# Sweet Surrender Effect



## notme (Mar 23, 2006)

I'm not sure if it's a tube screamer or just a distortion pedal, but is anyone familar with the beginner of Sarah Mclaughlins "Sweet Surrender"?
I'm looking for a pedal that can produce that sound. It's the very beginning of the song where the "beeping" sound changes into a guitar.
Thanks for any help,

NM


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## Guest (Nov 17, 2008)

That's a kill switch effect. Likely done with a Les Paul. Turn your amp up really loud. Add some tasty overdrive. Put the neck pick up volume at zero, the bridge pick up volume at max. Put the PS switch on the bridge pickup and smack a power chord. Get it feeding back. Now flip the switch to the neck pickup to kill the sound and then use the switch to play the rhythm by flipping it quickly back and forth from neck to bridge.

Obviously they had it feeding back in the studio and just put the staccato part on the recording...


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## Greg Ellis (Oct 1, 2007)

I checked a couple of live vids to see how they pull it off live.

It seems like they don't.

You can't see the opening here, but as the band kicks in, you can see the guitarist shoving his pickup into the guitar monitor to get the feedback part:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX_pzTl3ShY

Here's another one - it seems to me they must be using a tape, or maybe a synth, to get that sound:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adRS2skzH5Q

Again, not clear, but it sounds 100% like all the others, so I'm guessing they use a tape or a synth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H16VDaA4SUE


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## notme (Mar 23, 2006)

Hey thanks guys!!!
In the back of my mind I somehow knew that it wasn't going to be as simple as a pedal. I'm going to have to try that kill switch effect (I'm fairly new to electric guitar). Love the sound of the bass and drums in the first two live videos. You can hear the effect better in the second one. It's too bad the camera isn't on the guitarist for the whole thing, that way we would know for sure what he's doing. But I agree, it looks like for the live show some of it is done by a recorded loop or something.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

I definitely think it's a kill switch, check this video of The Trews doing Fleeting Trust, the song uses the kill switch effect all throughout the verses. Watch from 0:27 onwards, you'll see John Angus strum a quick chord and then toggle his pickup switch on and off over and over again. Watch how he does it and listen to the DAH-dah DAH-dah of the lead guitar to get an idea of how it's done.


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## bobb (Jan 4, 2007)

This is probably the best known "killswitch" video

[youtube=object]S-woe3SCAaA[/youtube]


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

bobb said:


> This is probably the best known "killswitch" video


What is that, a momentary killswitch? That's pretty cool!


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## Guest (Nov 18, 2008)

hollowbody said:


> What is that, a momentary killswitch? That's pretty cool!


Yea. Mr. Buckethead kicks it on that one for sure. Here's the details on the axe:

http://www.bingeandgrab.com/buckets_les_paul.html


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## Guest (Nov 18, 2008)

notme said:


> Hey thanks guys!!!
> In the back of my mind I somehow knew that it wasn't going to be as simple as a pedal.


What kind of guitar are you playing? This is actual as simple as a pedal. Dead simple to build. You need the following things to do this as a pedal:

A Hammond 1590A enclosure (ref)
2 x 1/4" Mono jacks (ref)
A DPDT momentary switch (ref) 
Some wire

You wire it up so the tips of the jacks connect through the switch when it's in the up (normal, unpushed) position. You wire the rings of the jacks straight to each other.

Put it all in the box and you're done. When you press the switch it'll cut the tip-to-tip signal letting you do the stutter effect with your foot.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Actually, you only need an SPST momentary. All you need to do is break the connection between the two tip lugs on the in and out jacks.

Is it wise to use a 1590A? I have mixed feelings. Certainly the *electronic*s do not require more space than that. Trouble is that to produce a stuttering effect you need to do some rather energetic foot work and a 1590A might have too small a footprint to remain physically stable while you do that. So, even though it is a shameful waste of space, a 1590BB is recommended.

Incidentally, if you DID use a momentary DPDT stompswitch, you could arrange to have variable-depth stutter by having the switch select between straight feedthrough and a 1M volume pot. Depending on how far down you turn the pot, the effect could range from full-on/full-off to a gentle foot-operated murmur.


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## Guest (Nov 18, 2008)

mhammer said:


> Actually, you only need an SPST momentary. All you need to do is break the connection between the two tip lugs on the in and out jacks.


Good point: new ref for you notme. I actually didn't see that when I was compiling my list. I only saw this one, which is a really nice switch, but normally open -- which wouldn't do for your stutter pedal.



> Is it wise to use a 1590A?


It's such a cute little enclosure though...so few things fit in it.



> I have mixed feelings. Certainly the *electronic*s do not require more space than that. Trouble is that to produce a stuttering effect you need to do some rather energetic foot work and a 1590A might have too small a footprint to remain physically stable while you do that.


Good point. I actually doubt stuttering with a stomp is as easily done as with your hand on a switch. As you've noted before in the tap tempo modulation thread: it's just hard to get accurate with your foot (unless you're a drummer).



> So, even though it is a shameful waste of space, a 1590BB is recommended.
> 
> Incidentally, if you DID use a momentary DPDT stompswitch, you could arrange to have variable-depth stutter by having the switch select between straight feedthrough and a 1M volume pot. Depending on how far down you turn the pot, the effect could range from full-on/full-off to a gentle foot-operated murmur.


That's a cool mod. You're in to manual trem territory which could be cool.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

You could use a normally open OR a normally-closed switch. If normally-closed, then the switch simply breaks the tip-to-tip connection inside the pedal. If normally-open, the switch would be used to *ground* the tip-to-tip connection to eliminate the signal.


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## Guest (Nov 18, 2008)

mhammer said:


> You could use a normally open OR a normally-closed switch. If normally-closed, then the switch simply breaks the tip-to-tip connection inside the pedal. If normally-open, the switch would be used to *ground* the tip-to-tip connection to eliminate the signal.


I'm not putting my head around the NO option. Is this what you mean: solder tip to tip, sleeve to sleeve, solder one tip (input would be my take) to one lug on the switch and the other lug goes to the sleeve on the same. Is that what you mean? So closed switch gives you a parallel signal-to-ground path?


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

You have put your head around it exactly correct.

It works exactly the same way that a reverb cancel switch works on most amps - ground the signal out.


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## Guest (Nov 18, 2008)

mhammer said:


> You have put your head around it exactly correct.
> 
> It works exactly the same way that a reverb cancel switch works on most amps - ground the signal out.


Cool. Learn something new every day: I wouldn't have thought grounding the signal out that was something you'd want to do. I suppose it's not any more or less safe then leaving the input floating though, eh?


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## bobb (Jan 4, 2007)

hollowbody said:


> What is that, a momentary killswitch? That's pretty cool!


I installed one on my son's Strat. Lot's of fun to play with.


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

You could always just get a curly guitar lead -- I had one that did that all the time. Bonus was it could also pick up Radio Moscow.

Doesn't the empress tremolo allow you to do weird trem patterns like that though? That old Smiths song, Johnny Marr did the rhythmic trem pattern on the intro -- How soon is now?


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

devnulljp said:


> You could always just get a curly guitar lead -- I had one that did that all the time. Bonus was it could also pick up Radio Moscow.
> 
> Doesn't the empress tremolo allow you to do weird trem patterns like that though? That old Smiths song, Johnny Marr did the rhythmic trem pattern on the intro -- How soon is now?


I heard that was just through a plain ol Fender Twin. There might have been a Delay with a Hold feature involved. I'll have to see if I can find the article.


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

hollowbody said:


> I heard that was just through a plain ol Fender Twin. There might have been a Delay with a Hold feature involved. I'll have to see if I can find the article.


Really? It's a cool effect. I always imagined it was some funky studio trickery.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

devnulljp said:


> Really? It's a cool effect. I always imagined it was some funky studio trickery.


Here, check this out.

I found this on wiki: "The vibrato sound is ****ing incredible, and it took a long time. I put down the rhythm track on an Epiphone Casino through a Fender Twin Reverb without vibrato. Then we played the track back through four old Twins, one on each side. We had to keep all the amps vibrating in time to the track and each other, so we had to keep stopping and starting the track, recording it in 10-second bursts... We did it in three passes through a harmonizer, set to some weird interval, like a sixth. There was a different harmonization for each pass. For the line in harmonics, I retuned the guitar so that I could play it all at the 12th fret with natural harmonics. It's doubled several times."

I think live he used a Delay with the hold feature to just repeat that F#m chord over and over and over again with the tremolo, and he'd play the A/B/A slide "live"

Anyway, back to the original topic, this isn't really killswitching, just a creative and timeless use of tremolo. Also shows you how versatile that Fender Twin can be. I guess if you had a guitar with something like the Fernandes Sustainer, you could hammer out the F#m and switch back and forth between an off pickup and sustainer to play the rhythm part for How Soon is Now, but I imagine you'd go through switches pretty quickly that way.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

iaresee said:


> Cool. Learn something new every day: I wouldn't have thought grounding the signal out that was something you'd want to do. I suppose it's not any more or less safe then leaving the input floating though, eh?


Ah, but remember what it is you do when your guitar is plugged into the amp and you turn the guitar volume pot down: *you have grounded the wiper of the pot*. Go to the Fender Amp Field Guide ( http://ampwares.com/ ) and look at just about any Fender amp with reverb. The footswitch basically just grounds out the reverb return signal to "bypass" it and then ungrounds it to restore the reverb.


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## Guest (Nov 19, 2008)

devnulljp said:


> Doesn't the empress tremolo allow you to do weird trem patterns like that though? That old Smiths song, Johnny Marr did the rhythmic trem pattern on the intro -- How soon is now?


The empress trem does have rhythm patterns in it. Not quite as random as the intro to that song though.


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## notme (Mar 23, 2006)

Wow, all kinds of neat little tricks popping up in this thread!!
The kill switch effect produce at the beginning of sweet surrender was only part of what I like about it. The tone is the other thing (that distortion sound). You can hear it at 111 and 211 of the second live video of sarah posted above. I think Iaresee said is was probably a Gibson with an amp cranked up & allot of overdrive. Can you get a sound like that with a tube screamer?


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

notme said:


> Wow, all kinds of neat little tricks popping up in this thread!!
> The kill switch effect produce at the beginning of sweet surrender was only part of what I like about it. The tone is the other thing (that distortion sound). You can hear it at 111 and 211 of the second live video of sarah posted above. I think Iaresee said is was probably a Gibson with an amp cranked up & allot of overdrive. Can you get a sound like that with a tube screamer?


You betcha you can. I've had a lot of success with a dimed TS9 in front of a Marshall JCM900, and it works just as good in front of other amps, helping them overdrive naturally. Depending on your amp, you'll have to play with the knobs in order to find the right tone, but I've never heard a TS9 do horribly bad things to an amp's tone when it comes to dialing in a nice saturated, driven tone.


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## notme (Mar 23, 2006)

Thanks Hollowbody!
I've got to get me one of those. :food-smiley-004:

ps when you say "dimed" does that mean "modified", or is it just a Ibanez TS9?

Thanks,

Paul


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