The Song: What You Hear

“Where Streets Have No Name” is, in this author’s opinion, U2′s most iconic song and probably the best example of their sound.  The song has an interesting structure. It begins in 6/8 time, transitions into 4/4 time, and then transitions back to 6/8 for the ending.  It’s in the key of D and has a tempo of 129 bpm.

We’ll be focusing on the introduction of this 6 minute long masterpiece.

The Gear: What You’ll Need

• A Six String Electric Guitar - In the original studio recording of this song, The Edge used a Gibson Explorer. However, he has played it live on a myriad of different guitars during U2′s performance career, including Gibson Les Pauls, Fender Stratocasters, and Fender Telecasters. Any of these, and many similar instruments, will do nicely.
• An Amp With a Clean Sound - The Edge used the legendary Vox AC30, but you can get the right sound with just about any amp that has a clean (undistorted) channel.
• A Delay Pedal - Nearly any delay pedal will do the trick, so long as you can adjust the Delay Time, Repeats, and Mix.

The Riff: What You’ll Play.

The Riff is an eighth note arpeggio in the key of D. It’s a simple pattern, but control is the name of the game. Your timing needs to be very even, so the effects can do their job. It’s best to accent the first note, so that it rings out a bit louder than the rest of the notes. You can alternate pick or use all down strokes; use whichever gives you more control. You may also consider palm muting the strings ever so slightly, for added control over the ringing. If you can manage all of these things, the effects will do the rest.

The Settings: What Knobs You’ll Twist and Why.

The Guitar

• If you’re on a Gibson-style guitar, choose the Bridge/Treble position on your toggle switch, and turn the volume and tone knobs all the way up. Gibsons are naturally very warm sounding, and the idea is to make it sound as pointy and “treble-y” as you can.

• If you’re on a Fender Stratocaster-style guitar, choose the  position between your bridge and middle pickup on your toggle switch, with volume and tone turned all the way up. Strats are naturally very pointy sounding. Choose the pickup position that blends the middle and bridge pickups to keep it from being too treble-heavy.  This will give it a more bell-like quality.

• If you’re on A Fender Telecaster-style guitar, choose the bridge position and turn the tone knob to about 6 and the volume all the way up. Teles are naturally very twangy, jangly sounding guitars. Rolling the Tone knob back to 6 helps harness the naturally pointy quality, and gives it more of the desired sound.

These settings will all help create that round, glassy, chime-like tone.

The Amp

If you’re using a tube amp, use the clean channel and set the knobs as follows:

Drive/Gain knob at 3, Bass at 5, Mid at 3, Treble at 7. If there’s a presence knob put it between 7 and 8, and set the volume to an appropriate level for the room you’re in.

If you’re using a solid state/non-tube amp, use the clean channel and set the knobs as follows:

Bass at 5, Mid at 2, Treble at 8. If there’s a presence knob put it between 7 and 8, and set the volume to an appropriate level for the room you’re in.

The Delay Pedal

The delay is the trickiest, and most integral part of the tone in this song, so special attention must be paid to make it sound right.

First, you’ll set the Mix(Echo Volume) so that the first echo is even with, or just barely louder than the original sound.

Next, you’ll set the Repeats so that you get 3-4 echoes after the original sound.

Lastly and most importantly, you’ll set the Delay Time(The time between the original sound and the first echo). You’ll want to set it to the length of a dotted eighth note(about 349 milliseconds in this case). What this means is that the delay time is 1.5 times the length of the eighth notes that you play in the riff. As a result, the delayed sound happens in between the eighth notes. This gives the riff the sound of being played with twice as many notes, as depicted in the figure below.

As you can see in the figure above, the delay of any given note sounds just after the next note in the riff. More specifically the delay of the first note plays just after the second note, and the delay of the second note plays just after the third note, and so on. This is the key to The Edge’s rhythmic cascade of sound.

Extras:Attention to detail

The previous steps should be enough to make the correct sound, but if they are quite working for you, here are some additional options that can put a bit more gloss on the sound.

If you are not using a tube amp and you feel that the sound is missing some attitude, you can try putting a clean gain booster pedal between your guitar and the delay pedal. additionally, you could try a very mild overdrive(not distortion) pedal, with the drive knob somewhere between 1 and 2. If you do this and the sound is too distorted, you might try backing the drive off on the pedal and/or turning the volume knob on your guitar down to the neighborhood of 6, or until it sounds right.

If you’re looking to give the sound a bit more of an epic feel, you may consider a reverb pedal with a hall (not spring) setting, between your delay pedal and your amp. This will give the sound a bit more resonance and smooth it out a bit.

If you are playing with a Gibson and have trouble getting it to sound as bright and pointy as the recording, you can try a treble booster pedal between your guitar and the delay pedal. Alternately, you can try a wah pedal in the same spot, turned on and close to all the way forward. Either of these would give your guitar a brighter, more pointy sound.

Conclusion and additional reading

If you have any further questions about get the sound of this song right, feel free to leave them in the comments.

More information on U2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U2

More information on Where Streets Have No Name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_the_Streets_Have_No_Name

More information on The Edge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Edge

More information on Delay: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_(audio_effect)

More information about Reverb: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverb