I have a tough time perfecting my tones. Albiet I'm using a pod xt, ableton, and running back through a PA. I know this is a broad subject but, what are some best practices for creating those atmosphereic/shogaze tones?

Favorite effects combos things like that? I'm curious! Its one of my weakest points as a guitarist!

[swervedriver]

Delay, reverb, and I'm quite partial to a bit of chorus as well. But mainly playing with the first two will give you that open, spacious sound.

What Pim said. Get the reverb and delay to compliment your guitar's direct signal. If not... try playing with some real slow flanger or phasers?

Delay, reverb, and I'm quite partial to a bit of chorus as well. But mainly playing with the first two will give you that open, spacious sound.

^^ listen to him, he knows Swervedriver

Also, you may want to borrow something off Kevin Shields (he is the shoegaziest), like tremolo or reverse reverb effect.

Here's interesting reverse reverb effect with hanfdul of wacky presets. Be warned, though - it's a synthedit made plugin, can be a bit unstable with two instances running at the same moment.

I echo Kevin Shields (echo - see what I did there?) and also would suggest Robin Guthrie as another master of the etheral shimmer.

Rad! Thanks dudes! I'm gonna try out that VST later today. It would be nice to squeeze the maximum potential out of my pod xt. I could possibly run two instances of the signal in Ableton to add some whuump!

This is for recording right, not live application?

Yeah, as stated before a nice reverb and delay go a long way for creating 'that' guitar tone. Remember that your delay should match the tempo of the song whether it's whole note, half, quarter, eighth, triplet, etc.

Be mindful also that a little goes a long way if you are going for a WALL of sound. 4 and more guitars multi-tracked together with reverb, delay, distortion, etc will quickly become a muddy mess if you aren't careful. So be judicious with your gain and your reverb.

Record to a click track and make sure your tracking is tight, tight, tight. That probably goes without saying but bears mention. The more intricate the guitar parts the more it is absolutely crucial to have things in perfect lock-step or it will all go to hell as you layer.

When going with a wall of sound, you can experiment with some slightly different guitar tones as well. I wouldn't get too drastic to start but if you can play with virtual mic placement, different pre-amp sounds and such so to create a thicker overall tone. You can also play with having some tracks that are completely dry with no effects and someone with effects and playing with levels until it sounds good.

Also, a misunderstood but crucial component in achieving this sound is smart use of EQ. You can't just 'scoop the mids' and record with your live sound and expect it to rock. Having those mid frequencies make a major difference in helping the guitar cut through a mix. Remember that each instrument needs to fit into it's own pocket of sound and the goal isn't to get the best guitar tone in the world, it's to get the best sounding mix. So once you have everything recorded it is usually necessary to REPLACE a hi-pass filter on the guitars to cut out low end that just muddies up the bass guitar and kick drum. I personally like the EQ guitar individually and get them sounding good, then I will bus them down to a stereo track and EQ that track with a general EQ that will be a hi-pass and perhaps a gentle shelf in the higher freq ranges. You can create an aux send for these guitars for reverb if that's your thing. I find it easier to add effects onto a dry guitar signal then record wet since it allows for a lot more flexibility. However, it may not sound as good or you may not have the right plug-ins or processing power to do this.

Anyways, good luck and experiment. Try and write something verrrry easy as a demo track and play around with getting a good sound there. Something you know you can track super tight and is dead simple to throw drums on. Then once you are happy, apply that to your real stuff.

BOOYAHH! Nice post dude! I'll def take that into consideration. I'm buying a bass next week too so that bit about the hi-pass filter will be good to dick around with. Thanks buddy!

If you want a very big cleansound for chords (works great if you play chords that ring out for some seconds). Use a combination of compressor/sustainer, chorus and delay (or reverb or both). That comp/sus part of this setup does a lot when adding a wall. It often sound like the guitar is doubled by a synth when the chords ring out or you hold a chord and pluck the strings seperatly.

I like to put a reverb on a delay with high feedback, then put a kind of chorus/tremolo on the echo to make it "swirl". That works well for clean tones, and for a lead you really only need to have a high feedback delay to get the "standing on top of the mountain" sound.

Also, if we're also talking outside of guitar; try feeding a reverb into a reverb into a reverb. Yeah. I did it, sounded awesome for piano.

[swervedriver]

try feeding a reverb into a reverb into a reverb.

try feeding a reverb into a reverb into a reverb.

[swervedriver]

try feeding a reverb into a reverb into a reverb.