What effect(s) are on this solo?

[Willabe]

I think I've heard a guitar treated like this before, can't recall on what.

It kinda sounds like they recorded the signal on 2 tracks with a distortion pedal on 1 track and have reverse reverb with delay on the 2nd track? But this was recorded in '77. Not sure they had reverse reverb back then?   

Solo starts at ~2 minutes.

! No longer available

[tubenit]

I vote flanger and distortion pedal.  Flanger could account for the wah like notch in tone and the odd warble/swell.

[Willabe]

Hmmm, interesting. 

[HotBluePlates]

It kinda sounds like they recorded the signal on 2 tracks with a distortion pedal on 1 track and have reverse reverb with delay on the 2nd track? But this was recorded in '77. Not sure they had reverse reverb back then?

I'm sick right now so my hearing isn't at its best, but I hear the effect you're most interested in (the "reverse reverb").

I believe the main guitar is phase + distortion.

A lot can be done in a studio that can't be directly replicated later. The Hendrix backwards solos were done by physically flipping the tape over on the tape recorder, so the rest of the track is backwards while you're playing/tracking the solo. You develop the solo with the song playing forward, and track a take. Then you flip the tape, and learn your solo backwards; print a track of you playing the solo with the rest of the track playing backwards. Then you flip the tape again, the rest of the track is playing normally and the solo is now backwards.

Reverse Reverb is done the same way, except you're printing the signal from your reverb onto a track. Normally, you wouldn't print any effects onto tape until you're doing a 2-track mix of the song (this being the old days when 8-track recording was a luxury, much less 16- or 24-track).

I'm not convinced the sound on the track is reverse reverb, per se (but again, I can't hear well now). A different approach would be to print reverb to a track, but use the mixing board's send-level (an effects send, but often for reverb in older studio installations) to control signal level sent to a plate or chamber reverb. If the signal sent to the reverb is heavy compressed to remove the attack, and if there's no dry signal to go with a plate reverb (which can tend to swell anyway), you can get sounds as heard on that song.

The swell reverb may include some means of delay or regeneration for the signal being be fed to the reverb, which would account for some of the metallic build-up of the sound. Or it could be some feedback of the reverb output back to the input, with the effect being "played at the desk" by manipulating send and feedback levels.

So in a nutshell, I think there's a 2nd guitar/effect track happening alongside the solo itself, with only the reverb being printed, possibly composed of compression and delay of guitar signal maybe with feedback of the reverb. Using the studio as an instrument is my vote...

[Willabe]

The swell reverb may include some means of delay or regeneration for the signal being be fed to the reverb, which would account for some of the metallic build-up of the sound. Or it could be some feedback of the reverb output back to the input, with the effect being "played at the desk" by manipulating send and feedback levels.

So in a nutshell, I think there's a 2nd guitar/effect track happening alongside the solo itself, with only the reverb being printed, possibly composed of compression and delay of guitar signal maybe with feedback of the reverb. Using the studio as an instrument is my vote...

Hmmm, metallic sound is there, verb and maybe short/slap back delay, compression on verb, regeneration of verb, all seems/sounds very possible.

When Tubenit said flanger, regeneration came to mind/ear.

With what your describing maybe that's why it kinda sounded like reverse reverb?   

[HotBluePlates]

I don't really know.

It seemed to me that after the first swell-in, there was a moment where the reverb sound was either after the direct-solo part and/or not the same note. I clued into that earlier, and it what made me think the reverb part was an atmospheric effect added separately from the solo itself.

The reverb also sounds to me like it could be done with "slide scrapes" where there's a good bit of sliding notes around but few directly-picked parts. Meanwhile, the main solo part sure sounds like picked, fretted notes.

[jojokeo]

To me I keep hearing a wah going on at certain parts that doesn't seem cyclical like a flanger or phaser but it's possible to have a very light phase going on and adding some wah also?

[Willabe]

 

[uki]

Also we may be hearing a very soft tape echo, the wahwah looks like it is an auto one, with the peak fired by sensibility, doesn't sounds like a manual wahwah.

[Willabe]

Songs from 1977, I don't think auto wahs were invented yet?

[Ritchie200]

Here you go.  Set it for single repeat with long swell time.  PAIA had a kit for a pedal like this one back in the early 70's.  I remember because I built it thinking I could sound like Jimi.  It would be great to have today to record with but was impossible to use live back then so I sold it.  If PAIA was selling a kit back then, I'm sure it was well within the capability of any decent studio.

Jim

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCWECmTX9dE

[Willabe]

Huh.     

[HotBluePlates]

I found a vintage-correct effect which could do this sound (and others):

Electro-Harmonix Attack Decay

Maestro also made a unit called the Envelope Modifier which could do reverse-tape-like swells, but I couldn't find convenient audio for it...