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Post new topic Shepard Tones on Steel??
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Author Topic:  Shepard Tones on Steel??
Glenn Demichele


From:
(20mi N of) Chicago Illinois, USA
Post  Posted 15 Mar 2021 7:35 am    
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Has anybody tried or succeeded in playing a shepard tone scale on PSG. There's not necessarily any musical application, but it seems possible to fake it. You could do it for sure if you had a split pickup and two volume pedals!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard_tone
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Franklin D10 8&5, Excel D10 8&5, homemade buffer/overdrive, Moyo pedal, GT-001 effects, 2x BAM200 for stereo. 2x GW8003 8" driver in homemade closed-box. Also NV400 etc. etc...
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Bob Womack


From:
Virginia, USA
Post  Posted 15 Mar 2021 8:09 am    
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The problem is that Shepard Tones feature multiple either ascending or descending iterations of a single figure that overlap to allow continuous, seamless repetition. Of course, a guitar by design has a top and a bottom. You could only achieve a Shepard Tone in post-production by assembling your rise on multiple channels of a DAW or multi-track.

The examples of Shepard Tones I've heard have been in musical scores for film or video and I find them really effective. The last time I heard them in a film it was in Dunkirk, and I could feel it literally increasing my stress level.

I suppose the only reason I know about Shephard Tones because I am a sound designer for video and film. Funny, huh?

Bob
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Glenn Demichele


From:
(20mi N of) Chicago Illinois, USA
Post  Posted 15 Mar 2021 11:52 am    
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It's cool that you know what it is. One could do it on steel by playing two notes an octave apart, and glissing up an octave while decreasing the volume of the higher note and simultaneously increasing the volume of the lower note, then instantly move the bar back to where you started and repeat forever.
The trick is how to do the volume thing. Aside from having a different pickup on each of the octave strings, each with its own volume pedal, I could imagine one (or more) of our forumites being able to do it on a standard steel. Using the volume pedal to increase the volume of the lower string while using an incredibly expert blocking technique to progressively block the higher string so its volume drops at a faster rate than you are increasing the volume of the lower string, thereby resulting in a net dropping volume of the higher string.
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Franklin D10 8&5, Excel D10 8&5, homemade buffer/overdrive, Moyo pedal, GT-001 effects, 2x BAM200 for stereo. 2x GW8003 8" driver in homemade closed-box. Also NV400 etc. etc...
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Jim Robbins

 

From:
Ontario, Canada
Post  Posted 15 Mar 2021 6:24 pm    
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I always thought Sneaky Pete's parts on the choruses of Joni Mitchell's "California" had a descending Shepard tone-like quality, especially the second chorus right about 3:00 studio version.
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