Recreating The My Bloody Valentine 'Only Shallow' Lead Sound With Pedals 

Sound On Sound article: www.soundonsound.com/techniques/classic-tracks-my-bloody-valentine-only-shallow

I know most people think it sounds like a vacuum cleaner, but am I the only one who hears an elephant instead?

Amazing how nothing makes sense separately, but it all comes together when you play everything in the context of the mix. Great job!

unironically my roommate is currently vacuuming and that sound just synced up and vacuum sound is totally correct.

Great job dude. I’ve always wondered what exactly that high-pitched riff was doing. When I heard you play it on its own I thought “ah nah that doesn’t sound quite right” but you totally proved me wrong when you put it all together. It was spot-on. I’ve subbed as a result (and because you asked nicely without being obnoxious about it haha)

i like how i've been listening to mbv for a decade and I never heard truly what all the layers where doing til just now. That double-speed octave guitar emerged outta nowhere to me!

How the sound was achieved ???………Why, by bankrupting Alan McGhee of course 😂😂😂

I have went through my life just thinking it was reverse reverb all this time....what a noob!! Great video.

The number one effect to achieve true MBV tone is VOLUME!

Dude, this is excellent. Sounds spot on, and I love that you explain the concepts and thought process so anyone could give this a shot in their own application, without necessarily having these specific pedals.

Incredible. Whole time I just thought it was one basic lead with some fuzz on it and maybe a bit of tremolo in post!

holy sh*t, this is incredibly close. I always thought that super high part was a synthline, I'm blown away.

What a genius Kevin Shields is and also his use of alternative tunings. That was very impressive you figuring out how Kevin did that "vacuum" guitar sound. Great job! 👍👏👏👏

May I ask how you did the chromatic aberration effect at 0:35 with the channels animating like that? After effects wiggle on "set channels"? Or is there an easier way?

believe it or not i think most of the sound is generated from the interplay of the tuning and the whammy-bent chords- there is some reverse reverb/delays too but he gets this sound however he chooses to play its just his style

Superb experiment! I think you got it. It’s amazing how he (and you, here) managed to create such a rich and complex sound with just simple guitar parts and great sonic imagination.

After watching this I feel pretty confident in my ability to “*dut dut dut dut* VREEEE VRROOOMM VRREEEE VRRROOMMMM”

Great job, so nailed it! VCR filter looks so bad ass in your vid’s man 🤘🏼

I always new the mic had to be farther away but I never new about the quadro tracking tremolo bit and that the high part was actually a completely different part. I think on the record that high part has more reverb on it to blend itself in

I’ve been chasing this since ‘91. You totally nailed it. Thanks for sharing!

Dude You need 500.000 brit pounds to get close sound lol

I saw them back in the early 90's....loads of AKAI samplers (rack units...not MPC's). Pedals were not a big part of it.

what were your settings for the clean rhythm part? it sounds so amazing

Interesting that Johnny Marr did the same trick with running multiple amps with tremolo at different speeds to achieve the iconic tone in "How Soon is Now"?

No pun intended, but it seems as if Kevin 'shields' his tone and ranks among some of the best kept secrets like original recipe KFC and Coke. But, you're right there! Only thing I would suggest would be to come back and revisit this tone when you got some of that ridiculous RU-vid money, and seek out all the original equipment he used (i.e. gear that was made before late 1991), and then you'll be able to absolutely nail it!! Sounds amazing by the way, happy chasing!

This is wicked cool - ya nailed it. Love the CT5 bits. Such an amazing sounding track/album too.

I love this! It gives me ideas about stuff I can try with my own music that never occurred to me before… different approaches to getting sounds. This was great!

We used to try to copy Kevin's sound for fun back in the mid 90s. I got pretty close with just a boss delay pedal set to reverse gate, and strumming with the guitar's tremolo arm in my hand. The guitar mags at the time said he didn't use distortion or many other pedals.

Nice!!! Great job reconstructing that riff, that was very impressive!

Man this is impressive. Between your talent and hard work you nailed this. Hope you can make a career from music

I can’t unhear the upper octave in the original recording now

That "Wall of Sound" ™ Phil Spector, is righteous 💠

please do more My Bloody Valentine!

This is so damn accurate, amazing job on all the research, and the actual recreation, sounds insanely close and epic!

I think you did great.

this seems so unnecessarily complicated, but the song does slap so i guess he was right

great! but i think Shields used a reverse reverb. there´s a lot of articles about it.

The CT5 is such a rad pedal. I love using it as a multi tap delay with octaves (kinda like a Reverse reverb but with Shimmery octaves.) Also, this kinda reminds me of a part in “Just like you imagined” by nine inch nails.

Really nice work, and I appreciate the explanation. I also really enjoyed the sounds you got on your video on putting together a little shoegaze board with 5 pedals (and your Bowie/Fripp/Eno Heroes vid too). I heard a fantastic live performance of this song by the band Shiner (ru-vid.com/show-UCTYAyCBH8LcSObFbmyqaDKg) in 2002, I think (in Houston), played as 2 guitars, bass and drums. I remember thinking it was pretty spot on and being impressed by how close they got it in a live setting (but perhaps one is more forgiving for a live rendition by a different band). I'm curious what they used. They did both have good-sized pedalboards, but I don't remember any of what they used (and I had not gotten into much effects use and knowledge myself yet, so would not have recognized much). It's possible they used some type of looping, since such devices were out by then (I saw a show around the same time where Joseph Arthur performed solo with an acoustic guitar but got a full band and electric sound using loops and effects and would even put the guitar down and paint at times while singing over the loops), but I don't remember loops being part of their other songs (though it's possible I just didn't realize). It's interesting to think about considering all the parts and the reverse doubling that Kevin Shields speaks of and you needed to replicate the sound. I do remember being inspired enough by the performance to pick out the different parts on my own later, but I had no idea about the reverse part or the different tremolo rates. I remember wanting to see MBV when they came through Houston 10 years or so before that, touring with Dinosaur Jr. I wasn't able to make it, I can't remember why, I did see a lot of great shows back in those days. Little did I realize that would have been my last opportunity to see them (until reforming, I guess, but I still haven't seen them).

Bravo! so many whacky individual sounds to create that crazy squealing wah sound we love

so fucking cool

this is awesome, subscribed, would love to see more of this (always been curious about the layers in when you sleep)

What colour is your Jazzy? Looks great! And awesome work on the youtube vids.

this is incredible, i've been wondering what that noisey high-pitched ringing deep in the mix was and i had no idea it was a sampled guitar. great work!!!

I kept switching between this and the song on Spotify it sounds exactly the same

When MBV began playing out live again, I wonder if Kevin relied on sampling for this part of the song. Seems rather impossible to truly capture and process with a couple amps.

Subbed great video. More of this of these unique processing’s techniques

Incredible reverse engineering. Certainly deepens my admiration of the original also.

Wow that's very impressive. You pretty much nailed it - my only thought is, to me it sounds like the rhythm guitar also has a very dirty CHUG CHUG CHUG (tremelo) sound to it and only the bass is clean. But I couldn't have figured out the rest of what you did so obviously I could be wrong.

I think it sounds less like the album and more like the live versions; which is absolutely magical. Nice work!

I think it sounds less like the album and more like the live versions; which is absolutely magical. Nice work!

Wow dude sounds super close to my ears! Really impressive

This was absolutely beautiful. Thanks man! You’ve earned a subscriber!

You're like Quincy md but with more cool songs and less dead bodies

All of the elements sound wrong, but then put them together....

Just I want to say: perfect discover 💪

Premium shoegaze content!

did not expect to see a fuckin model t lol good shit

Omfg that was amazing

Congrats man. Really nice freaking job!

So rad! Thanks for walking us through that, I think it sounds awesome! 🌊🏄‍♂️☀️🌵

Awesome job, I wasn't expecting you to get that close. Also, your Jazzmaster is a beauty. I bet you spent a lot of time the first few days after you got it just staring at it and marveling at how gorgeous it is!

I've always wondered how they created that sound. Amazing work.

Amazing, can i do the same on a zoom Multistomp 50g and the Daw on bandlab

great work. great insight. cheers!

You have a nice sound collection going of course. Bravo!😊

Absolutely incredible. The high octave part really was that secret ingredient

what was your setup for the rhythm parts? sounds great

Just use a vacuum duh

this is great content, love it.

What you use pedal?

Nice Work! WooF!!🐶🐶

Very nice work!

That's damn close.

The best MBV recreation out there, keep it up

Excellent work

This is awesome, well done.

Pretty accurate sounding and it actually reminded me of elephants 🐘.

Its like hearing the original song but remastered. Amazing

Super cool!

For any one wondering how to get that reverse sound with a pedal or any others live means shields doesn't actually use a reverse reverb. Its actually a effect in an old Yamaha rack called early reflections (which is like a roomy faux reverb) on the reverse setting (which reverse the decay of the delay) then running that into a preamp stage (alot of people say reverb into fuzz but it's actually fuzz into reverb and then into a hi gain amp). Dome pedals I've found to get the sound are multi-tap delays capable of reverse decay think EHX hazari memory man.

heres the problem with this setup: all the guitars on Loveless were recorded in mono

The Soma is an interesting choice.It's wild card in the Greer catalog, and gets some radical sounds.The Benson is ,IMO, lacking as far as Germanium Fuzzes go; more of a job for a Zvex Vertical or Fat Fuzz Factory. Highly recommend the Hudson Broadcast for a huge range of sounds that can cut through a mix, and if you want unique and over the top, the Beetronics Vezzpa, Swarm, and Zombee.

this was great and thanks for sharing the article i enjoyed it

Sounds fucking awesome dude! well done!

Saw them twice in Philadelphia in 92, I believe. Was warned about the strobe light ending and massive volume but was undeterred. It was true. Almost had to hold your ears and close your eyes at the very end.

lol there are countless people still chasing basic (but good) lead and rhythm tones from 30-40 years ago, theres no way in hell anyone is just gonna stumble into the loveless sound

Sounds awesome. Loooooooooong time fan of MBV. You did it justice.

One more story : in August of 2000, at around 930am, we were taking a break at work in downtown Vancouver, I noticed a guy wearing a white Gilligan's Island cap, taking a picture of a building. I approached him and said, "Hey! You're Billy Corgan!" He extended his hand and shook mine and I said to him that I'd recently seen him in a television interview talking about his love of MBV. I asked him how he achieved Kevin's sound and he replied that he used alot of reverb. I countered that I used heavy distortion, playing parallel 4th chords and using the tremelo arm. That was a very cool chance encounter with a very approachable and down to earth guy.

This is neat. Thanks for the breakdown on what i consider the greatest album opener of all-time.

nailed!!!

It looks like you also set the pick up height really low on your jazzmaster. I'm guessing this was also used to help recreate the sound?

sweet. subscribed based on this exercise alone. very cool ...

so cool

Also attempted this year's ago for a cover I did. But I did not know one part was in reverse. Really cool idea, explains a lot. 😅

You are a wizard.

Nice! I think you got super close!

one of ur best yet

Haha I always called them elephants when I first heard it

This was cool!