Pink Floyd - Meddle - Echoes

jimknopf · Post by **jimknopf** » Thu Aug 01, 2013 9:42 am

I haven't played any Pink Floyd stuff for quite a while. Now for a single occasion I will play "Echoes" from the album "Meddle".

I learned there are some in here who do Pink Floyd stuff regularly. Has anyone of you tried the Echoes intro sound on a Kronos? As far as I know, it is simply a Piano through fast Leslie and reverb/delay.

Niarf · Post by **Niarf** » Thu Aug 01, 2013 3:56 pm

I did this sound with a few tuning with a nord stage 2, a leslie and a little drive ^^

I will try it on he Kronos, it should be easy too

Dniss · Post by **Dniss** » Thu Aug 01, 2013 4:23 pm

The Kronos pianos with the leslie effects (any of them) don't sound like it should.

I have no idea why. These two combined should give you that Echoes intro sound or at least be very close, but it's not even near.

I've ended up doing it without the use of the Kronos. If you guys figure it out, plz let me know.

Regards,

Den

Ksynth · Post by **Ksynth** » Thu Aug 01, 2013 8:17 pm

That's a pretty old and lame sound now. Why not just do your own interpretation?

jimknopf · Post by **jimknopf** » Thu Aug 01, 2013 8:58 pm

I do my own interpretation of other songs and am no classical coverband player.

But this sound is not lame at all from my view: it begins high pitched and is then used for some chord play, and it fits exactly into the sonic and text context of sea and air, just like David Gilmours reversed plugged wah effect later on. This Pink Floyd song definitely has well expressed Mediterranean coast flair, as I know from many visits in Southern France.

The only lame sounding thing was my first effort to get this sound on a Kronos, just as described by Dniss. So I hoped for a hint from one of the people who perhaps reproduce Pink Floyd sounds on a Kronos more frequently than I do. So far it sounds like some work to do on the Kronos, if there is a chance at all.

Dniss · Post by **Dniss** » Fri Aug 02, 2013 12:53 am

Ksynth wrote:Why not just do your own interpretation?

Pink Floyd is not like BTO where anything pretty much goes. People knows these songs too much. IMO, that is.

Vlad_77 · Post by **Vlad_77** » Fri Aug 02, 2013 9:43 am

It's not an old lame sound. Some songs - and the sounds, chords, etc., associated with them are iconic. That opening chord to A Hard Day's Night is the signature piece of that song as is the Mellotron flute in Strawberry Fields Forever. Jon Lord's work with virtually any Deep Purple song is distinctly his.

Just out of curiosity, what defines old and lame? Is a piano old and lame? A violin? A guitar? A harp? Just trying to get at what old and lame means here.

Jim: I was listening to the beginning over and over again and while I have not tried it yet, it sounds like it could be a B3 run through some delay and the Leslie set VERY fast and the B3 played very high. The envelope sounds more organ than piano - especially the sustain and release.

X-Trade · Post by **X-Trade** » Fri Aug 02, 2013 4:58 pm

I've done this sound quite well before with the triton piano samples which are quite compressed already.

I'd recommend running the Japanese Grand through Korg's compressor effect (the dynamic one) and tuning that for a kind of vintage hard comp feel, like you might use for a really snappy EP sound.
Then pass that to the Rotary+OD effect perhaps. I always use a lot of Early Reflections too with rotary sounds as the room can be a big (but subliminal) part of the sound.

I have yet to do that sound myself on the Kronos though.

I do also feel it is a fairly iconic sound. Rick was going for a kind of submarine feel with the high notes (e.g. sonar sound), which works really well. Also Pink floyd as a whole from this era have a very distinctive sound and it really is all about the sounds as they were only really beginning to experiment and pay attention to such aspects of music around that time with the rapid increase in available technology. There are just some recordings that I would not even consider re-interpreting at all.

SeedyLee · Post by **SeedyLee** » Sat Aug 03, 2013 11:03 am

You could always sample it? It is a very distinctive sound and not as easy to recreate as might be expected.

jimknopf · Post by **jimknopf** » Sat Aug 03, 2013 1:27 pm

Resampling would only work for the first high pitched notes and not for the rest.

I will look at it as a challenge, perhaps taking some time, and the occasion I need it for is some months ahead.

SeedyLee · Post by **SeedyLee** » Sat Aug 03, 2013 2:27 pm

I might give it a bash as well - Echoes is one of my favourite songs after all

watermelon · Post by **watermelon** » Sat Aug 03, 2013 5:27 pm

I think rick wright only use a higher note of the deep rythmic organ he
use for echoes and just hit it very quickly

DH56 · Post by **DH56** » Sat Aug 03, 2013 6:06 pm

I watched the Echoes Part 1 bit from the "Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii" DVD and Rick is playing a grand piano during the opening, switching to a B3 later. Not that the Pompeii vid is any proof of anything, as it is an odd assortment of live shots juxtaposed with studio shots, the lads having breakfast, and fooling around in the studio and so forth.

The highlights have to be watching the late Rick Wright singing a demo of "Us and Them" (sans tap delayed echo) and playing piano, and Roger Waters fooling around with a couple of VCS3's during the "Dark Side of the Moon" sessions.

I am always taken aback when someone uses the term "lame" to describe an iconic (thanks Vlad...great term to describe the tunes I grew up with) sound. Keep in mind that these experimental type sounds were done in the late 60's and early 70's and were quite cutting edge for that time.

We know that the Mellotron produced its sounds from an 8 second tape loop and does sound quite dated today, but does that make any of the Mike Pinder sounds or Tony Banks haunting intro to "Watcher of the Skies" any less magnificent? Or how about the VCS3 apegg's in "On The Run?"

Old? Yes of course. But I think "lame" was just a poor choice of words to describe a particular sound, no matter how old it is and what was used to make it.

Hope you pull it off Jim. What a great long song from 1971.

On a side note, there are some fantastic PF tunes on the immediate follow up to Meddle and precursor to DSOTM, the highly underrated "psuedo soundtrack" to the film "La Vallee", on early 1972's "Obscurred By Clouds."

The gold is in them there hills mates!

watermelon · Post by **watermelon** » Sat Aug 03, 2013 6:37 pm

there is a kind of sound that can do the deal,it's a percussion organ,as i guess
this high note is percussive,the attack is very straight and the decay is very
short...But as you said,it doesn't sound like a piano to my hears

jimknopf · Post by **jimknopf** » Sat Aug 03, 2013 9:10 pm

Basic facts about this song can be found at various resources and are pretty well summarized here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echoes_%28 ... yd_song%29
and here:
http://pinkfloyd.wikia.com/wiki/Echoes

Echoes has been my all time favorite Pink Floyd song of all their albums since many years, though it does not belong to the most well known ones.