Originally Posted by The Omega Concern (Post 4251589)

My buddy Paul kinda messing around. He played in Act IV once with Analogue. I needed a soundcheck one day for this Q2HD handy-video recorder from Zcom. Very nice little recorder with an amazing mic. For open air recordings, nothing beats it for the price.

Originally Posted by The Omega Concern (Post 4251585)

ewwww...Peavey?

Originally Posted by crabshack (Post 4251601)

Dogging Peavey is such an outdated tactic from the era of 'not fender or marshall' line of thinking.

Originally Posted by The Omega Concern (Post 4251613)

It depends on what you're going for, but the proof is in the pudding. When they tried to expand their market share with a classic series a couple years back, they immediately dropped in price 30% within months. Nobody was going to buy a Peavey for 2 grand when you could get any number of much better amps for that price.

Originally Posted by Disco King (Post 4251594)

Well it depends on the solo and what scale you wanna use, I suppose. A large chunk of rock and pop solos are built off the minor pentatonic scale, so a lot of people just kinda learn those patterns. If you want to build solos off of other scales, I suppose you'd learn those ones.

It's hard for me to memorize scale shapes, and sometimes I'll have them all down only to forget them again after a while of not playing. I mostly just play in modes of the pentatonic and major scales, but I've been planning on branching out to modes of the harmonic minor (similar to the natural minor, but with a sharpened 7th... the parallel major would have a sharpened fifth in comparison to the regular major scale), and then some cool exotic scales. I like the sound of when I screw around in exotic scales, but I haven't committed any of them to memory because I don't want to confuse myself while I'm still trying to memorize the basics.

Originally Posted by Disco King (Post 4251594)

That's awful. I've never tried any of their pedals because I always stick to cheap stuff but a lot of them look good.

Originally Posted by Disco King (Post 4251515)

I know nothing when it comes to guitar quality and sound. I just buy cheap used shit from Craigslist and as long as it isn't a suspicious $40 "First Act" or "Crescent" guitar, I'll take it.

Originally Posted by he/she/it (Post 4254004)

The reliable tone-building components in Billy's setups are EQ, compression, and boost / overdrive into an amp's own clean or high-gain sound.



I think that Billy's basic MCIS sound is this:

For cleans:

EQ -> maybe added clean boost pedal -> mild compression and additional boost from 3630 compressor -> clean channel JMP-1 -> (effects loop) sometimes with a quiet delay effect -> Strategy 500.

Billy's clean tones throughout SP don't come without using an EQ to finely raise or lower particular aspects of the whole sound. Amp EQ settings are usually pretty blunt, and I would use an amp's EQ to get generally as close to a decent sound as they can, and then really carve a good tone out using an EQ pedal or rack unit, starting with the high frequencies, and working towards the low end, moving each next slider to its max and min range, to hear what aspect that slider is contributing to the sound, and then finding its optimal placement.

There also could be an additional clean boost pedal after the EQ and before the Alesis 3630.



For distortion:

EQ -> MXR Distortion II -> mild compression and boost from Alesis 3630 compressor -> JMP-1 -> Strategy 500

The compression could also come before the DII, not sure.

I'm guessing on the MXR Distortion II, but that pedal has a distinct sound to it, and that's what it sounds to me is being used on MCIS, being run into high-gain from the JMP-1's distortion channels - and billy did use one on Siamese Dream for at least leads. I think the MXR Distortion II might almost be to MCIS what the Big Muff is to Siamese Dream.



Bullet With Butterfly Wings:
https://youtu.be/8-r-V0uK4u0
The intro riff sounds distinctly like an MXR Distortion II to me, for a guess I'd say possibly going EQ -> MXR Distortion II -> Alesis 3630 -> clean 2 channel of the JMP-1



MCIS demo Millieu:
https://youtu.be/Kyk8c0ybHgc

This sound is 2nd pickup selector placement on a Blue/Silver/Red Lace Sensor strat, going into EQ, into Alesis 3630 for boost and mild compression, into the second of the clean channels on the JMP-1. Having an EQ in the effects chain is essential to get this sound, rather than something that is murky, muffled, and dull by comparison.


Mild compression is important for Billy's plucky clean guitar sounds. Having no compression at all is often just unpleasant, making the apex of guitar notes thin, and makes string bends sort of whiny-sounding during high-gain leads. Though adding too much compression flattens the signal too much and takes away all the pristine chime-iness.

Some pedals, like the BOSS CS-3 squash the sound too much to get that kind of well-defined tone - though Billy has used a CS-3 compressor, it generally is an overly-squashy, loud noise compressor.

It sounds to me like the BOSS CS-3 is being used on the lead guitar in this MCIS night-time version demo from the 2012 MCIS reissue:
https://youtu.be/hp6NIjg7Kjg

I would not recommend a BOSS CS-3 for general compression needs, due to its excessive tone-squashing, and high noise level.

Originally Posted by teh b0lly!!1 (Post 4254084)

this is great

Originally Posted by slunken (Post 4254097)

How much of this do you think may have been done post-production?

Originally Posted by Run To Me (Post 4254484)

The EQ makes a lot of sense

One of the more astounding things about golden age SP is that no matter how dense/loud/busy the mix sounds for the first minute and a half or so, somehow they were able to cram a new, louder guitar sound into there at appropriate moments

Like when Stand Inside Your Love opens up on "all that I have dreamed"

Originally Posted by he/she/it (Post 4254112)

Well, I was talking about MCIS.

The E Harmonizer was used on Soma live, for all the funky background weird noises:
https://youtu.be/qtw88GeFhwM?t=121

Originally Posted by slunken (Post 4254574)

Those "nasal sounds" for leads was made with a phaser with the rate turned down. I don't want to be a jerk but what are your sources on any/all of this?

Originally Posted by slunken (Post 4254579)

That's phase and reverse delay

Originally Posted by he/she/it (Post 4254619)

A phaser with its rate turned down still creates a pulsing movement (like in Cherub Rock's album solo), unless it's like a Bad Stone, which has a momentary setting (the MXR 100 Billy describes as using for SD solos doesn't have that ability). When Billy described using a phaser with its rate knob turned all the way down for leads, he said it was to create some movement. A slow-rate phaser does not sound like what I linked to, but a partly-cocked wah does.

My source, well, I have 18 years as a guitarist, and many years of sound production experience, and also mostly-shamelessly have nearly the same guitar and amp setups as Bill's SD and MCIS eras. I've spent years learning recording and live tone techniques that accomplish my favourite sounds of the Pumpkins, so I use that as a reference, along with the information I've learned from other musicians and sound engineers over the years.



The H3000, and typically all rack-mounted guitar equipment, takes MIDI commands - which means it is controllable using a foot controller, just like switching channels and presets for an amp, or turning on and off particular pedals is. A foot controller can not only engage or disengage the H3000, but also switch presents on it. A single switch on a foot controller will be calibrated to particular call commands that relate to all used equipment in a rack, and so one press can bring up any new configuration from all equipment, all at once.

That said, I don't know how Billy had his set up going for this performance, but Billy motions to off-stage crew here, right before the effect starts:
https://youtu.be/qtw88GeFhwM?t=116

So, I would say that in this instance that someone did indeed engage an effect for Billy - and that's entirely not uncommon in live performances for many artists. But an H3000 shouldn't need off-stage enabling or controlling, unless Billy wanted more effects on-hand than his foot controller had room for at once, or some other particularity.


Also, Billy looks to position his foot here, and perhaps presses the wrong thing, because a pretty nasty off-pitch sub-octave harmonizer effect plays once he strums the chord. And he smiles to himself, possibly in embarrassment because it was an accident, and then plays the following chord in stronger determination, like he's correcting the sound to himself. It then looks like he double-checks what foot switch he's pressing, and after he does so, his guitar tone changes from distortion to a cleanish effect:
https://youtu.be/qtw88GeFhwM?t=146


Billy gives a cold stare off-stage after the excessive delay volume here, and then a few seconds later motions to his mic or pedal setup, while having eye-contact off-stage - so crew definitely was making changes for him mid-song (which, as I said, is not uncommon):
https://youtu.be/qtw88GeFhwM?t=216


Billy, James, guitarists in general, do switch between presets mid-song, and you can see Billy pressing a footswitch button right here:
https://youtu.be/qtw88GeFhwM?t=198





There is a delay effect (which could also come from the H3000), but not phaser. Notice the effect cascades downwards and in step-fashion with each strum, and not in oscillating or smooth manner (though there are some step-oscillation phasers that could do this). Also note that the signal caused by Billy's strumming is what triggers the effect's downward cascading, whereas a phaser would phase-shift a sound depending on where the phase-effect already was in its oscillation at the time a player strums their guitar.