hello!

i was wondering if anyone knew what effects units Prince used. Specifically between the Dirty Mind to Purple Rain era.

or if anyone could recommend a nice 80s sounding unit. Reverb, Delay, Chorus, Flange effects etc.

many thanks for any info

mansep said:

There's a million posts in this section of the forum dedicated to his guitar, effects etc. Since the search function doesn't work right now, (WILL IT EVER?) you can blow about 3 minutes going through each page in this section, click ctrl-F, type "effect" and see if you can find it there.

OR.

Boss Flanger, Boss TD-1 and then TD-2, the first Boss Digital Delay. And I think maybe Hectim has a web page with his effects listed.

cool thanks. yeah i tried a search but it didnt work. but i'll read through the pages.

is Hectim a prince.org member?

mansep said:

yup! Actually, I did have some of that info on that page. But it's moved to Scotty2Funky's website about Prince guitars. It's in the cloud guitar faq: http://www.geocities.com/...ud_faq.htm

hectim said:

thanks interesting article!

Scotty in the house.

Early effects were...

Colorsound Wah
Boss BF-2 Flanger
Boss DD-3 Delay
Boss OC-2 Octaver
Boss BD-2 Blues Driver
Boss OD-2 Overdrive

In more recent years he was also using a Boss MT-2 Metal Zone and the Digitech Whammy.

This is just his floor stuff though. There is a lot of other stuff behind the scenes (rackmounted) and he uses two different amp set-ups for clean & dirty.

I have got an authentic Prince 'sound' from my Boss pedals, a Crybaby Wah and my treasured MkIV Boogie.

As they say though, it's all in the fingers. Plus I had much more fun finding my own sound than copying Princes.

Scotty
www.geocities.com/prince_guitars

Found this in my archives...

Taken from Guitar Player, January 2000

Photograph shows a selection of prince's guitars with the following text: The Artist's stage axes include (from L-R) a custom Schecter nicknamed 'Habibi', a Warwick bass, an Ibanez george Benson, and a David Rusen 'Cloud.' Guitar tech Takumi Suetsugu reports that the solidbody guitars are equipped with EMG pickups and strung with .009 - .042 guage High Beams. All of the stage lines are from Monster Cable.

Second photograph shows Prince's view of his pedalboard which is explained as follows:

Left side: Roland FC-100; Boss DS-2 Turbo Overdrive; Boss VB-2 Vibrato; Boss DD-3 Digital Delay; Boss FL-2 Flanger; Boss OC-2 Octave; Boss BD-2 Blues Driver

Right Side: (Dunlop) CryBaby Wah; Roland EV-5 (controls GP-16 whammy); Dunlop Rotovibe

Text explains:

UHF signals from the Artist's four main stage guitars hit a wireless rack equipped with four Sampson UR 5Ds. An Uptown Technologies Flash switcher is used to select between the wireless units. The Digital Music Corp MX-8 is used for MIDI switching, the Roland GP-16 is for whammy effects only and the Zoom 9030 is used for all other effects. An Uptown Great Divide routes signal from the Snyder unit to Flash switcher #2, the GP-16, and the main and backup 9030s. Outputs from these units feed a Behringer Denoiser, a Soldano/caswell preamp and, finally, a splitter box which sends 'clean' and 'dirty' signals to the Mesa/Boogie Strategy 500 and rackmount Soldano SLO 100 respectively.

Onstage Cabinets are straight-front Peavey 5150 4 x 12s loaded with EV speakers. The offstage 'clean dog' and 'dirty dog' Marshall 4 x 12 slant cabinets are miked to feed the front-of-house system. These are loaded with Celestion vintage 30s.

The illustration provides greater detail together with the wiring.

The interview also provides input largely about recording for 'Rave' (the album.)

Hans Buff provides some detail, including: 'The Artist's favourite funk setup is his Hohner Tele copy equipped with Fender noiseless pickups through either a Countryman or an Avalon direct box, then into a DiMideo mic preamp, and finally through a compressor, usually a tube Urei LA2A.

The Prince Q & A is not particularly long, but it provides the sort of technical detail he rarely offers in standard interviews: e.g.

Q 'How did you get such a massive sound on 'So Far, So Pleased'?'

A 'I ran my guitar through a Boss Vibrato and Flanger. The octave and delay effects are from the Zoom 9030.'

Then again, he still provides his usual:

Q 'Speaking of 'Crystal Ball', how did you get that eerie tone in 'Animal Kingdom' and the incredible rhythm guitar in 'Da Bang'?'

A If I told you , you'd have to die.