Just can't seem to dial it in. And I'd really like to use it-in spots.
The sound I'm after is the Jeff Newman sound. On songs like "Last Date" (see the link below beginning around 0:50) or "Loving You" from his Gospel course, I swear I'm listening to a violin(s). I'm thinking about buying an Ebow but I'm not sure that's going to give me the sound I want.
I went back to my notes on the violin sound from the December 1980 E9 class at Jeffran, which I attach below. I'm using Jeff's settings with an old ElectroHarmonix Muff Fuzz but it still doesn't sound right. I would ask that some of you guys try these settings & see what you come up with. Or post your own settings if they sound closer - a sound clip would be really cool, too.
All an e-bow does is sustain a note, but you can sustain a note or chord for 15-30 seconds with just proper use of the amp and volume pedal. (The addition of fuzz or lots of overdrive extends that time almost indefinitely.) I think it was Jeff Newman who really popularized the effect at his seminars, using just lots of reverb and fuzz. It takes a little practice to get the technique and setup just right, since you have to maintain just the right amount of of dissonance on the unison notes to get the vibrato effect, but an e-bow is not required. If you can’t get “the sound” with just technique, fuzz, and reverb, an e-bow won’t help much.
Since you have to change your normal reverb, tone, and overdrive settings to make it sound right, and then change everything back when you’re done, it becomes almost too cumbersome to use it regularly.
There are a couple of Electro Harmonix pedals that do pretty convincing string sounds. My favourite is the Mel-9 pedal that emulates a Melotron but there is also a String9 pedal.
Check out the sounds on their website or Youtube.
I must say that, with the Mel9, the tracking is amazing (not tried the String9).
...just listened to EH:s demo of the String9. Sounds absolutely NOTHING like a violin or a string section...I'd have to pretty deaf to fooled by those sounds.
This thread confirms what I suspected (and feared) along: there is no magic pedal for this effect & it’s up to me to make Jeff’s hack work.
I listened to several pedals on YouTube & could not find that single-string, muted singing tone that Jeff produced. I had high hopes for the Boss Synth pedal: it has dozens of cool, crazy effects and several string settings but … nah.
I re-listened to Buddy’s “Once Upon A Time In The West” and honestly, I was underwhelmed by the Ebow’s performance. In Buddy’s hands??? What chance would I have? Plus, as mentioned, it produces infinite legato but not the right violin tone -I think Donny’s post just about nailed most of the issues.
But if anyone ever does find a pedal that reproduces Jeff’s sound, please let me know. Thanks again, all.
One thing to bear in mind is that "violins" do not sound the same as "fiddle" and one of the key components of the sound of a string section is the doubling/chorusing, delay, and reverb inherent in multiple instruments playing in unison in a given space. If that is the effect you are after with a pedal steel guitar you will want to incorporate these artifacts and experiment with them to find your happiness.
Individual players in a section can easily be 10-20 ms or more apart in attacking a note, and even when all are bowing alike this individual delay coupled with the various distances between the players also introduce complex comb filtering, i.e. natural chorusing (for reference each foot of added distance equals roughly 1 ms of delay for the listener). All of this is then sweetened by the chamber/hall (i.e. reverb) in which the performance is taking place.
Once you get it dialed you are golden!
Last edited by Dave Grafe on 19 Sep 2023 7:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
I think finding a convincing fiddle sound would be much more useful. I usually know in my head exactly what parts a fiddle should play in a country song, and those would not be very difficult to translate to the pedal steel. That would be very useful for home recording. (I've tried a real fiddle, and we both soon decided we weren't meant for each other...) But a fuzz-based sound just won't do.
Sure, I can do a video and post it to my YouTube channel. Give me a few days to a week to put it together. I'll be back on here to let you know when it's completed.
To go along with it, may go ahead and add the Boss PS-6 (?) Harmony pedal. Great for twin lead Allman Brothers type stuff.
I used to use Newman's method using a Boss Tone Fuzz back in the 70's. His explanation as to why the Boss Tone worked so well was because it wasn't a real good pedal, and couldn't handle multiple notes well at the same time. That is most evident with the cello sound using strings 4,5 and 8 giving a cello type sound one octave below the note on the 8th string. I actually have a record I played the cello sound on. I was the staff steel player at a studio in the Bay Area. The strings were played on a synth, but they used my cello sound.
When my Boss Tone died, I tried to find another fuzz pedal, but most wouldn't work well. I found a Maestro (Gibson?) fuzz box that worked even better than the Boss Tone. It eventually died too, and never found another that did the job. I eventually just learned a little keyboards and used synths.
Lately I have been shifting the duties of my Zoom MS-50G multi-effects pedal from reverb and delay (the reverb in my NV400 died years ago) to other effects since I got a Nu-X Atlantic for the reverb and delay functions. One of my ventures is to re-create the old Newman string effect. The Zoom has many distortion effects, but I am having trouble finding one similar to the Boss Tone or Maestro. They all seem to handle chord or multiple simultaneous notes too well. I figured I could set up the distortion, use an EQ to cut treble and boost bass, and a heavy reverb in one patch that I could get with the push of a button instead of twisting a bunch of knobs on my amp (very inconvenient and frustrating). Not having much luck though.
Carter D10 8p/8k, Dekley S10 3p/4k C6 setup,Regal RD40 Dobro, NV400, NV112 .Playing for 53 years and still counting.
Richard - Thanks for the detailed response. I have a finicky old BossTone that I will now attempt to use again if it helps me find that Newman violin sound.
Tony - See ya when you get back - bring some ‘Gansett!
Don't forget what Jeff taught on the violin emulation: You must pick 1 & 2 alternately in a steady cadence to sustain the violin vibrato effect. He recommended the BossTone at the class I attended.
Best lyric in a country song: "...One more, Moon..."
i used a sho-bud boss tone here but it's more like a theremin or ebow than violin. sorry about the bad video, a 10 year old kid was running the camera. take some dramamine. the fuzz grinch got me once, ouch.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0yM42pB0_g
Hey Frank, I found these Bobbe Seymour's notes from ten tears ago. He adds a DD-3 to the Boss tone. He doesn't give the Boss tone settings but here are the DD-3's..
Garry Vanderlinde wrote:Hey Frank, I found these Bobbe Seymour's notes from ten tears ago. He adds a DD-3 to the Boss tone. He doesn't give the Boss tone settings but here are the DD-3's..
