Replicating David Gilmour's PULSE solo tones feat. Shine On, Comfortably Numb, Coming Back To Life +

I finally managed to get my David Gilmour/PULSE era inspired pedal board to sound good enough for a little demo.

Song parts in order of appearance:
0:00 - Shine On You Crazy Diamond (intro solo, Syd's Theme, 2nd solo)
4:28 - What Do You Want From Me (intro solo plus other parts)
5:44 - Coming Back To Life (intro solo, 2nd solo, ending)
8:48 - Breathe (theme chords)
9:11 - Time (solo)
11:12 - Comfortably Numb (1st solo, some early parts of 2nd solo)
13:00 - Sorrow (intro and solo parts)
Click the times marked as links and get directed to the related spots in the vid (just in case you didn't know ;)
Please excuse my bad timing on Syd's Theme... but I was fine with the rest of the take, so I decided to keep it...
Basically the choice of gear is quite similar to the original gear used in the 1994 Pink Floyd tour rig. There are two compressors, a Muff, a Tube Driver, a UniVibe clone, analog chorus and delay(s). What I don't use is a second Tube Driver, a third (stomp) compressor, a Soft Sustain and a RAT (and all the GE-7 EQs). There is a H&K TubeFactor instead, that gives me SS-2ish tones on ch1 and RATty tones on ch2 (in combination with a MXR style compressor). In addition the TubeFactor makes a good job driving the Muff just like the clean set Tube Driver did in the original rig. Unfortunately the compressor is pretty noisy and the TubeFactor's ch2 boosts that noise a little too much. Gotta check if there is anything I can do to get it quieter... The Vibe is active all the time (set to subtle chorus mode) to give me some additional modulation - a bit of what the Doppolas did on the 94 tour... while the not so subtle phasing mode is only used for Breathe and the Time solo of course. Plus, with the buffer employed the Vibe freshes up the signal and is set to perform a bit of a clean boost, too. The Muff model of my choice is pretty versatile and provides me with two different tones that are close to the two separate Muffs in the original rig.
What you see in this vid is my practice rig with the modded Laney amp (JJ tubes, Weber speaker). The delays are not 100% accurate, due to the DD-20 having only 4 presets (officially 4 but you can say it's 5 ;) ... and I have to share delay settings and use each for several songs. Unfortunately the Mics picked up some noise from the (unamplified) harder hit strings. So I'm afraid the volume was set too low and/or I was standing too close to the recorder... That gives it kind of a strange feel in the upper frequencies on certain notes :( In my live rig the (pre delay) signal from the pedal board goes into a Tech21 Leeds pedal, into a Focusrite TrackMaster Pro, into an Eventide Eclipse (good delays here... and many of them ;), into a Lexicon MPX-100 (for some rotary), into a mixer that mixes the dry (and still not AD/DA converted) signal, the delayed signal(s) and the rotary signal to a proper stereo signal, into a 2ch tube power amp (currently an old ENGL, but I'm not that picky here as long as it has some headroom), into two cabs (I'm about to customize two 2x12"s with Webers, which will then become my standard cabs). Plus, the mixer provides a stereo DI signal for the PA... so no mics involved in my live rig.
As you might have noticed, the tone is a bit less ambient and liquid than on the PULSE CD. I could have given it some more delay, verb and modulation but I don't like the tools in this practice rit to be set that wet. Plus, the feel would have been way unreal... That kind of XXL ambient sound is rather suitable for stage use but not in a living room :) The backing tracks are rather dry too and things must fit together somehow.
Recording chain:
The sound was recorded with a Zoom H4n (placed near the camera), plus a Sennheiser e609 (obviously close miced). The reason why I took the e609 is simply that I could let it just hang down without the need of a stand ;) But the 609 track is not used on this vid (too boomy due to the proximity effect), neither the camera's sound. Video and audio were merged with Reaper (the DAW of my choice), with very little additional effects (only EQ minus 1-2 dB at about 250 Hz and plus 0.5-1 dB at about 5-7K and a compressor/limiter to keep the transients under control and save me from overs).
The backing tracks (taken from gilmourish.com, thx Björn!!) are modded a little bit and taylored around the miked guitar tracks, which sound basically just the way they are recorded, save the fact that the tone was a little warmer without my EQ tweaks.
I would like to thank Björn Riis, Kit Rae and John Roscoe whose input helped me get my personal tone from heaven :)
Now that I'm quite happy about how close I've come to that PULSE era tones... I need to learn how to play those songs properly ^^
Thanks for watching :)
Any PF tribute band out there that needs some help..? ;)

Category:

Music

Tags:

• David Gilmour
• Pink Floyd
• Pulse
• 1994
• Division Bell
• Shine on you crazy Diamond
• What do you want from me
• Coming back to Life
• Breathe
• Time
• Comfortably numb
• Sorrow
• david
• gilmour
• tone
• P.U.L.S.E
• 94
• sound
• dave
• shine on
• tour
• live
• guitar
• gear
• pedal
• pedals
• tube driver
• muff
• red
• strat
• stratocaster
• pink
• floyd
• pedal board
• Hughes
• Kettner
• Tubefactor
• Tube
• Factor
• Boss
• CS-2
• Royal
• Beaver
• Electric
• Orange
• Moon
• Vibe
• Whirlwind
• Red
• Box
• Compressor

[Starbuckz666]

Song parts in order of appearance:

0:00 - Shine On You Crazy Diamond (intro solo, Syd's Theme, 2nd solo)

4:28 - What Do You Want From Me (intro solo plus other parts)

5:44 - Coming Back To Life (intro solo, 2nd solo/ending)

8:48 - Breathe (theme chords)

9:11 - Time (solo)

11:12 - Comfortably Numb (1st solo, some early parts of 2nd solo)

13:00 - Sorrow (intro and solo parts)

Click the times marked as links and get directed to the related spots in the vid (just in case you didn't know ;)

[bosscat71]

Awesome, really great. Watched it the whole way though.

[Starbuckz666]

@bosscat71 cool, thx :)

[dingenstyp]

Really really great tone and playing, enjoyed it very much!

[Starbuckz666]

@dingenstyp thanks for the compliment. I'm not that much impressed by my playing (overall) and by the tone used for 'Time'... But I managed to improve both a good bit since the day the vid was recorded :) So good chances for better vids in the future :)

[sarinapaparone]

Great stuff!

[Starbuckz666]

@sarinapaparone thx, glad you like it :)

[natsbetter]

Liked your video. How long have you been playing guitar?

[floopsie666]

@ITAGeb looks like someone's a jealous sucker...you ok little boy? 

[ITAGeb]

puah Bad sound (comfortably numb) and worse playing

[Nico9217]

amazing sound!!! but bending is very bad!!

[artemis20081]

GOOD GOOD



[GLPstudio1]

MrRich6505 ihave nothing to be jealous of.. did you even read my comment? i thought it was a great cover and im sure gilmour would be impressed... not because it was that awsome.. because he will be happy and will appreciate that someone covers his music... i have also learnt these solos a few years ago, because i love pink floyd and i love david gilmour. its just that i think that learning from huge masters like david gilmour is the best way to improve your playing and have fun at the same time

[5150505]

Хороший звук и хорошая игра!!! Классно!! (Cool.) :)))))))

[JustSleepin61]

Hiya! Really nice job ... I have the same issue with compressors being noisy .. not that they are in themselves, but if u put after any kind of gain, then that noise is compressed too which makes the compressor appear noisy. I have an Aphex punch and a Keeley ... both much "quieter" than the CS-2 (which I also have), but by no means silent. That H&K pushes out a decent sound ... much impressed with that! .. Also the moon-vibe .. any volume loss with that? Keep up the good work!!!!

[j200ist]

Awesome mate! Sounds great!!!!!

[fretboardnewb]

great job on sound and feeling, top notch..im a huge floyd fan and love to play them myself but your in a different league from me....