Do I Need an E-Bow?

impmann

Sporky said:

Sassafras said:

Damn, that's made me want to get an ebow.
I can finally bin the kazoo.

How are you going to do Final Countdown without a kazoo?

The best way.

Silently.

english_bob

Sporky said:

Sassafras said:

Damn, that's made me want to get an ebow.
I can finally bin the kazoo.

How are you going to do Final Countdown without a kazoo?

I saw this once for real. Open mic night, guy on acoustic guitar and kazoo. Not bad, although clearly meant to be a joke.

AuldReekie

There is no finer master off the ebow than this man - the ebow kicks in at around 2min 20 secs but do your self a favour and listen to the whole track

Bellycaster

Thanks for the tips and the vids, I love Bill Nelson @AuldReekie great player

I have to admit to being rather embarrassed though, as I've never been remotely interested in owning an E-Bow I have only just noticed the price of the bleedin' things.......£70+

Seriously, I thought they were about £20. Not saying £70 is overpriced, just didn't realise the price.

Erm, Plan B may have to take effect. I can't justify it on something I'll never use except for one song, they don't float my boat especially.

Cirrus

Are you kidding?  Ebows literally are magic boxes that make string vibrate by themselves forever using said magic. £20 barely gets you a quiet night out! This is MAGIC.

vale

they are improbably overpriced for what they do & they do it in a very clumsy way. & drop it on anything but carpet & you will be lucky if it isn't cracked or non-functioning.
they get weird & raspy if you get too close to a powerful pickup. they clunk & scrape on strings while you get your slot. E at either end is a pain because it is dangling off so fades in & out if you wobble. it's like trying to cook in boxing gloves.

any decent swell pedal & a muff on max sustain (or variant of, or a sustainer) & a bit of technique will get far superior results for most things, across all strings, on the fly. & you can use the swell pedal to do a lot of other useful things while the ebow is a gimmick one trick thing.

the ebow concept would work better in a pickup where you can choose one or all or some strings to work at once (sustainer pickups are all or nothing, another gimmick).
we have tiny components & micro everything that could get that idea into a pickup-sized housing. it could be done. but demand being so limited keeps the tech & concept in the 70s.
maybe the only good thing about the ebow is that it's non-invasive. but if you need those sounds regularly a built in pickup-sized thing that did a better job would be preferable.

the gizmotron was like a mad victorian inventors idea along those lines, albeit mechanical rather than electrical, but those were the tech dark ages. some maker should cross the two ideas.

Bellycaster

Thanks for that breakdown @vale ;

Here's what I have for the job. Strymon El Cap, Suhr Rufus Fuzz, Bogner LaGrange Pedal, Bogner Blue Pedal, Maxon OD-820, Keeley 4 Knob Compressor.

I know it sounds tight, but I'm not willing to lay out any real cash for one song. We only tried it for 2 minutes the other night and in hindsight I was probably choosing the wrong way. I had Bridge pick up selected, Neck would be best I imagine, I had the Lagrange(on lowest gain mode) and the Maxon on together. Wolfgang Guitar, very small frets.

Reckon the Fuzz and the Maxon and Guitar on Neck might be better, maybe even the compressor on too, but I imagine the feedback might come into it.

lasermonkey

I love my eBow. It's great for spacey guitar music. I really want a Gizmotron II as well, but the price! Yikes!

jeztone2

use a wah wah pedal like an expression device & it will sound like a Clarinet

usedtobe

I'd like to try one sometime..

vale

@Bellycaster this is kind of the approach i use. last five mins . but i bury it in sustainy fuzz & massive reverb, which add even more to the sustain & soften the picking peaks to as good as flat. nice-n-synthy.

i think you can get a decent used (maybe even new) swell/volume pedal for the same price as an ebow. will last longer & cover more ground as far as being useable in other contexts.

Snap

AuldReekie said:

There is no finer master off the ebow than this man - the ebow kicks in at around 2min 20 secs but do your self a favour and listen to the whole track

Brilliant stuff.

Bill Nelson tale for you:

1982/83, Gary Numan returns from tax exile in LA, load of Beggars Banquet money behind him for new album. The album concerned is Warriors, 1983. Numan drafts in Dick Morrissey on sax, stunningly good bassist Joe Hubbard, and under the labels' receommendation, Bill Nelson as producer. Numan being arrogant and ignorant, ends up falling out with Nelson, as he couldn't understand the subleties of his skills or playing. In a hissy fit he ditches a load of Nelson's produced work and they part ways.

However, the album does retain a lot of Nelson's wonderful ebow work, best demonstrated on the album title track, especially in the chorus. Ye can't teach some people eh?



hilarious clothing aside (it was the 80s), some good guitar work, around 1:50 at first, lol

wtf is the baseball bat about though?

AuldReekie

Damn, cannot open the above link, not that I want to hear Numan, but anything that involves Sir Bill Nelson grabs my attention

Snap

@AuldReekie

edited the link, should work I think.

I know you like it really

tf, not one of his better eras of music.......err...

AuldReekie

Snap said:

@AuldReekie

edited the link, should work I think.

I know you like it really

tf, not one of his better eras of music.......err...

Got it now, thanks.  Even on the ebow, you know its Bill Nelson.  Heres another Nelson ebow gem

Bellycaster

Interesting vid @vale with some good tips.

ICBM

I have to confess I have never been able to get the hang of using one. I like the idea, and I've owned one three or four times, but aside from messing about with them at home I've never been able to mix one with normal guitar playing in any useful way. I find natural feedback and the Boss DF-2 much more intuitive and easy to combine with normal playing, and use both when playing live. I don't have one now and don't miss it.

Danny1969

I have one but only use it on one song, U2's with or without you. They are quite hard to use with my EMG pickups due to the low mag field but I've kind of got the hang of it. I use it with a pitch shifter an octave up with a lot of verb like this :

Parker

I did a session with a guy called Rev Hammer. Used an ebow, wah and Patrick Eggle Berlin on the recording and multitracked a couple of lines without hearing the previous. It's called 'Rosie'. Not sure how available it is but the album was released.

Kebabkid

New from Namm'17, Digitech have just released the Freqout which does what you want in a pedal form and even has a momentary latch switch option and is similar to the Boss Feedbacker doobrie.

Andy at Pro Guitars has a handy vid on YT.