Amp Tremolo

[walrus]

Here are a few of examples of what is (to me) excellent use of the effect.

You beat me to it! The Smiths (or most accurately Johnny Marr on guitar) and "How Soon Is Now" is the song that came to me right away. Tremolo totally makes the song!

 

[shihan]

I totally agree. Johnny Marr uses the tremolo sound in a fresh, modern way. The song wouldn’t have the impact it does without the tremolo.

 

[Midnight Toker]

I love quality tube amp trem when it's called for. It can also add a really tasty flavor to bluesy slide guitar when the speed is dialed in. And sometimes just a touch of trem...and on the rare occasion hard repeats (like in The Smith's How Soon Is Now) for some real old timey Delta feel.

As for what it's supposed to replicate....I'd say it's closer to the open/close hand muting of harmonica playing than a Leslie. Why so many classic tube amps have it? Consider there was a time when most small combo amps were built to be paired w/ a Hawaiian (lap steel) guitar. All things Hawaiian were all the rage in the 40's/50's...and trem was an essential part of that sound.

 

[GAD]

As for what it's supposed to replicate....I'd say it's closer to the open/close hand muting of harmonica playing than a Leslie. Why so many classic tube amps have it? Consider there was a time when most small combo amps were built to be paired w/ a Hawaiian (lap steel) guitar. All things Hawaiian were all the rage in the 40's/50's...and trem was an essential part of that sound.

Quality observation!

 

[Sal]

Playing my harmonica through effect pedals I sometimes like to put tremolo on the reverb tails while keeping the harp dry on top. This treatment of the reverb can also work well with other motion effects like phaser and flange.

 

[Yoko Oh No]

I use the tremolo in my amp (74 Peavy classic…great amp btw) turned on to about 1/4 or less. It just gives the guitar (79 Les Paul with really buttery series 7 pickups) just a little more presence on a clean channel. Distorted it’s useless of course.

 

[matsickma]

This is a timely article. I happened to pickup a Tommy James and the Shondels collection of hits CD for $5. I have a 2005 Mustang convertible with a Shaker 500 CD player and I have to say the Shaker 500 is a great stock system. I replaced all but the subwoofer speakers years ago so it sounds pretty good. Best stock car stereo I ever heard.
Anyway I was listening to the Tommy James CD as it started out with "Hanky Panky" and as the songs progressed I was appreciating how Tommy James song and compositions were progressing. He plays a Jazz master and I started to notice how he either rubbing his pic against the pickup or scratching the string to add a percussive tone to the recording on a song. Simple additions in the studio were sounding modern and creative. The CD eventually get to "Crimson and Clover" and I assume the Tremolo is from a Fender amp is modulating the guitar and it sounds pretty lush and builds up at certain guitar parts along with his percussive playing or scratching of the strings. I find I surprised how creative the Tremolo and string scratching chords sound. Finally he goes all out and adds Tremolo to the singing.

As a kid we played that song many times with tremelo on the guitar and voice but I never hear a good recording of that song and tremelo on a good recording before. As a kid I would only have heard that song on an AM Radio station with it 4 or 5 KHz bandwidth. The nuances of that fine recording didn't come through the radio.

CCR version of "Heard it through the Grapevine" may have been the only other song I used that effect and eventually we all out grew Tremelo and turned it off. We wanted Flangers, delays and even synthesizers.
However after hearing the quality Tommy James CD recording has reinvigorated my interest in Tremelo. Fortunately my Guild amps have it and the version on the 1st and 2nd version Thunderbird amps are pretty sweet sounding and the Thunder1 is no slouch either. A favorite amps of mine is a Kustom 72 Coup tube amp with Trem/ Vibrato and Reverb. It normally has 4 6L6's but I occasionally run a pair of 6L6's and a pair of "yellow jackets" with EL 84 to break it up a little sooner.

Bottom line I have rediscovered the cool tone of Tremelo after all these years. I don't use it often but the Tommy James CD really gave me a better appreciation of the effect and also better appreciation for the little guitar effects that were used in the recordings as the band progressed and got more creative in the studio.

Plan to go see Tommy James in the spring time concert.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Thanks for the replies everyone!

I do think it’s an issue of musical preferences. Most effects I can get behind in some capacity or another but the music I (mostly) grew up with didn’t really use it, and come to think of it much of that music used amps that didn’t include any effects Marshall, Orange, Hiwatt, etc.).

I think some of the songs posted do sound “right” the way they are and certainly the songs in my original searches do, too. One that surprised me was Green Day’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams which I never even realized was tremolo. LOL

I think the idea of tremolo being a carry over from organs makes a lot if sense, especially considering the time frame of the earliest Fender amps along with the fact that so many amps had accordion labeled inputs. It was just a different time.

Thanks again for the great insights!

As I said above, since you specified onboard amp trems, it's still not clear how you feel about tremolos that are separate from the amp, like Pops Staples' DeArmond 601 and Ry Cooder's Demeter Tremulator.

Are tremolo pedals okay, or do you dislike all trems?

 

[Midnight Toker]

A vid on a few amp trem comparisons. (The repeated progression played also reminded me how often trem was also used in Western films)



As for pedals, I have a Voodoo Labs Tremelo pedal that I love as it also has a slope knob that goes from a soft shimmer rounded slope to a hard edged square slope that gives you everything from the brown fender to the blackface shown in the above video and everything in between. (It also has vol/blend, tone, speed, and intensity…so you can really dial in any sort of trem found in any amp and not just be stuck w/ just speed/intensity as found on most amps)

 

[GGJaguar]

A vid on a few amp trem comparisons.

The tremolo on that Princeton Reverb doesn't sound healthy and it makes me wonder if all those amps really needed servicing before doing a comparison.

 

[Midnight Toker]

The tremolo on that Princeton Reverb doesn't sound healthy and it makes me wonder if all those amps really needed servicing before doing a comparison.

Agree on that Princeton (seemed way too weak), but the 3 others were evident enough, especially the brown fender, which even compared to a freshly serviced Princeton still has a much harder slope.

 

[Uke]

Dr John out-bo-diddley-ing Bo Diddley! (yes, on guitar on this one!)


there's not a lot more Duane Eddy in this than that big tremolo six-string bass lick in the intro, but boy, does it ever set a mood!

Yes, the Staples Singers. And, Rick Holmstrom, Mavis Staples' relatively current guitarist, uses tremelo quite often.

 

[Uke]

I don't understand the allure of amp tremolo. I assume it was an attempt to simulate a Leslie rotating speaker? I think a Leslie in the room sounds cool because it's something you experience and not just hear but for the most part Tremolo on an amp is a completely unused effect for me.

Doubting myself I did a search for hit songs with tremolo and found a handful of songs that I recognized. Was tremolo on an amp a super desirable thing at one time? Why do so many amps have it? I feel like I've been missing something for almost 50 years.

Why do so many amps have it?

Leo Fender.

 

[Uke]

Pops and a judicious use of tremelo.

 

[GAD]

As I said above, since you specified onboard amp trems, it's still not clear how you feel about tremolos that are separate from the amp, like Pops Staples' DeArmond 601 and Ry Cooder's Demeter Tremulator.

Are tremolo pedals okay, or do you dislike all trems?

It was really more me wondering why an effect that didn’t really seem all that popular (at least from where I sat) was included on so many amps.

 

[GAD]

Leo Fender.

Yeah, like so many guitar related questions this is probably the answer.

 

[Default]

Idk. Premier was pretty early, and I seem to remember that they had reverb in some amps in the fifties.

Part of it comes down to it being a useful and frequently used effect that requires little in the way of expense to implement. It was also expected by the musicians of the time. Any piece of equipment that is seventy years old has a context of use/function.
It also comes down to what you grew up with. Whatever you listened to from six to sixteen, has a heavy influence on what you like now.

 

[Mark WW]

Whewn I started playing in the early 60's there just wasn't a lot of effects. Reverb and Tremeloe were SOP for a lot of us when considering an amp. Many of us used Hammond Reverb tanks and it was just a lot easier to have the two effects built into the amp.But in reality I only ever used Tremeloe on a few songs but could not imagine being without it for some reason. I still smile when I play a few songs with it.

 

[Midnight Toker]

It was really more me wondering why an effect that didn’t really seem all that popular (at least from where I sat) was included on so many amps.

It may not have stuck out to you, but at the time those amps were being built, the reverb/tremelo effect combo was being used pretty regularly …from surf music, to spaghetti western films, to James Bond themes. Those amps became such iconic amps that featuring it on the amp decades later likely became tradition/standardized. But as far as it being something on an amp that wasn’t being used…definitely not the case. It was all over the place, not just in a blues/R&B/rock musical genres. Heck, Link Wray basically set the stage for the next 50 years of guitar driven rock by big reverb/tremelo power chords w/ Rumble!

 

[Rocky]

It may not have stuck out to you, but at the time those amps were being built, the reverb/tremelo effect combo was being used pretty regularly …from surf music, to spaghetti western films, to James Bond themes. Those amps became such iconic amps that featuring it on the amp decades later likely became tradition/standardized. But as far as it being something on an amp that wasn’t being used…definitely not the case. It was all over the place, not just in a blues/R&B/rock musical genres. Heck, Link Wray basically set the stage for the next 50 years of guitar driven rock by big reverb/tremelo power chords w/ Rumble!

Byt it's also why they seemed 'old fashioned ' in the late 70s.