So, I've never been all that great or knowledgeable about guitar effects, pedals, etc since I mostly play acoustic and don't really ever use any effects besides some reverb here and there.

That said, I was wondering if those of you who are talented enough to deduce what sort of effects are being used could help me figure it out for this track:

A Silver Mt. Zion - Sit in the Middle of Three Galloping Dogs
http://youtu.be/T_Mot5iGloY

I am curious about the background rhythm. I am sort of assuming it is guitar, though it may not be. If it were, my guess would be some sort of delay that's been looped, but I didn't know if there were better assumptions to be made about it. At certain times it changes pitch and speed, so that's what makes me think it is a looped/delayed sound.

Any help?

Could be something like a looped sample, but you can make that noise easily with a tremolo pedal (or an amp with tremolo built in, like my old fender vibrolux reverb reissue, or hell even my mesa dual rectifier combo has it).

Check this demo video

Tremolos just turn the volume up and down at whatever speed / depth you tell them. That's my guess anyway.

Definitely some trem.
Probably a little bit of delay and chorus in there too, from the sound of it.
Maybe a little bit of overdrive/distortion, but that one I'm not as sure about.
Oh, and almost certainly some amp reverb.

I think the reason I stayed away from the tremolo idea was because it was just way too consistent. Maybe I don't understand tremolo well enough, but if you don't strum at the exact same time each time, you're not going to get that consistent of a sound. Is that incorrect?

At work, so I can't watch the demo right now.

No, you can adjust all the parameters of the tremolo, depending on the pedal you have. For example, I have the Keeley modded version of the Boss TR-2 which looks like this:



Its pretty easy to reach down and make a quick adjustment if your strumming is "out of time" with the trem you are using.

If mean that the sound is the exact same volume for each pulse of sound, for like 5 minutes straight, then yeah that's a little harder to do. Shitloads of distortion and compression help, or a sampler pedal could do it too. Sampler looping a strummed chord, then into the tremolo... that would do it.

Now that I actually listened to the song, I'm pretty sure that's just a delay on infinite repeat after the trem.

I was leaning toward this with the option that it could also be sampled and looped. That said, there is a pitch change to it as well as a speed change. Speed could be delay, but do delay pedals have pitch controls on them as well? Or could you just run it through another pedal that can affect the pitch of the looped or delayed sounds?

Sorry if these are all newbie-type questions. I really know almost nothing but some basics about these types of pedals and effects.

If you adjust the delay time on a delay pedal while it is in the middle of a delay, yes it will change the pitch. Or, if you are in an infinite repeat, you can sit there and adjust the pitch gradually like he does in that one section of the song using the delay time knob.

Sweet. Thanks, bros.

Ok, get out there and start making some semi-shitty music!