Sound On Sound article: www.soundonsound.com/techniques/classic-tracks-my-bloody-valentine-only-shallow

I know most people think it sounds like a vacuum cleaner, but am I the only one who hears an elephant instead?

Amazing how nothing makes sense separately, but it all comes together when you play everything in the context of the mix. Great job!

unironically my roommate is currently vacuuming and that sound just synced up and vacuum sound is totally correct.

i like how i've been listening to mbv for a decade and I never heard truly what all the layers where doing til just now. That double-speed octave guitar emerged outta nowhere to me!

Great job dude. I’ve always wondered what exactly that high-pitched riff was doing. When I heard you play it on its own I thought “ah nah that doesn’t sound quite right” but you totally proved me wrong when you put it all together. It was spot-on. I’ve subbed as a result (and because you asked nicely without being obnoxious about it haha)

The number one effect to achieve true MBV tone is VOLUME!

Dude, this is excellent. Sounds spot on, and I love that you explain the concepts and thought process so anyone could give this a shot in their own application, without necessarily having these specific pedals.

Incredible. Whole time I just thought it was one basic lead with some fuzz on it and maybe a bit of tremolo in post!

holy sh*t, this is incredibly close. I always thought that super high part was a synthline, I'm blown away.

I have went through my life just thinking it was reverse reverb all this time....what a noob!! Great video.

What a genius Kevin Shields is and also his use of alternative tunings. That was very impressive you figuring out how Kevin did that "vacuum" guitar sound. Great job! 👍👏👏👏

Superb experiment! I think you got it. It’s amazing how he (and you, here) managed to create such a rich and complex sound with just simple guitar parts and great sonic imagination.

believe it or not i think most of the sound is generated from the interplay of the tuning and the whammy-bent chords- there is some reverse reverb/delays too but he gets this sound however he chooses to play its just his style

I always new the mic had to be farther away but I never new about the quadro tracking tremolo bit and that the high part was actually a completely different part. I think on the record that high part has more reverb on it to blend itself in

So rad! Thanks for walking us through that, I think it sounds awesome! 🌊🏄‍♂️☀️🌵

The best MBV recreation out there, keep it up

Great job, nice work

this is awesome, subscribed, would love to see more of this (always been curious about the layers in when you sleep)

super cool! love the sounds you got!!!

Nice!!! Great job reconstructing that riff, that was very impressive!

Congrats man. Really nice freaking job!

This is so damn accurate, amazing job on all the research, and the actual recreation, sounds insanely close and epic!

I love this! It gives me ideas about stuff I can try with my own music that never occurred to me before… different approaches to getting sounds. This was great!

This is awesome, well done.

Very nice work!

Bravo! so many whacky individual sounds to create that crazy squealing wah sound we love

this was great and thanks for sharing the article i enjoyed it

Excellent work

No pun intended, but it seems as if Kevin 'shields' his tone and ranks among some of the best kept secrets like original recipe KFC and Coke. But, you're right there! Only thing I would suggest would be to come back and revisit this tone when you got some of that ridiculous KZfaq money, and seek out all the original equipment he used (i.e. gear that was made before late 1991), and then you'll be able to absolutely nail it!! Sounds amazing by the way, happy chasing!

You have a nice sound collection going of course. Bravo!😊

Super cool!

Wow dude sounds super close to my ears! Really impressive

This is wicked cool - ya nailed it. Love the CT5 bits. Such an amazing sounding track/album too.

one of ur best yet

Great job, so nailed it! VCR filter looks so bad ass in your vid’s man 🤘🏼

Loved em since the early days. Love this vid 👍

Sounds fucking awesome dude! well done!

Awesome job, I wasn't expecting you to get that close. Also, your Jazzmaster is a beauty. I bet you spent a lot of time the first few days after you got it just staring at it and marveling at how gorgeous it is!

Subbed great video. More of this of these unique processing’s techniques

this is incredible, i've been wondering what that noisey high-pitched ringing deep in the mix was and i had no idea it was a sampled guitar. great work!!!

Sounds awesome. Loooooooooong time fan of MBV. You did it justice.

Well done!

Absolutely incredible. The high octave part really was that secret ingredient

this is great content, love it.

This is neat. Thanks for the breakdown on what i consider the greatest album opener of all-time.

This is spot on!!

Great job!

I've always wondered how they created that sound. Amazing work.

This was absolutely beautiful. Thanks man! You’ve earned a subscriber!

Omfg that was amazing

Nice job!

This was cool!

Man this is impressive. Between your talent and hard work you nailed this. Hope you can make a career from music

GREAT job

Well done!!!

sweet. subscribed based on this exercise alone. very cool ...

nailed!!!

U killed this!

Also attempted this year's ago for a cover I did. But I did not know one part was in reverse. Really cool idea, explains a lot. 😅

so cool

please do more My Bloody Valentine!

nailed it

excellent

Superb

We used to try to copy Kevin's sound for fun back in the mid 90s. I got pretty close with just a boss delay pedal set to reverse gate, and strumming with the guitar's tremolo arm in my hand. The guitar mags at the time said he didn't use distortion or many other pedals.

so fucking cool

Interesting that Johnny Marr did the same trick with running multiple amps with tremolo at different speeds to achieve the iconic tone in "How Soon is Now"?

great video

That’s fire

That "Wall of Sound" ™ Phil Spector, is righteous 💠

You are a wizard.

Amazing video. Everyone has basically said what's on my mind. Good stuff, and love the description lol!

Its like hearing the original song but remastered. Amazing

Nice! I think you got super close!

Great recreation! Hats off!

The CT5 is such a rad pedal. I love using it as a multi tap delay with octaves (kinda like a Reverse reverb but with Shimmery octaves.) Also, this kinda reminds me of a part in “Just like you imagined” by nine inch nails.

You did fantastic!

fun!

I can’t unhear the upper octave in the original recording now

Wow!

I think you did great.

For any one wondering how to get that reverse sound with a pedal or any others live means shields doesn't actually use a reverse reverb. Its actually a effect in an old Yamaha rack called early reflections (which is like a roomy faux reverb) on the reverse setting (which reverse the decay of the delay) then running that into a preamp stage (alot of people say reverb into fuzz but it's actually fuzz into reverb and then into a hi gain amp). Dome pedals I've found to get the sound are multi-tap delays capable of reverse decay think EHX hazari memory man.

That's damn close.

this seems so unnecessarily complicated, but the song does slap so i guess he was right

Had no idea the tu2 could split like that

👌🏻

Saw them twice in Philadelphia in 92, I believe. Was warned about the strobe light ending and massive volume but was undeterred. It was true. Almost had to hold your ears and close your eyes at the very end.

If you do another one of these, can you try recreating the feedback/ sythn thing from Razor’s Edge by Albert Hammond Jr.?

needs more 90s vhs film filter

what were your settings for the clean rhythm part? it sounds so amazing

great! but i think Shields used a reverse reverb. there´s a lot of articles about it.

What colour is your Jazzy? Looks great! And awesome work on the youtube vids.

The Soma is an interesting choice.It's wild card in the Greer catalog, and gets some radical sounds.The Benson is ,IMO, lacking as far as Germanium Fuzzes go; more of a job for a Zvex Vertical or Fat Fuzz Factory. Highly recommend the Hudson Broadcast for a huge range of sounds that can cut through a mix, and if you want unique and over the top, the Beetronics Vezzpa, Swarm, and Zombee.

Really nice work, and I appreciate the explanation. I also really enjoyed the sounds you got on your video on putting together a little shoegaze board with 5 pedals (and your Bowie/Fripp/Eno Heroes vid too). I heard a fantastic live performance of this song by the band Shiner (kzfaq.info/love/TYAyCBH8LcSObFbmyqaDKg) in 2002, I think (in Houston), played as 2 guitars, bass and drums. I remember thinking it was pretty spot on and being impressed by how close they got it in a live setting (but perhaps one is more forgiving for a live rendition by a different band). I'm curious what they used. They did both have good-sized pedalboards, but I don't remember any of what they used (and I had not gotten into much effects use and knowledge myself yet, so would not have recognized much). It's possible they used some type of looping, since such devices were out by then (I saw a show around the same time where Joseph Arthur performed solo with an acoustic guitar but got a full band and electric sound using loops and effects and would even put the guitar down and paint at times while singing over the loops), but I don't remember loops being part of their other songs (though it's possible I just didn't realize). It's interesting to think about considering all the parts and the reverse doubling that Kevin Shields speaks of and you needed to replicate the sound. I do remember being inspired enough by the performance to pick out the different parts on my own later, but I had no idea about the reverse part or the different tremolo rates. I remember wanting to see MBV when they came through Houston 10 years or so before that, touring with Dinosaur Jr. I wasn't able to make it, I can't remember why, I did see a lot of great shows back in those days. Little did I realize that would have been my last opportunity to see them (until reforming, I guess, but I still haven't seen them).

did not expect to see a fuckin model t lol good shit

Sounds great, pretty close to the original imo. Keep up the awesome work :)

I saw them back in the early 90's....loads of AKAI samplers (rack units...not MPC's). Pedals were not a big part of it.

Wow that's very impressive. You pretty much nailed it - my only thought is, to me it sounds like the rhythm guitar also has a very dirty CHUG CHUG CHUG (tremelo) sound to it and only the bass is clean. But I couldn't have figured out the rest of what you did so obviously I could be wrong.

One crucial tip for getting a mbv sound to use real volume or fake it with a studio style compressor. Slow attack, long release and set threshold to taste. Use before the amp as a boost for a more explosive uncontrolled sound or in the effects loop or in DAW for a more refined sound.