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Pink Floyd "Orca" sound


Andersonology

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A friend of mine plays in a local PF tribute band. One of the songs they're playing has an "orcawhale" sound in it, and he's trying to figure out how to reproduce that sound. As luck would have it, a few weeks ago the Aussie PF band came thru town, and he had backstage passes, so he was able to talk to one of their guitarist about how he recreates that sound. He told my friend that he could either (a) pay Pete Cornish like a thousand bucks to make the pedal he needs, or (b) play thru a wah pedal backwards.

 

Well, when he told me about the wah pedal trick, I tried it, and as I suspected, that did not work at all.

 

So can anyone shed some light on what the guy in the Aussie PF band was talking about? Surely he wasn't just BSing my friend.

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I think I read that in the Guitar World article about Gilmour's gear that a fellow forumite wrote a while ago, that story about a wha pedal plugged backwards for whales/seagulls sounds. Pete Cornish, when he built one of Gilmour's first integrated board, added a switch to reverse the connection of the wha for that particular whale sound effect...

 

maybe it doesn't work with just any wha...

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You plug the guitar cable into the amplifier side and the amp cable into the guitar input side

 

It makes some wierd siren/animal type of sounds when you move it all the way back into the heel position

 

The squealing noises in the middle section (of Echoes) is a reversed Wah Wah. Switch the input and output cables and control the feedback with the upper tone knob on your guitar (bridge pickup position)

 

I dunno. I recall trying this and it didn't work. Maybe you need to combine that with a fuzz face type pedal to get the standard fuzz/wah oscillation going, but with the reverse setup.

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You plug the guitar cable into the amplifier side and the amp cable into the guitar input side


It makes some wierd siren/animal type of sounds when you move it all the way back into the heel position


The squealing noises in the middle section (of Echoes) is a reversed Wah Wah. Switch the input and output cables and control the feedback with the upper tone knob on your guitar (bridge pickup position)


I dunno. I recall trying this and it didn't work. Maybe you need to combine that with a fuzz face type pedal to get the standard fuzz/wah oscillation going, but with the reverse setup.

 

 

That pretty much sounds verbatim what the Aussie guy told my friend. Maybe only certain typesmodels of wah pedals?

 

It seems to me that regardless of what pedal you use, running it backwards is not going to do anything, since there's no signal being passed to the amp, right?

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That pretty much sounds verbatim what the Aussie guy told my friend. Maybe only certain typesmodels of wah pedals?


It seems to me that regardless of what pedal you use, running it backwards is not going to do anything, since there's no signal being passed to the amp, right?

 

It does send a signal, a squeel or singing whale tone if done properly. Obviously w/fuzz or dist.

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It certainly works through a Crybaby - In through the out and out through the in.

 

You get a spot on squeel just like on "Echoes". The trick is in using the tone and volume to control the noise (and the pu selector) - I've only tried it through my Jazzmaster, but it works for me. I think that using a Crybaby is key (It's what DG used, I believe) - def. doesn't work with my Morley.

 

Through a delay and reverb it's a cool little trick. I've used it on a couple of recordings -

 

Not sure about this - but there's a similar effect used on a couple of Twillight Singers songs - Can't remember which ones - (not on the latest record - I think it's used on the covers record) - Sounds like something similar.

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