Every time I hear a U2 song, the guitar playing sounds totally distinctive - I feel like I could pick it out from an electric guitar lineup. But I don’t play the guitar so I don’t know what he’s doing differently. Anyone know?
He’s putting it through an echo box, and then playing the right speed to play along with his echo.
Yeah - a few of us know.
The main things you are probably hearing are the delays - basically echo boxes that play back what he just played. He does a few things with them:
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He cascades them - meaning he’ll use multiple delay points that fit together - so for instance, he can play one note and it will be played back - but not in a straight-up “echo, echo, echo” sort of way, but because he cascades delays, it will ping-pong back into a rhythm. The start of Where the Streets Have No Name illustrates this effect to my knowledge.
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He layers his sound - Edge taught himself how to play while incorporating delays and other effects into his playing. The effects were there from the start. And when he started, as U2 has stated since the beginning, they literally wrote songs on one string. While that sounds primitive, if you have a delay on and hit one note, which sets up a cascade pattern, and then you hit another note, you fill in your sound over time. This is something some jam-banders do when they “loop” - they use an effects box that enables them to play a few-second pattern, get it repeating, then add another pattern on top of that, get those looping, etc. This is also what Pete Townshend did with the synthy intro bits to Baba O’Reilly and Won’t Get Fooled Again - the actual notes he is playing are few and far between, but between layering and looping you end up with that complex pattern. Edge just grew up as a guitarist immersed in that approach.
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He is VERY precise - if you watch Edge play, he is one of those super-precise players - there is NO slop in his playing, unlike, say Jimmy Page, who slops all over the place in pursuit of improvisational insight. Edge learned early on that if his precise, the pieces of his different echoing layers all fit together cleanly.
What I find frustrating about Edge’s playing:
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Even though he plays a variety of different guitars, I rarely hear the tonal differences - they all sound like Edge with his delays. I know, I know - most famous players sound like themselves regardless of the guitar they pick up, but if Hendrix picked up a Les Paul he would sound like Hendrix with Les Paul tonality. I can rarely tell what git Edge has in his hands…
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Because he is so precise and his layers have to fit together just so, he is locked into his part. I like a little slop and improvisation…
That’s all for now - I am sure others will chime in…
He uses a phaser too, you can hear that on the first part of “Mysterious Ways”
Oh, he uses a TON of effects but the delays are most prominent. When I listen to Mysterious Ways I hear either a wah pedal or an envelope follower (basically a wah that is not triggered by a foot pedal but is set up to ‘follow’ each note picked with a wah-effect…) although I suspect there is phasing, too…
I Googled and found this “A Study of The Edge’s Guitar” which discusses cascading delays…
Here is Guitar Player’s top 10 tipsfor sounding like him…
A quick check in Mysterious Ways showed that Edge was using an old Korg A3 multi-effects processor with its envelope filter setting (yesss! got it right!) but I haven’t found a page that shows this clearly enough to be link-worthy…
What Wordman said. The main point about the way The Edge uses delays is that the repeat is pretty much as loud as the straight guitar sound.
There a a few different ways to play with a delay/echo box.
You can play “in time” with it, a lot of the “droney” guitar parts in Shine on You Crazy Diamond do this.
You can “bounce” against it like the bass part in One of These Days where the repeat plays a dotted note against what you play (if you do this fast it makes you sound superhuman) examples, IIRC Albert Lee’s Country Boy and Nuno Betton-thingy’s Flight of the Wounded Bumble Bee.
You can play a chugging pedal tone and let echoing chords chime over the top, go to Run Like Hell for this one.
If you are very flash (we’re looking at you Mr Vai) you throw a harmoniser into the mix and things get very complicated.
Most guys use a lot of effects or very few. He’s in the 1st category.
**Small Clanger **- great point about the fact that he keeps his echo’s at high volume - to use technical terms, he dials them up for a very long decay.
Another great example of both bouncy and droning uses of delay is She Sells Sanctuary by the Cult (YouTube link to a live performance - the resolution is lousy but you can see Billy Duffy playing VERY few notes but filling in sound, quietly at first, but then kicking in hard. It’s a textbook example of what The Edge does, too…). And She Sells is a totally rocking song…
To add to the great answers so far, back when U2 were just kids, the Edge started messing around with an old echo box tape delay, I think it might have been a Watkins Copicat. It was pretty primitive, basically a tape loop that repeated the notes that had just been played. Other guitarists had experimented with echo before in a song or two here and there, but the Edge liked it so much he included it in pretty much every song they did, so it became “his sound.” He uses a variety of digital delays now, mostly the Korg SDD-3000 and TC-2900’s. This guy has a detailed description of the Edge’s delay setup that a stalker would be proud of:
A Study of The Edge’s (U2) Guitar Delay
ETA: or, you could check WordMan’s link (which in my defense wasn’t up yet while I was typing). 
To me, one of the most interesting things about the band is the strange role reversal that is part of their sound. The guitarist is who is setting and maintaining the tempo with his delay(s), the drummer and the bass player are adding groove but they can’t change the tempo or the whole thing is going to sound like shite. It’s almost like the lead guitarist is a drum machine in disguise. 
I’ve never heard them live, and I’ve only heard ‘Achtung, Baby’ once or twice, but I don’t remember thinking ‘Oh, they’ve just done a ton of overdubs in post production.’ I’m quite amazed that the band is able to replicate their studio sound live, considering how much of their sound is based around The Edge and Daniel Lanois messing around for the entire morning before the rest of the band comes in to get exactly the right setting for the rig.
I can’t blame The Edge for being so conservative - the way things are set up, if he drops a clam, he’s got to hear it another 100 times before it’s gone away. Bono’s the one who’s got the freedom to go in and around the cracks and that seems to be the way they all like it.
**Ministre **- of course you’re right about the rhythm section having to track with the guitar, who is locked in by pre-set delay settings, etc. What is interesting is that the phenomenon you describe is far more prevalent in music, simply because of all the sequencers, sample loops and other computer-generated sounds included in music these days. Whenever a pre-programmed sequence is used - say you have a backing track of a string section that you need for the song and can’t afford to bring an actual string section on tour with you (and you don’t have a synth player in the band who can fake it) - well, you set up the backing track to run off a drum trigger, the drummer hits the trigger at the appointed time and the backing track plays behind your band. And yeah, you have to be perfectly in synch and ready so the backing track fits in. A big, big hassle.
In fact, this is what happened when Ashlee Simpson got caught lip-synching on SNL. Her drummer hit the wrong trigger and set off a sequence at the wrong time - but instead of a string section it was her pre-recorded vocal…
Another note about guitar-led rhythm: this is more common in metal. I swear I wonder why some metal bands even have a bassist. Pantera comes to mind - when I hear their song Walk, I can barely pick out the bass. And with Metallica, what has always mattered is the relationship between Hetfield on guitar and Ulrich on drums…
In my house, the joke is that he just keeps playing the same note over and over.
But that’s just a joke. I know he has talent. He’s a lot richer than me. And, you certainly know when you’re hearing a U2 song.
I was going to post that. “A load of old Celtic bollocks!”
I think it’s hilarious - even while it is a gross oversimplification…
While he is picking on The Edge’s uses of delays and other effects to make little, simple stuff sound big and complex, ultimately he is commenting on modern music and rock guitar in general. Rock is often big, dumb and loud - and dangerous in some form or fashion. It is that combination of things that made it so popular from its introduction…
I’m going to be kicked off the Jazz Guitar mailing list if this gets around, but I was struck today by the similarity between Bill Frisell and The Edge. Not in terms of what they do - their musical personalities couldn’t be more different. And yet, in terms of what they’re using, between echoes, delays, industrial strength reverbs and loops, it sure looks like they wouldn’t be lost if they got stuck with each other’s kit someday. Dare I suggest a duo album?
Check Shenandoah and Boubacar and tell me if you think I’m completely off base. Just as Bill Bailey suggested with The Edge, it’s all just delays. (!?!) But I couldn’t play like Frisell in a month of Sundays.
I think you’re completely off base. In the version you link to, yeah he’s playing around with echoes, delays, etc. But in the album version and in the versions that I saw him perform around the Good Dog, Happy Man timeframe, there’s not anywhere near that level of effects. Frisell’s genius (IMO) is in emphasizing the spaces between the notes even when it’s just him and a guitar–not in manipulating effects.
FWIW, if you want to see another approach to working with effects, check out Pauline Oliveros.
Okay - I gotta listen to this stuff. Will do - but weekends are tough…
Okay - I listened to the first one about half-way and am now listening to the next one. I can kinda hear where both of you are coming from - from **M. Le Ministre’s ** POV, Frisell is using effects in way to fill out the sound space and build out melody. It is in service to an out there, jazz performance vs. rock, but the tools being used are the same and being used in similar ways to The Edge. And you have to love Frisell’s use of the trusty Telecaster - it even does free jazz folks!
But I hear Hunter Hawk, too - I can’t comment on whether Frisell uses effects less in different settings, but the bottom line is that he is not really using the delays to build up a propulsive rhythm - and while Edge uses delay to create ambient soundscapes like Frisell, his (The Edge’s) main currency in trade is the chugging rhythm created by the cascading delays…something Frisell doesn’t do…
Hmm, interesting - thanks for sharing…
Hey, **happywaffle **- how is all this? You get what you need?