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That shoegaze sound...
Any shoegaze fans out there? I have done some research and understand that the Soft Focus patch on the old Yamaha FX500 was the patch of choice by the prototypical shoegaze bands. I saw that Catalinbread has a pedal that approximates this vintage fx unit/patch but I don't use pedals anymore. I've been working on iOS apps to see if I can get close to that Soft Focus patch. FAC Alteza gets me pretty darn close (and sounds good, to boot). Anyone else had any luck replicating that classic shoegaze sound?
Comments
Not sure what sound you mean. When I think of shoegaze I think of a lot of different sounds, even different from album to album for bands.
Can you post an example?
When I was in a shoe gaze band in the very early 90s I mainly played a strat copy through a diy distortion pedal into an Alesis MIDIverb II and then into a Hiwatt DR103. Sometimes with a flanger.
So I reckon you could use anything that sounds good!
I am sure @richardyot has a plenty of advice for you !
I posted a cover of Tim Buckley's Song To The Siren that had a shoegaze vibe. Here is a link to the thread where you can listen to the track. There is also the breakdown of the app used.
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/52128/song-to-the-siren-a-tim-buckley-dreamy-cover-shoegaze
I love shoegaze but I’m clueless as how to get the sounds!
I bought the Catalinebread pedal just for that Slowdive sound. I HAVE looked up plugin/app alternatives to that - none did the trick.
The only solution in the iOS department would be to combine some apps together, such as a Plate reverb, a Shimmer reverb (I guess would have to be very subtle, which is a thing I love about the pedal/the sound in general as I'm not a fan of Shimmer reverbs) and a Chorus.
There were a lot of differences in the actual sounds of the various bands lumped into the shoegaze. To my ear, shoegaze was less a particular sound than a vibe (we like Cocteau Twins, The Cure’s Faith, reverb and delay).
Lush, Curve, My Bloody Valentine, Ride all have pretty different sonic vocabularies, imo — with My Bloody Valentine switching things up quite a bit.
Encyclopedia --> Shoegaze --> Photograph --> @richardyot
Chatbot sez: Shoegaze is a genre of British alternative rock music that emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It is characterized by heavily distorted guitars, ethereal vocals, and layers of effects such as reverb and delay. The name "shoegaze" originated from the tendency of the musicians to stare at their feet or effects pedals while performing, creating a dreamy and introspective sound. Some notable shoegaze bands include My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, and Ride.
I know what shoegaze is, I just don’t know what the specific sound is that the OP is referring to.
Yes, I should have been more specific. I am thinking of MBV, Slowdive, Lush, and Ride to name the first four that come to mind. I love the MBV "quaver" and the Slowdive "symphonic gauze" sounds especially.
I don’t think the bands in that list have that much of a common sound though (except in broad terms), and even between albums the production values change.
Do you have a specific track you can post? I think it would be a lot easier for someone to suggest apps if they can hear the same sound that you have in mind.
I see your point--and I was doing a large bit of hand-waving, especially for shoegaze experts--but I actually am actually not trying to get as detailed as a specific track. I'm actually interested in the replication of a patch on the FX unit I mentioned in the first post. It uses modulation, pitch shifting, plate reverb and delay in a very specific combination. This should be doable in an iOS--in fact, the aforementioned FAC Alteza has the necessary components (there are others, of course) but I'm interested in the order of effects and relative proportions.
The MBV sound on Loveless was mostly derived from a reverse reverb sound on the Alesis MidiVerb 2.
You can sort of simulate it using Eventide Blackhole with the gravity set all the way to the left.
I’m away on holiday at the moment but I do have a YT video demo, I’ll see if I can dig it out.
chorus pedal, reverb pedal and you are good to go.
YES - shoegaze fans in here - I‘m still blessed/covered (don't know the best word for that - no native speaker) from that RIDE-Concert last November.
Good hints from @richardyot and @Danny_Mammy - more is more - than reduce….
Sorry, that was mostly for my own edification. Actually, being totally out of it in regard to the genre, I always sort of vaguely thought it referred to the audience, mostly young guys, standing and looking at their feet while listening.
Is shoegaze making some kind of comeback? I seem to be seeing that word often these days. And recently I was attending a local iPad music making meet up & one kid there, who was probably 17-18, said he was really into shoegaze - which kind of surprised me.
iPad music making meet up?? Where ?
I guess you might know this but in case you don’t, the FX500 Soft Focus patch, is a digital plate reverb into a multi-tap delay into a “symphonic” stereo chorus.
This TikTok shows a pretty good facsimile.
https://www.tiktok.com/@guitarpedal/video/7205677948899216682
I can’t find it again, but I saw notes from someone with an FX500 who isolated each of the effects. They said the reverb sounds like a short plate with a squashed tail. They said there seems to be a pre-delay before the multi tap delay so that there is some safe as the reverb dies out and the delay kicks in. The symphonic chorus is set up to be fat and warbly.
I’m in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. There’s a small collective of electronic music makers/DJs here who put on events like live shows or sometimes seminars on music related things. The “tablet based music” seminar they held last month had 6 people in attendance... but it was cool, the host had a Linnstrument and has recently switched from an Ableton/Macbook based performance rig to an iPad and Loopy Pro. So he was just showing how he used his Linnstrument and other controllers to control Loopy & various apps.
I was about to comment and say we need a Midiverb clone on iOS for this. I think a couple different shoegaze groups used that. Blackhole would be the best place to start probably. When I want to get a shoegaze type sound, that’s usually the first one I go to. ADverb2, Alteza, Bleass Reverb, and the Nembrini shimmer one can get in the ballpark too. Throw BYOD in there and you you’re off to the races. Or I am anyway lol
VACUUM CLEANER 2002 soundfont
for that maximum MBV
https://musical-artifacts.com/artifacts/2567
I kid! I kid!
Thank you, this is what I was hoping for. I had assumed the symphonic chorus was chorus plus pitch shifter?
It sounds like a very wee bit of pitch modulation to detune the choruses not shimmer-style pitch shifting.. I may have to dig out my SPX900 and check it out.
@lukesleepwalker : according to this post
https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/spx90-symphonic-setting.161813/page-2#post-2005027
The symphonic effect is more of stereo flanger than chorus.
I’ve never heard of that unit or patch before but now I’m curious. Who uses that? Googling tells me Slowdive. Anyone else? Got any pointers to songs where I can hear it?
Last year I made a thread exploring custom FX chains:
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/48873/ambient-and-post-rock-guitar-effects-chains/
And this post specifically on the MBV sound:
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/comment/1043780/#Comment_1043780
Also for background reading on Kevin Shields and how he achieved his sound:
https://tapeop.com/interviews/btg/26/my-bloody-valentine-2/
https://tapeop.com/tutorials/26/my-bloody-valentine-1/
Whoa, that is wild. Thanks for this!
Awesome, thank you!