ilovefuzz.com

Uh, this is one of those questions that the Internet is supposed to be good for but concerted searching hasn't turned anything up -- perhaps someone can give me some pointers.

I like the slide guitar work of Rainer Ptacek, the East German emigre desert blues specialist. He's known (Wikipedia) to have used tape loops, but there don't seem to be any technical details. If you listen to eg Nocturnes (https://www.discogs.com/Rainer-Nocturne ... se/2074076) you can hear the use of long echoes or short loops way back in the mix, but no-one has been able to tell me what pedal was in use. I'm kind of guessing it was an EHX 16" Delay but I've also wondered if something more complex was in play. (Sometimes it seems to behave like the 'shadow' setting you get on digital reverbs, although the sound is very analog.)

Any suggestions gratefully recd.

Best, NP.

Are you wanting to mimic something like this?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znnSTBds3G8[/youtube]

Well, um (shuffles) maybe not exactly *mimic*.... NP

Hmm. Here's a not-so-succinct response. With the delayed signal being so weak in this live clip, I would imagine an engineer is mixing a pre-recorded part with his live guitar signal. There's a lot of faint echoes, which don't sync up with his playing. For other performances, he may have also fed his guitar through a splitter box and into the stage mixer, which ensured the dry channel was always elevated well above the delayed signal. If you pay attention to the video at 1:17, he stops playing the guitar and there's no echo in the background. Without seeing the floor, it's impossible to know if he's hitting a bypass or just tapping his foot.

I listened to several live clips on YouTube, and I would guess he relied primarily on a lesser-known tape delay with a sound-on-sound feature. (so no Space Echo or Copicat) If you were to find out his exact machine, I don't think there's any magic to be found there. The guitar sounds are quite gritty and brooding--- as you know, that's in technique & approach, not in the circuits.

Doing some Googling, I found a 15-yr old discussion thread that you've likely already seen.

http://interruptor.ch/php5/dubboard/vie ... ce062#1483

I'm a big fan of late Rainer Ptacek, a "bluesman" who was playing on a National guitar with a "vintage tape delay echo blue box", and I was wondering what it could be...The main info is that he used that since the 80's (at least..), and that he could achieve 1-2 second loops, stop, play again the same loop, overdubbing it...
Ask that to Watkins Music, and Mr.Charlie Watkins answered "I don't think that would be a Copicat - which always used a fixed 10.5 inch fixed loop. And the only blue ones we made were 1958 and would have been difficult to modify. We did make a transistor model with endless cassette and play back and dubbing facilities but it was a disaster and I dropped it after making about 50.".

The "blue box" part is not necessarily helpful, as it could've been refinished in blue. Let's say that he was in fact using a stock, pre-80s blue tape delay. That could be something like an Evans Super Echo, which had a swell function and multiple footswitches for live operation. It didn't have a SOS function for layering, though, and I think its max delay time was likely less than 1000ms. To my knowledge, those Evans units out of Japan are fairly durable, because you still see them here and there. That's just one possible option though. The Hohner Echo Plus (black exterior) also sported SOS and was more portable than some of the other models of the day.

An Echoplex doesn't check the obscure or the blue box, but they do handle SOS and were found in virtually every studio from the 60s onward. That would've been readily available for some of his album work. So he could've used an EHX 16-Sec Delay at times, but he could've also relied exclusively on tape and studio techniques for manual swells and fast or slowed-down backing parts. From these Nocturnes instrumentals on YouTube, the tracks are dominated by hall reverb and tape saturation. That's not pedals. In the studio, tape could be spliced for short or longer loops, like on the choir that fades in and out of "Within You, Without You." It's all about technique and approach----when & how to emphasize the supplemental parts to complement the main guitar track.

I could keep going, but in a pre-2000s world (before the boutique pedal movement, before everyone having a handheld computer), the studio was the most important instrument. You can't replicate or honor these habits, without working backwards and de-cluttering your approach. If you really want to know about a guitar player's gear who's been gone for 20 years, I would advise you to review liner notes and interviews, then e-mail or write people he worked with and respectfully ask for some tips and tricks. Good luck.

Perhaps "emulate" is the right word? Or an "adaptation" of that style? "Homage"? "Inspired"?

Piggy backing off Mr. Rec, the delay in that live video didn't sound that crazy, structurally (it was a nice sounding delay though). In today's word it seems like you could just stack a looper with any number of delays and get similar results (actually a lot of mileage out said set-up). I think a big part is actually in his playing (not going from A->B->C, rather A->C->B->A->A1->C->B2 and letting the delays do the coloring).

Thanks for posting though! I had never heard of this man and I really enjoyed listening. I kind of want to try a set up now with my two analog delays and another delay with a loop feature in the middle to see what kind of variations can arise. I think the key would be to vary your loops though out of the one short looper.

..

Fascinating sound! I'd never hard of this guitar player either.. .what a sad end to a life though Thanks for posting, I hope you discover the pedal you're looking for.

This was a real unexpected thread, huge fan of Rainer.
Not much to add beyond what's already being said, he had a pretty unique way of playing, and I feel like a real low gain rat through any resonator guitar would go a long way for the largest body of his work.

Read the beginnings of this thread today at lunch, was intrigued and checked the guy out... fucking great stuff.

Not sure if you came across this, but I saw a quote in, above all things, an Amazon review:

"The first (and, unfortunately, the only) time I ever saw Rainer Ptacek play live was in 1994, opening for Jonathan Richman at Club Congress in Tucson. He was so unassuming as he came onstage, wearing jeans and a ballcap with some BigOil logo on it, that I first thought he was a roadie up to tune his guitars.
That thought was nixed right away.
At that time, Rainer was using a digital delay to capture a sonic base of chord progressions (2 or 4 bars) to build off with a second guitar."

Super vague, but it does at least say "digital delay." Of course we have no idea exactly how much the person who said this knows about effects, so who knows. The one thing I'd say would be that I've had pretty good luck emailing musicians who are of the (for lack of a better word) cult variety, so you might want to try getting in touch with someone who played with him. Howe Gelb, maybe?

What a lovely set of responses! Thanks to everyone who took the trouble, esp. Echorec. Hapy New Year, too. Best, NP

I tend to think you could get what you need from something like the TC Electronic Flashback Triple, which gives you access to 3 long delay lines that can be synced or free floating....

Piggy backing off of Dandolin, I think the X4 is that pedals predecessor? They are inexpensive on the second hand market as opposed to another suggestion...the 856 For Zellersasn (a new batch may or may not be coming soon...regardless don't pay those inflated second hand prices). Two very different things but both are inspiring ways to make music.

And lastly Niftyprose, the user fknoise does a lot of looping. I would tap into his expertise. There is a user here named Zijnzijn Zijnzijn that also had extensive delays and loopers. I would solicit their expertise.

Period '94 and digital, probably a Lexicon Jamman rackmount (usable for very long delay or looping).

Period and tape, look at a Roland RE-301 or 501 Chorus Echo - sound on sound determined by tape length and motor speed.

^^