Long Delays: Frippertronics Basics [Ambient Guitar Tutorial #10]

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Let's learn the technique popularized by Brian Eno and Robert Fripp more than 50 years ago: Frippertronics.
The principle is quite simple: we are going to use very long delays to create layers that will form chords, and those chords will make a beautiful ethereal soundscape.
While it is simple at the surface, there are a lot of details to cover in order to master the settings, techniques and chord changes to make a Frippertronics piece of music.
So let's grab your guitar and your delay pedal and we'll cover all of that in this video!
0:00 Intro
0:32 Long Delay Settings
3:32 One-Chord Frippertronics
5:54 Drones Frippertronics
7:21 Notes in common technique
10:11 Full Chord Progression Example
14:07 Free Ambient Guitar Course
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► Full list of the pedals and gear I use to make music (these Sweetwater affiliate links support my work at no extra cost to you. Thank you! 😊)
- Singular Sound Aeros Looper Gold Edition (get 10% off by entering ANTOINE10 at checkout): www.singularsound.com/products/aeros-loop-studio?aff=62
- Strymon BigSky: sweetwater.sjv.io/rQqBPR
- Strymon Timeline: sweetwater.sjv.io/JzvW0R
- Strymon El Capistan: sweetwater.sjv.io/4PxqY9
- Strymon Ola: sweetwater.sjv.io/21LJ6O
- Strymon Iridium: sweetwater.sjv.io/zN5O2M
- Mission Engineering VM Pro: sweetwater.sjv.io/6eQD4N
- EHX Micro POG: sweetwater.sjv.io/eK5jjZ
- EHX Mel9: sweetwater.sjv.io/m5J1NM
- TC Electronic Polytune: sweetwater.sjv.io/PyvnnM
- Vox AC15 with Alnico Blue speaker: sweetwater.sjv.io/QyvEE9
- eBow Plus: sweetwater.sjv.io/4PxMoo
- Mogami Gold Cables: sweetwater.sjv.io/XYvKBg
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- Arturia Keylab 88: sweetwater.sjv.io/ZQvR51
- Arturia Keylab 49: sweetwater.sjv.io/AW1537
- Focusrite Scarlett 18i8: sweetwater.sjv.io/AW155J
- Shure SM57: sweetwater.sjv.io/VmvddJ
- Shure SM7B: sweetwater.sjv.io/XYvE5y
- Sennheiser MKE 600: sweetwater.sjv.io/0ZMzBY
- Yamaha HS8 Studio Monitors: sweetwater.sjv.io/OrvELK
- Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 4x4: sweetwater.sjv.io/R5NED2
- Sennheiser HD280 Pro: sweetwater.sjv.io/4PxMBL
- Pedaltrain Classic Pro: sweetwater.sjv.io/NkvEYP
- Cubase Artist: sweetwater.sjv.io/Y9vKkK
- Strymon BigSky Plugin: sweetwater.sjv.io/m5J1ky
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[@olejakobhelgesen9545]

The Flashback triple delay is a great delay pedal for frippertronics imo.

[@sn0rbaard]

A really cheap yet powerful pedal: Digitech Digidelay. It has Reverse, Tape, modulation and digital delay up to 4 seconds, as well as tap tempo.

[@scottymac3634]

The album No Pussyfooting by Fripp & Eno is where this originates. It’s lovely. Having it on vinyl back-when meant you could drop the turntable speed to 16 rpms which would drop the music by an octave and change it completely. Scary and heavenly.

[@charlarge3555]

Loving these tutorials! Merci beaucoup, Antoine!🫶🏻

[@humblegeorge]

you did a top notch job ! Thank you I will try this soon Cheers Antoine :>)

[@myguitarjoe]

Thank You for this video.

[@thejontao]

The Vongon Polyphrase has both 11 and 22 second modes, and duel delay lines, so you can have lots of strange fun. The Empress Echosystem also does dual delays, but only 7 seconds. I use both the Strymon Volante (16, 32, and 64 second modes) and El Cap (10 and 20 second modes) for Sound-on-Sound because their tape emulation is so nice sounding. If you connect your Red Panda Tensor to MIDI, you can get over 9 seconds at full speed, and 18 seconds at half speed; if you use the ALT setting, it’ll play back (and record) your decaying loop alternating between forwards then backwards; It’s a lot of fun playing over backwards guitar.

[@michaelkeudel8770]

The new Mystery album is fantastic, thanks Antoine and all the rest of the Mysterions.

[@AntoineMichaudGuitar]

Thank you Michael!

[@ThePedalboardOrchestra]

Nice tutorial 👍👍👏👏 Chase Bliss Habit has up to 60 sec

[@mrt77wv]

The Boss DD6 has a "long" mode (using input A and output B) and it has a maximum of 5.2s according to the decal on the side.

[@stratosoldano]

Antoine, speaking of Crimson, it would be interesting to have a video of yours covering the central guitar part, the iconic solo made of chord positions of "A sailors tale" taken from "Islands", thanks from Italy...

[@robertlewis5439]

Depending on toneprint (the delay model) loaded on any TC Electronic delay, you can get up to 8 seconds.

[@samseitz9937]

What I always do is set up my hx stomp with a one switch looper and record a silent loop and keep it on over dub at a lower volume so it decays over time.

[@fartaignelives6889]

Agree with @olejakobhelgesen9545 the TC Triple delay is awesome for Frippertronics 🙏

[@love_it_to_death]

Great tutorial !!!

[@PM-yz8fx]

I thought you knew El Capistan really well, you even made a video about the Sound on Sound mode, it can give you up to 20 seconds of delay

[@AntoineMichaudGuitar]

I always thought about the sound on sound mode more like a looper, but you're right, that's a great option!

[@cyruss2946]

Boss DD20: 23 seconds Boss DD500: 10 seconds Digitech Dl8: 8 seconds TC Flashback x4 and Triple delay: 7 Seconds

[@jayvandenberghe4530]

An absolute Frippertronics-delay is the Soma Cosmos.

[@krokus5714]

Digitech Digidelay 4 seconds.

[@muhammadrezahaghiri]

Great tutorial. May you make one on "how to get swells without volume pedal"?

[@razo42]

You mean using your guitar's volume knob? :)

[@muhammadrezahaghiri]

@@razo42 I'm looking for a more automated way. Maybe a plugin?

[@razo42]

@@muhammadrezahaghiri EHX Attack Decay maybe?

[@calyptratus187]

The Empress Echosystem can go up to 8 seconds on the Ambient (yellow) mode.

[@sandrabecht613]

vielen Dank👍🇩🇪

[@design8r]

Salut Antoine! off topic, but have you tested the H90 yet? It seems from reviews that many of its sounds will be ideal for ambient.

[@CockySoupNazi]

You don't need a ebow, use a big muff pi fuzz with full sustain and use the neck pickup with the tone knob at 1, fade in each note with a volume pedal. Fripp used this method in the early days.

[@57RickH]

Can ambient guitar effects such as this be done using software instead of physical pedals?

[@AntoineMichaudGuitar]

Yes, totally. I prefer physical pedals, but many people decide to go with software/plugins.

[@bananabourbonaenima]

Boss DD-20!!! goes way beyond 4 seconds

[@razo42]

A looper with decay (eg. Grand Canyon) is even better: record a 4-6 second empty loop, then record over it. You can also stop the loop, and play over, then go back recording. This is closer to the original Frippertronics technique, namely the endless tape.

[@AntoineMichaudGuitar]

Great tip!

[@oscarcontreras9593]

Please, evolve on this.

[@razo42]

@@oscarcontreras9593 Record and empty loop, then overdub on it, regardless of the loop position. Set decay as required (think of it as feedback on a delay). If you stop overdubbing, the actual loop will keep playing without further decay. Go back to overdub to resume the whole Frippertronics thing. Hope this makes sense. :)

[@guitawrizt]

Cosmic.

[@sirius_li]

Boss dd-20 goes up to 23 seconds.

[@davidgillborn5197]

DD 20 Giga Delay has a superb tape mode. Use that with long delays (20+ seconds) and play with decay/feedback for a wonderful recreation of the original Frippertronics through the double Revox system 👍

[@krokus5714]

❤

[@LooMinn]

Just think that Robert Fripp originally performed Frippertronics using a reel to reel tape recorder employing magnetic tape.

[@wheresallthezombies]

Do you have a discord or Facebook group or anything for songwriting?

[@AntoineMichaudGuitar]

I used to, but not anymore. My students made a Discord, but I don't know if they're active on it or not.

[@glennmichaelthompson4112]

T.C. Electronics Flashback Triple Delay has about 7 seconds.

[@AndyBanana63]

BOSS DD-500 does 5seconds

[@jeremycharlerie7523]

Boss DD8