The Math Behind The Edge’s Guitar Sound
I love the sound of Edge’s guitar as much as any U2 fan. I must confess though, I do not know a thing about playing the instrument. It seems there is more to his signature sound than meets the ear. So fans and musicians may find this piece as fascinating as I did.
It seems we must turn to math to get the explanation that even Edge himself may not realize. It is written by a guitarist with a math degree.
Like so many of us, he was captivated by Edge’s sound from the beginning. He explains that the signature delay sound that he is known for did not appear as early as the Boy album. We saw hints of it in War, but it was The Joshua Tree that Edge’s style really blossomed or to use the author’s words, he had “blown it wide open.”
He then goes on to explain using math just how Edge gets that sound. While I confess I didn’t quite understand it all, I found it very interesting. So U2 fans, guitarists, and yes, even math geeks, take a look at this and enjoy!
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Hmm… not quite sure where to begin. This piece is full of non-sense. Yes music is math so whenever Edge plays with his trade-mark dotted eigth delays, there will be a formula that calculates the ms. Fantastic discovery.
However … no delays on Boy? Seriously? “A day without me” anyone? Not until Joshua Tree did Edge’s delay blossom? What about Pride? What about Bad? What about Wire? None of these songs would have existed without clever, and heavy, use of delay.
Evidence: this interview in Guitar World … http://www.guitarworld.com/article/the_edge_memory_man
“Chimerical and chiming, echoey and evocative, it came into existence with no evident beginning. Even on U2’s debut, 1980’s Boy, the Edge’s cascading guitar textures are in full bloom. Armed with just a Gibson Explorer and a Memory Man echo unit, the guitarist lashed out at parochial attitudes about what rock should sound like and what it could communicate.”
“GW: At what point did you discover that you had some sweet skills with the echo pedal?
THE EDGE: We were cutting some of our early demos when we got our first Memory Man echo unit. By then we’d been playing together for a couple of years and were looking for ways to colorize the sound, to bring something more than just the flat aesthetics of the band playing together. Within minutes, I was drawn not only to the textural qualities of the echo but also the rhythmic possibilities that it suggested. As we are essentially a three-piece outfit with a lead singer, it was very useful to be able to create multiple rhythms.”
Edge doesn’t use math, he uses his ears.
While I agree that U2′s early music does in fact utilize the echo unit, it doesn’t make the entire piece “non-sense.” The main idea of the article is more about finding the key to Edge’s unique sound, not trivial matters of the precise dates Edge used or didn’t use his echo. The author doesn’t imply that Edge writes out a mathematical formula to create his sound, but when the author did so, he came to a very interesting conclusion-that what it almost always comes down to that “magical” number “e,” which has great significance (apparently) in the math world. Very interesting (and SENSICAL) read.
As both a math teacher and a huge U2 fan, that was both extremely interesting and entertaining. Thanks!
I’m not good at math and my guitar skills fall flat. Explains it.
I’ll stick to writing
Edge’s sound has everything to do with delay. And delay times are mathematical.
Delay is a big part of The Edge’s guitar tone but the real ‘secret’ to The Edge’s guitar sound is his imagination.
A lot of guitar tone comes from one’s hands. So I’d say that the three key ingredients of The Edge’s guitar sound are:
1) His imagination = 1.
2) Hands. His attack and approach to the instrument.
3) His use of delay effects and dual delay.
I saw Edge play with Daniel Lanois at Lanois show in Hollywood in 2003. Edge played a LP Custom plugged in to a EH Deluxe Memory Man delay plugged into a vintage AC30 amp — That’s all — and He STILL sounded like The Edge.
As a mediocre guitarist, I find that it’s pretty easy to play along with U2 records and get the notes right. This is what is so amazing about the Edge’s guitar work — it’s the easiest thing to learn the notes by ear, but it sounds nothing like U2 or the Edge until you get the delay or echo right. It feels so — lifeless and flat. And then all of a sudden you accidentally stumble across that magic setting on the delay and now you can play U2 songs and you sound like the Edge and you and your guitar just seem to come to life and your guitar fills with spirit. It’s amazing when that happens, and you close your eyes, and now you’re the Edge and you’re on a stage and you can imagine Bono to your right and Adam over there, and Larry just behind you. If you get the delay of just a tiny bit, you fall out of that zone. But when you’re in the zone, you’re your hero.
I agree w/ Thijs’s final conclusion: “he doesn’t use math, he uses his ears”.
He goes by the sound, and figures out how to write down the music later. His guitar techs have said they know exactly how (technically) he plays the songs, but no one else can get the same sound out of his guitar. His genius is in the instinctive execution, not mathmatecal formulas. The math comes in the analysis after a song is recorded. That’s why he IS The Edge.
too much thinking, These guys started out as punk rockers, and they really haven’t changed, they’re still the same, just with more toys. And maybe a little more grown up. Check out this post I just wrote up on the song I Will Follow.
Conor