Tag: electro harmonix

How to Sound like The Cure & RObert Smith with guitars and pedals (on a budget)

Boys Don’t Cry

When Robert Smith wrote “Boys Don’t Cry” along time ago, he was singing about love issues but these days some boys who play guitar might want to cry because they are trying to achieve the guitar tones of the Cure but just can’t figure out how to do that. Luckily with this guide you will be sounding just like the Cure and other Gothic groups in no time. Read on to find out more.

Guitars

Robert Smith plays many very different and very guitars. He has an arsenal of very sick guitars including a Fender Jazzmaster, a Gibson Chet Atkins country Gentleman, an Ibanez AE300 acoustic and a Gibson Custom Shop SG. These guitars are all very cool and have different sizes, shapes and colors…the only thing they have in common is that they are too expensive for the guitarist on a budget. But that’s no problem.

While guitars may have many different looks to them, they all sound pretty much the same, so it’s best to just get a budget guitar, such as this Blue Davison Guitar. At an unheard of, very cheap price, who could resist buying one of these sweet Davison rock machines? If you get one of these you will be sounding like the Gothic arpeggios of the Cure in no time.

Amps

In order to amplify the electric signal that come from guitar, you have to plug them into an amp. This makes the sound of the guitar get loud. If you play without plugging in, it is too quiet to hear and will not sound cool. According to Equipboard, RObert uses a very cool array of amps such as the Roland Jazz Chorus, the Roland Cube, and the Marshall Bluesbreaker. All great amps to achieve tones such as “Friday I’m in Love” “The Holy Hour” “One Hundred Years” “the Love Cats” and “A Forest” however they all cost a pretty penny and are not affordable machiens to buy.

Why not try this little Vox AP2AC. At a extremely unbeatable price, it’s the ultimate amp to sound like the Cure in headphones. It won’t play out loud, only through headphones, but that’s all you really need for now. If you get hired by big venues to play for them, they will provide the amps so you don’t need your own. This will get you towards sounding like the Cure.

 

Pedals

Robert Smith is known for using many many pedals. He famously used Flangers, Phasers and Delay from Boss and Electro-Harmonix. The classic pedals that he used include the Boss PH-2 Phaser, the Electric Mistress Flanger, The Boss BF-2 Flanger, the Boss DD-3 Delay and the Electro-Harmonix Memory Man delay. These are pretty cool pedals but way too expensive and why would you pay so much money just to play a pedal?

We reccomend instead the ammoon Kokko Overdrive pedal.

Overdrive is a rock effect that makes guitar sound dirtier and more rock sounding. Because the Cure is a rock band, this is a perfect pedal to achieve their sounds. Also, at the unbeetable price it’s at, it might be one of the cheapest and best pedals to ever be released. Don’t waste time or money on the Boss or Electro-Harmonix pedals.

 

Conclusion

Sounding like the Cure is not a easy task. However, with this guide, sounding like them just got a whole lot easier.

Getting the Animal Collective Tone (On a Budget)

Welcome to the Jungle


Ever since I heard Animal Collective’s “Strawberry Jam” I wanted to sound like them. It’s a great album that sounded very good and unique to my ears. But sounding like Animal Collective is easier said than done. But with the right gear, you can transform from Zero to Hero, in terms of sounding like Animal Collective.

Guitars, guitars, GUITARS

Even though Animal Collective makes different kinds of music than other ones make, they are still a rock band so having a good rock guitar is important. Fender Stratocasters are a standard but can be very very pricey, especially for a model made in America or Japan. The Mexican Strats are more affordable, but still cost around $599 new. Why not go for a Squier Strat? It looks and sounds exactly the same but costs only $199. So why pay more for the exact same thing?

 

Amps

While it’s not clear what Amps the Animal COllective such as Panda Bear and Deakin use it is clear that there are many great amps available on the market today to buy. What about this Boss Katana Amp which is a big loud amp. It can be used to amplify the guitar sound to achieve rock tones, or other instruments such as a keyboard, which Animal Collective use alot, could be plugged in to there to amplify them as well.

Pedals

Animal Collective is the type of band that would definitely use a lot of pedals on stage and in the studio to record their songs. A quick look at Avey’s pedalboard reveals that he uses many, many pedals:

It would not be affordable to buy all the pedals there, as some of them are very expensive and it would be hard to find all of them in one store at one time such as at Guitar Center or Sam Ash. Also many of the pedals are very big so you’d need to be strong to carry them around. Instead, in order to sound like Animal Collective I recommend a good multieffect such as the Electro-Harmonix Tone Tattoo which does Fuzz, Chorus and Delay all in one box there! So you don’t need to get another box! According to EHX the Fuzz part of the pedal “gives you huge metal-flavored distortion that will rock any gig.” and the delay part is good too because they said “Stomp onto the Memory Toy section and you have access to up to 550ms of delay time – plenty for thickening up your solos. ” This pedal is affordable too, it sells for like $210. That’s only abour $70 per pedal effect, which is a very cheap amount for these effects.

This is obviously a good choice of pedal for someone who wants to play rock music, such as Animal Collective.

 

Playing music that sounds like Animal Collective isn’t easy, but with these gear selections your life just got a whole lot easier without breaking the bank.