The Pink Floyd guitarist pinpoints which tracks from his new album, Luck and Strange, he employed the swell approach on.
David Gilmour, the maestro of delays, has revealed more about how he creates the sound he refers to as “swell” – a multi-delay effect that resembles a synthetic pad.
“I call it’swell’ because it sounds like it is swelling. A tone I’ve employed on a variety of tunes over the years,” Gilmour explains in a new video delving into his guitar skills.
“It’s slightly symphonic. It is constructed via delays, but you do not hear the impact note in theory.”
While Gilmour does not identify which delay pedals he uses to generate the swell, the technique he demonstrates in the video includes the Strat’s tremolo arm for a more noticeable effect, as well as an Ernie Ball volume/expression pedal. In this scenario, Gilmour plays a Fender Strat that is similar to his famed Black Strat.
In a 1993 Guitar World interview, Gilmour discussed using the Binson Echorec machine as his primary delay unit until 1977 and the Animals era. “The Binson was an Italian-made delay unit. It was strange since it did not use tape loops. Instead, it utilized a metal recording wheel.
“You could get some fantastic delay effects that haven’t been achieved on anything since One of these Days [from 1971’s Meddle], which evolved from some of my studies with the Binson, as did Echoes [also from Meddle].
“One day, Roger wanted to try some of the methods I was creating on bass. And he came up with that fundamental riff, which we all worked on and developed into
In a new video interview, Gilmour discloses that he uses the swell method on his new album, Luck and Strange, notably on the songs Scattered and Black Cat.
Luck and Strange is Gilmour’s first new material in nine years, and it boasts a new producer who is tearing up the rulebook. Sony Music plans to release it on September 6.
