That Dreams guitar sound...
 

So, all you Lindsey guitar gurus out there.

Any tips on recreating the sound of Lindsey's guitar on the original Dreams?

I'm by no means a guitar player (I'm a keyboardist!), but I now have a (fake) Strat in the house and want to meddle around with it in GarageBand.


Any tips or ideas?

"Slow Attack." Guitar Pad is what my thing calls it. Utterly annoying after a while because you don't hear the note you just played for a variable amount of time after playing it, but I believe it is what you are looking for.

You can get that by either use of the guitar's volume knob or a volume pedal.

Pick the note with the volume off, turn the volume up quickly while the note is still ringing. Simple as that. No fancy effects pedals or outboard gear necessary.

George Harrison used the same effect way back in 1965 on his song "I Need You" which appeared in the movie (and on the album) Help!

Checked GarageBand's effects again. No such luck or similar features. Looks like I'll have to search for a plugin!

I'd prefer to do this without an amp for convenience sake, and because the amp we have is crap and since I'm such a crappy player too much at once is too much.

It would probably be easier for you to get a volume pedal then. Ernie Ball makes a good one.

Is it really even a volume pedal doing that? Sorry to say, I'm not completely convinced! ;)

It sounds delayed and almost synthy/string-like. I can sort of see how it would work, but I don't think a volume pedal accounts for the whole sound.

It was probably EQ-ed in the studio to have that "violin-like" sound. As far as the swelling technique, the volume pedal would work best (easier).

Chili have you heard Tom Petty's version of that song on the Concert for George? it's superb