitars and screaming vocals from Black Francis.  The crowd really got into this song and joined Francis with shouts of “I am un chien Andalusia!”.

The set continued with “Tame”, “Wave of Mutilation”, and then “I Bleed” which had some cool video effects.  With references to vampires feeding there was gratuitous video blood running down the screen as large red balls moved up and down over the stage.  Creepy!

“Monkey Gone to Heaven” really got the crowd going.  This is a favorite of all Pixies fans.  Everyone joined in the chants towards the end of the song “If man is 5 then the devil is 6.  And if the devil is 6 then God is 7.  This monkey’s going to heaven.”

The video for “Hey” was also pretty interesting.  Throughout the song, the words were scolling across the screen in giant letters.  This allowed even those who were not familiar with the lyrics to sing along.  “We’re chained…”

All in all this was a fantastic show and even better than I had anticipated.  Joey Santiago’s guitars were spot on.  Kim’s bass and backing vocals were perfect.  Lovering kept perfect timing.  And Black Francis’ vocals were as haunting and energetic as I remember from 20 years ago.

Doolittle – Pixies
April 1989

1) “Debaser” – 2:52
2) “Tame” – 1:55
3) “Wave of Mutilation” – 2:04
4) “I Bleed” – 2:34
5) “Here Comes Your Man” – 3:21
6) “Dead” – 2:21
7) “Monkey Gone to Heaven” – 2:56
“Mr. Grieves” – 2:05
9) “Crackity Jones” – 1:24
10) “La La Love You” – 2:43
11) “No. 13 Baby” – 3:51
12) “There Goes My Gun” – 1:49
13) “Hey” – 3:31
14) “Silver” (Francis, Kim Deal) – 2:25
15) “Gouge Away” – 2:45

It starts with a melodic clean guitar with a catchy feel and ends with power thumps and a screaming guitar solo that gets your foot tapping whether you want it to or not.  I am talking about Led Zepplin’s Stairway to Heaven, one of the most famous songs ever recorded.

You probably know what a “clean” electric guitar sounds like.  That is the sound that an electric guitar makes when plugged straight into an amplifier without using any guitar or amplifier effects. (An effect is simply anything that modifies the guitar’s sound). This could be considered the “normal” electric guitar sound.  An acoustic guitar that you play without an amp also has a clean sound.

So what makes a clean guitar sound like a freight train, or a buzz saw, or a screaming banshee?  That would be guitar distortion.  When you do something to a clean guitar to make it sound “dirty”, we call that distortion.

Distortion can be accomplished in two different ways:

1) Most guitar amplifiers have a distortion channel (sometimes called overdrive) that will give it that dirty sound.  You can adjust the amount of distortion to produce the specific sound you are trying to achieve.

2) Another way to achieve distortion is through the use of a standalone distortion pedal.  A distortion pedal is a little box with a button on it that you press to give a guitar that dirty distorted sound.  There are knobs to adjust the amount of distortion just like on an amplifier with a distortion channel.

Why would you want to use distortion on electric guitars?  Because it sounds awesome!  There is something about distortion on electric guitars that has to be heard to be really understood.  Sure the sound is “distorted” from what a normal clean guitar would sound like, but this does not mean that the sound is bad or undesirable.  It just means that it sounds like something completely different from a clean guitar sound.

Guitar distortion is common in much of todays popular music no matter what kind of music you listen to.  From rock and roll to grunge to jazz to country/western, odds are you like or have heard a song with distortion on the guitar.  Here are a few of my favorites:

“The Trooper” by Iron Maiden 1983
“The Spirit of Radio” by Rush 1980
“Eruption” by Van Halen 1978
“Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix 1967
“Foreplay/Longtime” by Boston 1977

One of the defining sounds in Rock and Roll music is guitar distortion.  Do you know what guitar distortion sounds like?  Can you tell a distorted guitar from a non distorted guitar?  Here are a couple of audio examples that will help you become familiar with what a distorted guitar sounds like.

First, let’s listen to a “clean” guitar sound.  A clean guitar sound is simply a guitar’s natural sound before adding any special sound effects.  Here is an example: 

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Now, let’s listen to the same guitar part, but we will add some distortion.  There are many guitar distortion pedals available at your local guitar shop.  I am using the Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer which is still very popular even though it has been around for a while.  Note the knob controls for Drive, Tone, and Level.  By changing these settings, you can get different distortion sounds from the same pedal.  

Here is the same guitar part I played earlier, only this time I am playing through the Tube Screamer.  Take a listen:

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Distortion is used a lot in guitar licks like this:

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Let’s add a bit more distortion.  Here are the new settings on the TS. 

This sounds a bit more fuzzy doesn’t it?

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Here is another guitar lick using these settings:

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Let’s crank it up even more.  I increased the tone to be higher so that it cuts a bit more. 

It should be pretty grungy.  Take a listen:

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After listening to these examples, you should have a good idea of what guitar distortion sounds like.  Next time you are listening to music on the radio or your favorite mp3 player, listen closely to the guitars.  Are they clean, slightly distorted, or full on distorted like some sort of crazy buzzsaw? 

Written by Robby Brewer Copyright © 2010
www.MyGuitarUniversity.com

If you have ever visited a guitar shop or looked online at purchasing guitar strings, you may have found that there are tons of choices.  Which ones should you buy?

As with most things guitar, it ultimately comes down to personal choice.  There are a couple of things to keep in mind though when buying guitar strings.

First off, there are different types of strings for different guitars.  There are three main types of guitars – acoustic, electric, and classical.  Each type of guitar has physically different strings that may not work well or at all on other types of guitars. 

Acoustic guitars like you may see your favorite Country and Western band playing are typically bronze wound steel.  The sound quality of an acoustic guitar is a function of the strings and the guitar body itself unlike an electric guitar which also relies on an amplifier to produce sound.

Rock and roll is defined by screaming electric guitars.  Electric guitar strings are usually nickel plated steel.  These strings vibrate in the magnetic field caused by the pickups and produce a tone that is output to an amplifier.  In addition to the strings and guitar body, an electric guitar also relies on the amplifier to produce some of the musical tone that is heard.

The final type of guitar string that you will find in a guitar shop is the classical string.  These are made of nylon with the top three strings being silver plated copper wound.  In the old days they were made of “catgut” which was commonly sheeps intestine, not actual cat.

Since there are different types of strings for different guitars, you must make sure to buy the proper strings for your guitar.  Classic and acoustic strings wont activate the pickups magnetic field on an electric guitar and thus will not make a sound.  Acoustic and electric strings may put a classical guitar under too much stress and break the neck.  Classic strings on an acoustic do not have enough tension and may cause the neck to bow.

The next thing you want to look at when purchasing guitar strings is the gauge.  Each type of guitar string (classical, electric, acoustic) comes in different gauges such as light, medium light, medium, and heavy.  The higher the string gauge, the thicker the strings are.  Lighter string gauges (thinner strings) may be easier to play since they are under less tension than heavier gauge strings, but heavier gauge strings may sound fuller than the thinner light gauge strings. You should try a few diferent gauges until you find the one that works best for you.

Once you have decided which type of string works best for you, you should stick with those particular strings.  Changing back and forth between different gauges of string can cause tuning problems since the guitar is set up to be under a certain tension.  If you change the gauge of strings from what the guitar was originally set up to use, you may need to take it to a guitar shop to have the neck adjusted for the new tension.

It was going to be a long, hot summer so I looked through my college catalogue for a nice “cool” class.  Music theory seemed to be the only choice I had.  At the time I had no idea that class would lead me straight into an overwhelming interest in learning to play a guitar. 

My music class started off easy enough, but soon we were required to learn every chord with all the sharps and flats AND we had to say it at “speed of light” when the professor called on us.  He had a stopwatch to make sure we were fast enough.  The “Commander of the Stopwatch” kept yelling, “Faster, faster!”  My blood pressure went up.  Read the rest of this entry »

The guitar based video game series Guitar Hero is very popular these days with guitar playing wannabees of all ages (I think I saw a video of a cat) strapping on plastic guitars and jamming away to their favorite songs.  These games are surely a lot of fun, but can they really help you learn to play a “real” guitar?  The answer is a resounding definite maybe yes.

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When I went to grade school there were five different grades you could get on your report card.  These were represented by the letters A-D and of course F.  An A was the best grade you could get and obviously F was the worst grade you could get.

Interestingly, there are also standard guitar chords with the same names, A-D and F.  Do these chords also represent a progression from best to worst?  I decided to do some investigation into this intriguing hypothesis.

Since A was the best grade you could get in school, was A the best chord you could play on the guitar?  Let’s take a listen. 

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If you are just starting out playing guitar and have the need to purchase a guitar pick, you may have found that there are almost endless possibilities of these little plastic items for sale at your local guitar shop.  What the heck are these things, what is the difference, and which kind should you buy?

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