MauricioBahia
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# jun/09 · Editado por: MauricioBahia
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When you see Howie Day walk out on stage with only an acoustic guitar, you suspect that you're about to hear your typical singer/songwriter performance. A couple of minutes into the set, however, those expectations are thrown out the window as Howie proceeds to create complex interwoven layers of sound from an array of pedals and stomp boxes on the floor in front of him. You hear grooves, bass lines, percussion, and drums. All in all, Howie is creating complete musical sections of a song right before your eyes.
At home, Howie sticks to a simple recording setup that allows him to grab ideas fast. He uses a BOSS BR-1180 8-track recorder with a built-in CD-RW (reviewed November 2002) to capture ideas. Although he started on piano, he keeps his keyboard setup to a minimum. "I have a Roland MC-303 Groovebox that I use for drum parts and keyboard sounds. I just trigger the synth sounds from a cheap MIDI controller, nothing special. I don't have the audio outputs of the MIDI controller even plugged in. All the sounds come from the MC-303. I have my guitar, a bass, and of course, my egg shaker. That's it; a really simple setup."
The unique sounds you hear live are the result of two independent effects chains. One is set up for the guitar, the other for the vocals. A single acoustic guitar gets turned into a bass line, a chord background part, a drum groove, etc. I spoke to Howie via phone, and had a chance to ask him about the methods and tools he uses to create a unique guitar sound. Follow along, and try some of the techniques yourself.
Howie makes good use of the pickup in the acoustic guitar he plays live; no mic is used on the instrument. The guitar of choice of Howie is a Takamine Santa Fe model, a 6-string with a built-in pickup system. The guitar signal chain starts with a tuner and then gets plugged into a Boss OC-2 Octave pedal. Next, the sound goes to a Line 6 DL4 Delay Modeler. This is followed by another delay pedal, a BOSS DD-5. The output of the guitar signal chain goes to a direct box, and then on to the house sound system.
Sections of a tune are built up in layers by using the Line 6 delay box's sample and hold function. With a loop section built up, Howie can jam on top with vocals or additional guitar parts. Howie explains how the effects are used.
"The octave box is used to create bass lines. I usually play a bass part on the guitar first; it gets transposed down an octave. Then the Line 6 DL4 captures the part and repeats it for a verse, or a chorus, etc. That's the solid foundation that I build on. Then I add a second phrase, guitar chords for example. I usually do three or four layers of loops to create a section."
To add a percussive element to the looped grooves, Day also will hit the body of the guitar at various places, playing it like a drum. "If you hit the body of the guitar with your hand it sounds like a bass drum. If you whack the neck of the guitar while deadening the strings, it sounds kinda like a snare drum," he adds. Each new pass gets added to the existing loop parts.
The extra BOSS delay pedal on the end of the signal chain is used when Howie needs to transition to another section or exit the looped section completely. "I use the last delay pedal to let the loop decay a bit more naturally. I only turn it on when I'm stopping an existing loop so that the loop fades out, rather than stopping abruptly."
That is but one of the effects loops, however. The other effects chain is for the vocal. The vocal rig starts with a Shure SM87 microphone that feeds a Behringer 4-channel mixer. "I use the Behringer just to get a preamp for the mic signal," adds Howie. From the mixer the signal goes to another BOSS DD-5 delay pedal. From there is goes to a Boss TR-2 Tremolo. "I use the tremolo pedal to get that old 'Crimson and Clover' fwah-fwah-fwah-fwah underwater vocal sound."
Next in line is a graphic eq pedal. "The eq pedal has the 1.5 kHz pushed all the way up and all the other knobs pulled down to get that phone effect." This chain then feeds another Line 6 delay that is used to create and hold layers of loops. Last in line is another delay pedal that gets used only when needed to transition sections smoothly, just as in the guitar signal chain.
The output of the vocal effects chain goes to a second direct box and then on to the house sound system. It's a fairly simple setup, but the sum total of all the parts is full and quite complete.
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