Kevin Shields - Guitar Sound

Guitar Sound

One of the most recognizable aspects of Shields' music is his thick and dreamy guitar sound, associated with his later recordings with My Bloody Valentine.

Customizing the tremolo system for Fender Jaguars and Jazzmasters, Shields manipulates the tremolo arm while strumming chords. He has had the tremolo arm on his guitars extended considerably and uses tape on one end so that the tremolo arm sits very high on the guitar and is very loose. With the tremolo arm in this position, his motion is not restricted, allowing him to strum chords without having to alter his motion to accommodate the tremolo arm. To thicken the sound, he plays through a Yamaha SPX 90 using a reverse reverb effect that inverts the normal reverb envelope without making the notes backward. Augmenting his sound further, he cranks amps to exceptionally loud volumes and uses open tunings, causing the amplifier to "breakup" and increasing sustain. Instead of the usual note bending with a tremolo arm, he achieves a kind of chord bending that Rolling Stone described as, "a strange warping effect that makes the music wander in and out of focus". Fans who played the vinyl record of Loveless were known to check the records for warping on first playing them. On the subject of 1991 album Loveless Shields remarks, "the songs do have weird timings and things, but the textures come from the guitar tunings."

Shields has pointed out that he uses far fewer effects pedals and overdubs than fans and the music press sometimes make him out to use. He has noted many times in interviews that most tracks feature one or two main, albeit massive sounding, guitar tracks that give off many layers of sound. This has mistakenly led people to believe he uses multiple overdubs which he has repeated over and over is not how his sound is achieved, at least not before the Tremolo EP. Although Tremolo and Loveless featured more sampling and sampled guitar, Shields has noted that a Jaguar or Jazzmaster with some strings in an open tuning combined with an effects processor (such as the Yamaha SPX90) can achieve a massive swirling guitar sound with one guitar, whilst sounding like numerous overdubs. Kevin's earlier recordings pre-Tremolo consisted mostly of one guitar during the chorus and then a guitar with a different tone during the verses. Tremolo and Loveless involved more sampling of guitars and synths. Shields explained, "Ninety percent of what we do is just a guitar straight into an amp." "People think it's all pedals, but all my pedals are graphic equalizers and tone controls. It's all in the tone." Various effects pedals mainly play a role when trying to recreate studio sounds in a live setting.

Many have tried to replicate the guitar sounds on Loveless, with varying degrees of success. Shields even had trouble reproducing the sounds himself, as his live guitar sounds at the time varied greatly from those on the record. He was known to try to duplicate the sheer power of the recorded tone by turning on-stage monitors to face the audience, rather than the band. The My Bloody Valentine regular set closer "You Made Me Realise" typically included an interlude using blasts of noise and feedback that could go on as long as 40 minutes, which the band termed 'the holocaust'. Regarding this interlude, Shields remarked, "It was so loud it was like sensory deprivation. We just liked the fact that we could see a change in the audience at a certain point". Many, including Shields, note that the Loveless-era My Bloody Valentine shows were amongst the loudest rock concerts they had ever experienced. Fans even speculated that damaged eardrums had contributed to the post-Loveless absence of My Bloody Valentine.

In August 2003, Shields was voted the 95th greatest guitarist of all time by the Rolling Stone magazine.

For recent live shows he admitted to using 30 effects pedals to achieve his guitar sound.