Robin Guthrie (Cocteau twins) sounds

[Haddock]

I was looking for some insights to get a "Cocteau Twins" chorus-heavy kind of sound, and Google led me to http://www.cocteautwinsforums.com, their official forum.

There I found posts from Robin Guthrie; here's for example what he says of the sound of Pitch the Baby (on "Heaven or Las Vegas"):

ok.. the pulsating stuff : was my green paul reed smith guitar (cause I did most of holv with it and my '59 jazzmaster) played through a gallien kruger preamp straight into the board. this was then treated with a lexicon 480L (pitch shifted +10 cents and -10 cents to make it stereo) and delayed with a yamaha d1500 in sync with the bpm of the track.. next the fun bit .. I inserted a drawmer ds201 dual noise gate over the stereo guitar and triggered it externally from click track playing 16th notes... then I rerecorded the track back from tape through a cry baby wah-wah which I moved manually (Ie with my hands) ..

next: the clean guitars - same guitar through a tom sholtz rockmodule preamp into the board, a little roland dimension d and same yamaha delay....
and the bass was a '57 precision played through a nomad bass box.....

sorry not to be more specific...
oh, and there are no synths....

Is this guy cool or what ?

[mjet]

Is this guy cool or what ?

The answer to this question is "Yes".

[Stereordinary]

Holy freaking crap, I couldn't do that if I tried.  I haven't a clue what he's talking about!    What a genius.   Mr. Guthrie.

[dc]

Is this guy cool or what ?

cool, and prolific! he's got another album coming out this Tuesday:

http://www.amazon.com/3-19-Bande-Origin ... 305&sr=8-2


 

[daydreamdelay]

yeah robin is really good about explaining how he goes about getting sounds.. and how to beware those who wear anoraks

[fuzzjunkie]

Robin was also fond of doubling Flangers rather than using chorus pedals and separating them in stereo with a short delay. In the early days his tones were mostly EH pedals like the Big Muff and Electric Mistress before he graduated to the likes of Lexicon, AMS and Eventide for the high end studio sounds of Heaven or Las Vegas.

a singer song writer in Austin had a rehearsal space next door to ours and she'd point a microphone at the wall between and record us on her Portastudio as she loved the ethereal sound coming through. ermm, we did play LOUD. 

One day when everyone was taking a smoke break outside she confessed this and asked what sort of synthesizer we used so she could get the same sounds...but there were no synths! 

c'est l'morte might have some clues as well, but I'll post some of my 'Twins settings next.

[fuzzjunkie]

Cocteau Twins type patches:

All these are on my old Roland GP-16, a unit Robin used to get guitar sounds for the album he produced for Lush and also used by bands like Ride, the Psychedelic Furs and either Catherine Wheel or Chapterhouse (I forget whose rack I saw it in). Basically it's a box with 16 Boss pedals, some analog, digitally linkable in almost any order.

1) Distortion-Compressor(trying to emulate a Big Muff before I actually owned one)-Phaser(set deep and slow)-Short delay(doubling the signal at 32ms)-Flanger(set low and slow)-Long delay(in time with music from 250-375ms *controlled by expression pedal as there was no tap tempo back then)

2) Flanger(set low and slow)-Short delay(32-36ms)-Dimension D(faster setting like 3 or 4)-Reverb(small room)-Long Delay(500-750ms*)

3) Phaser(set low and fast}-Bandpass Filter(set as slow auto-wah w/ LFO matched to bpm*)-Reverb(small hall)

4) Pitchshift (+10 and -10 with 16ms delay=natural chorus sound)-Long delay(250ms-375ms*)-Tremolo(set low and slow)

as you can see, any 2 modulators into a delay will get you in the ballpark...especially if one is a Dimension D! We used to send #3 through a Maestro Rhythm 'n' Sound to chop it up and it was quite close to "Pitch the Baby." Most of the patches also had a noise gate to keep the swooshing to a minimum between songs.

[Pingu]

I was looking for some insights to get a "Cocteau Twins" chorus-heavy kind of sound, and Google led me to http://www.cocteautwinsforums.com, their official forum.

There I found posts from Robin Guthrie; here's for example what he says of the sound of Pitch the Baby (on "Heaven or Las Vegas"):

ok.. the pulsating stuff : was my green paul reed smith guitar (cause I did most of holv with it and my '59 jazzmaster) played through a gallien kruger preamp straight into the board. this was then treated with a lexicon 480L (pitch shifted +10 cents and -10 cents to make it stereo) and delayed with a yamaha d1500 in sync with the bpm of the track.. next the fun bit .. I inserted a drawmer ds201 dual noise gate over the stereo guitar and triggered it externally from click track playing 16th notes... then I rerecorded the track back from tape through a cry baby wah-wah which I moved manually (Ie with my hands) ..

next: the clean guitars - same guitar through a tom sholtz rockmodule preamp into the board, a little roland dimension d and same yamaha delay....
and the bass was a '57 precision played through a nomad bass box.....

sorry not to be more specific...
oh, and there are no synths....

Is this guy cool or what ?

Awesome, I have too see if I can pull it off with Ableton and Guitar Rig.

[spacecadet]

Robin was also fond of doubling Flangers rather than using chorus pedals and separating them in stereo with a short delay. In the early days his tones were mostly EH pedals like the Big Muff and Electric Mistress before he graduated to the likes of Lexicon, AMS and Eventide for the high end studio sounds of Heaven or Las Vegas.

I've always thought his sounds on that album were really thin.  Much thinner than anything that came before or after.

My favorite sound that he's gotten was the Pink Orange Red era.  Really big and full and distinctively Cocteau Twins.  He got back to that a little bit with Milk & Kisses and even Four-Calendar Cafe (though that is not my favorite album of theirs by a longshot).

[Haddock]

Cocteau Twins type patches:
...

Thanks a lot !

[OffYourFace]

The noise gate meets click track effect is a must try for anyone who's a fan of c twins!  Its really fun!  Its like being 'strapped into' a tremolo effect.  I haven't done it in ages... Since I've used tape machines at home... Years gone by...

[dc]

He got back to that a little bit with Milk & Kisses

no shortage of good sounds on that record, like the noisy swells beginning at 2:10 in "Violane," and the series of soaring riffs from 3:50 of "Treasure Hiding".... 

[SonOfJazzmasterE]

The guy is wonderful.. I understand now he is using a line 6 setup. huh?

[dc]

The guy is wonderful.. I understand now he is using a line 6 setup. huh?

when i saw him with Harold Budd last year in Seattle, he was running his signal through a laptop. it wasn't working properly when he took the stage, prompting him to ask the crowd, "is there anyone here from Microsoft?" some guy went up and rebooted it for him while he played the first song more or less dry.

[shadowplay]

Robins a don and a very funny guy.  I think all periods of his work; including the cleaner Gretsch sounds of Violet Indiana; have merit, but for me it's the early stuff that impresses the most.  On Garlands he got the most unearthly sounds out of bog standard equipment (Kawai guitar, wem copicat, HH amp, big muff, clone theory), I remember hearing the album for the first time and hardly having a reference point beyond Final Solution by Pere Ubu having a similar grey scream.  Having said that my own sound is more akin to mid period stuff- the early sounds being intouchable