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What's that amazing Jonny Buckland Sound?


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Hi Coldplay fans!

 

I wonder if there's any Jonny Buckland fan and guitarist out there who knows what sound Jonny uses as that sustained soundscape/pad like he uses live in Yellow (Live 2012) and Postcards From Far Away (LRLRL)

 

To me it sounds like a overdriven sound with lots delay and reverb. I would not be surprised if he uses an E-Bow to sustain it while he holds his chords, but then E-Bows only goes on one string right? Or maybe he uses some kind of harmonizer.

 

Here is something interesting i found on the internet:

http://www.vibesware.com/

 

I have Marshall jtm45, Fender deluxe reverb amps, Line 6 DL4 delay, Electroharmonix memory man delay, Ibanez tubescreamer, P.O.G 2, Mxr dynacomp.

For guitars I mostly use Fender stratocasters with string gauge 11.

 

Someone who knows this kind of sound?

 

/Patrik

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Those are drones and swells, for both you need delay (better if you use two different delays with long repeats) and reverb, no need for overdrive but you can add them depending on what you may want.

For swells you have to use a volume pedal or the volume knob on your guitar, just put the volume to zero play the chord (don't use too many strings) and lift the volume up and let it sustain.

For drones you have to play very lightly with your fingers two our three strings and just keep playing them for as long as you want the note to sustain (recommend using the neck pickup for these).

Well.. here is a couple of videos that explains it a lot better:

 

Swells:

Drones:

 

Really recommend looking at theses videos if you want to get those sounds.

For the Postcards From Far Away (LRLRL) and the Yellow Live 2012 I think he uses the micro POG as well to get that shimmering sound.

 

Have fun! :D

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That sounds really awesome. It's great to see other ppl being influenced by Jonny's style. I think he can be underappreciated by people who have never tried writing for/playing guitar; and of course it's sometimes assumed that he's just a pretty face and is not remarkably talented. Heheh.

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Yep, people think that just because I guy doesn't play huge guitar rock solos, he is bad. But, it's just that rock solos don't fit in this kind of music, it doesn't mean that he can't do it. I'm sure Jonny is able to play big guitar solos, but for this type of music it's not necessary. Jonny makes so many great riffs that just fit the songs perfectly.

He is a huge influence for me, love the effects and riffs he comes up with.

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Sometimes less is more to me, for example Warning Sign and The Scientist is so nice because they are so minimalistic in some strange way. Of course Jonny has more technical guitar parts like in Major Minus and Shiver but he always finds the right sounds that carries the melody forward :)

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Yeah you're right. I've seen him doing swells without the volume pedal or knob. He probably uses the Auto-volume Echo mode on one of his Line6 DL4.. Works like a charm :)

 

Oh! I have a Line 6 DL4 but I haven't used it for 2 years or something, I always used the tape echo setting only, but I have never tried the auto-volume setting on it, will it give volume sweels? My father gave me this pedal in 2006 when I needed a delay for my Marshall jtm45, I wanted a echoplex tape delay but he gave me the DL4 instead of practical reasons :)

 

I'm glad never sold it, but I do remember that it drains batteries like a beast! I need to build a pedal board and put the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power on there ;)

 

Another cool thing you can use with the POG is the organ sound, If you listen to John Mayer's song "In Repair" you can hear the guitar intro which sounds like an organ, really cool!

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You (Patrik) are a great natural talent and so you could do minimalism or do complicated techniques. Jonny's sound is actually sort of vintage but it is still beautiful. Good thing for Coldplay! Btw I used to sing in a Goth metal band and I did trance songwriting but now I am fascinated with (Canadian and American) country music. Patrik, you are very talented and I like your voice.

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The DL4 uses 4 batteries, so probably not a good idea to use it with the batteries. I have a One Spot power supply, for my pedalboard, they are cheap and they are great!

And the Auto-Volume echo feature works perfectly, it's pretty handy cause you can save this mode in one of the preset switches and just turn it on whenever you need to start swelling.

 

And now I'm sure that Jonny uses it cause I was watching the Live Toronto 2006 yesterday and I could see him turning it on when he starts the swells on Speed of Sound.

 

Yeah POGs are great! Still hope to get one soon or at least a reverb pedal with shimmer mode.

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Eduardo, I like 80's-style guitar solos; favorites are Van Halen (Panama)during the D.L. Roth era, also Bryan Adams. But I can't envision Jonny doing the Van Halen style.

 

Yeah, but that's because it's not his style of music, or at least not Coldplay's style, cause he probably like rock music like those as well. Just cause he doesn't have to play it in Coldplay, doesn't mean he can't do it. He probably plays rock guitar solos when he is just chillin at home or practicing.

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  • 1 year later...

(Tried to post earlier but I think the website was down)

 

Jonny's pedalboard seems to have changed an awful lot recently. He only has the Boss DD5 and Line6 DL4 on his pedalboard and it seems like the rest is controlled by the MIDI pedals.

 

I hope somebody has some Jonny GS/AHFOD tour setlists to share but I took a screenshot of this one from the Nova's Red Room Yellow performance intro:

 

[MEDIA=imgur]a/ujRQY[/MEDIA]

Mobile Link: https://imgur.com/a/ujRQY

 

 

Here is Jonny's current pedalboard for the AHFOD tour (2016):

 

46.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...

I know he likes to use harmonizers like the Micro Pog and Digitech Whammy. I think he has a BigSky reverb, which I know has a Swell "engine" or preset - creates that really looming, blossoming pad sound.

 

Mostly, I just see him looking down and stepping on his volume pedals. Seems like he has an effect or two on a really extreme setting (like the Mix cranked all the way on a reverb) and then controls it with volume pedals.

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  • 2 weeks later...
I know he likes to use harmonizers like the Micro Pog and Digitech Whammy. I think he has a BigSky reverb, which I know has a Swell "engine" or preset - creates that really looming, blossoming pad sound.

 

Mostly, I just see him looking down and stepping on his volume pedals. Seems like he has an effect or two on a really extreme setting (like the Mix cranked all the way on a reverb) and then controls it with volume pedals.

 

I think most of his big reverb and echo swells are coming from high end rack gear these days as opposed to any pedals. To my knowledge, he hasn't actually used a Digitech Whammy since the earliest days of the band (I've seen Parachutes era pedal board photos that seem to have one, but he doesn't on any of his more recent ones.) He also doesn't have an expression pedal for one on his current board (they're labeled for the Echo Pro, the Eventide and a basic volume pedal) That said, he has some of the best top of the line multi effects processors in his live rack, so he could be getting a similar sound through one of those.

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(Tried to post earlier but I think the website was down)

 

Jonny's pedalboard seems to have changed an awful lot recently. He only has the Boss DD5 and Line6 DL4 on his pedalboard and it seems like the rest is controlled by the MIDI pedals.

 

I hope somebody has some Jonny GS/AHFOD tour setlists to share but I took a screenshot of this one from the Nova's Red Room Yellow performance intro:

 

[MEDIA=imgur]a/ujRQY[/MEDIA]

Mobile Link: https://imgur.com/a/ujRQY

 

 

Here is Jonny's current pedalboard for the AHFOD tour (2016):

 

46.jpg

 

I don't think he's controlling it all through the onstage midi switcher since he has them labeled for single effect usage and there aren't enough switches to account for everything he seems to be using these days. There's another midi switcher in his rack, and I would guess that his tech is doing some of the switching through there.

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I remember in Matt McGinn's book he said that the rack units were very rarely used, however that was written back in the Viva era, and the lack of physical pedals would suggest that things have changed a lot since then

 

The pedals are still part of the rig. there are 3 trays worth, so it's safe to assume that there are at least as many as when they were on the board. You can also see what looks like lists of presets for the TC Electronics delay unit and the Eventide chalked onto the panel below the wireless units, which would suggest that they are certainly being used rather amply now. Regardless, he still has to almost certainly be doing something more than his onstage board, because since each button runs one fixed function, that would mean the total number of discreet effects he could access during a gig was only 18 (actually less because he has a mute and a tap tempo listed there) My guess would be that he has onstage access to the stuff he wants to control in real time or experiment with from night to night and the rest is run as presets through the ground control pro which is mounted in the rack.

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  • 3 weeks later...
While on the topic of Jonny's guitar effects, does anyone have any ideas of what he does for the bird sounds in O?

No idea how he does it but he uses his slide to make the bird sounds, which can be seen in the Live 2014 Las Vegas performance. Still, it's interesting to find out how those bird sounds come out of his speakers...

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  • 3 weeks later...
While on the topic of Jonny's guitar effects, does anyone have any ideas of what he does for the bird sounds in O?

 

As you can see in this video its just basically random slide hits. With his left hand he mutes the strings, he is not doing any chords its just so when you hit the guitar with the slide it doesn't ring out unwanted strings.

 

 

 

He also uses a slow delay with modulation to create that echoing of the birds fading away. I believe he might also be using either a shimmer reverb or the micro pog + reverb.

 

Try out those slide hits for yourself, you'll be impressed with the sounds you come up with, even without any effects on.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Going back to the volume pedals, actually only one of them is a volume pedal the rest are all expression pedals. Yes, they are Ernie Ball's Volume Pedals but they are being used as expression pedals using a TRS split cable, to control the feedback of the Echo Pro and Eventide. You can see and hear this effect more clearly when he plays Lost and lets the notes ring out

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjxuccDgfSA.

 

You can see he uses it during the entire song, when he wants the reverb/delay to ring out longer (and give that amazing ambient sound) and to stop it when he wants to, so it doesnt ring out forever and overlap notes.

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