Guitarists, can you help me out? I’ll be talking about this song on a podcast this weekend and don’t have the musical knowledge/vocabulary to describe it properly. It starts at 13:16 in this song (yeah, it’s a long one) and goes until the end. It can’t just be straight feedback, because it’s a sustained tone/note, right? Maybe it is just feedback and I don’t understand my terms. Anyway, thanks for the help!
Yep, it’s feedback. Hold the fret, and keep the guitar the correct distance from the amp, and it’ll go on all day.
[Nigel Tufnel]You and I could go out and grab a bite, come back and it’d still be doin’ it.[/Nigel Tufnel]
I can’t listen right now, but if the sound involves long notes / feedback, there are various sustainers and other effects that can provide infinite sustain to work with.
Cheatin’ bastids! 
(totally kidding; many players use sustainers for great stuff…)
OK, sounds like it is feedback, possibly with some sustain effect. Good to know!
Heh, as soon as I opened the link, I knew it was feedback. He basically just left the guitar sitting on the floor. I think it’s 12 string, and I know he’s using a chorus pedal.
Must disagree about the chorus pedal…the change in periodicity suggests room resonance or some such. That said, I don’t find it particularly musical, except at the end where he slides back down the neck, which rather negates the “left the guitar sitting on the floor” comment. He’s holding it the whole time, maybe moving it just the teeniest bit to change the afore-mentioned room resonance.
Huh, the ending doesn’t sound at all like a slide down the neck, or any move from the player’s hands. It sounds like a filter being closed, e.g. a wah or somesuch going to zero, then someone cuts out the sound right after, probably a 3rd party on the mixing board.
I agree, I do not hear a chorus.
ETA: and, yeah, way not musical. My definition of a guitar dick move. Which is probably what was intended.
I’m sorry you don’t hear a chorus pedal, I’ve listened to that album a lot, and I do hear one. From the sound, I’m almost certain it’s an Electro-Harmonix one that has some settings that almost sound like vibrato, such as a Memory Man’s chorus setting.
Ok, according to this page, it’s either a E-H Small Clone, or a Ibanez Chorus. That guy’s spent more time thinking about Bob’s Hüsker Dü setup than I have, so he may be right. In addition to that, almost everyone I’ve ever spoken with about Bob’s tone complains about him leaving the chorus pedal on between Zen Arcade and the demise of Hüsker Dü.
And I’m absolutely sure it’s not a room, unless he brought the room to London with him. You can actually hear the chorus pedal a little more clearly on that clip. It sounds less like a vibrato, and more like a normal chorus. Considering it’s overseas, and he’s not playing his V’s, I’m guessing he’s playing equipment provided by the tour and not the same pedal.
But, as that clip shows, I was totally off on the 12 string. I blame the chorus pedal! (nah, I was guessing based on their cover of "Eight Miles High", which also has the chorus on it, and sounds like a 12 at points.)
If you’re still not convinced, my wife’s sitting behind me saying: “It’s a chorus pedal, what else would it be? Plus, that’s obviously solid state distortion.” Pretty definitive, if you ask me. Dammit, I love that woman.
I’m zombifying this to be a little contrite, I happened on a interview where Bob details his Husker setup.
He also details elsewhere that he’s using 15ms of delay between the amps, which is so short, it’d pretty much be chorus even before you get to the separation of the amps, or the Eventide Harmonizer. And well, the Harmonizer can do chorus, too. Hell, depending on the model, it can do just about any signal processing you like. So depending how he has it set, it could be adding even more.
And there’s an MXR distortion fronting the whole thing. It’s electronic chorus, and some natural chorus, way more complex than just a chorus pedal.