‘Fake Plastic Trees’ - Jonny’s 2018 Effects Techniques
Given that Fake Plastic Trees is one of the oldest songs that the band still plays, it’s no surprise that Jonny has varied his playing over the years to match his changing tastes. And as is common with Jonny, these “new” sounds are primarily new combinations and settings of his standard pedals. On the 2018 tour, he’s made several tweaks to the chorus and outro guitar parts in order to bridge his imitation of the album recording’s hammond organ part with the band’s current sound.
A screenshot showing Jonny’s pedalboard in 1996, from the band’s performance of Lucky at the Pinkpop Festival. One can see Jonny’s original Electro-Harmonix Small Stone V2, Demeter ‘The Tremulator’, and Digitech Whammy WH1 – all three have since been replaced by very similar but more recent versions from the same manufacturers.
On 2018 performances of Fake Plastic Trees, Jonny is using his Electro-Harmonix Small Stone V4 phaser, his Demeter TRM-1 Tremulator tremolo (he stopped using his ‘The Tremulator’ in 2017), his Digitech Whammy 4 pitch-shifter, and his BOSS RE20 Space Echo delay. All of those effects are more recent versions of ones that he’s used since the mid-90’s, and he seems to have switched to them only when his originals stopped working after decades of touring.
Throughout the song, Jonny keeps the same settings on each of his pedals. The Small Stone is set for a slow sweep with the color switch up. The Tremulator is set for a medium speed and a high depth. The Whammy is set for an octave up pitch-shift. The Space Echo is set for a single repeat, and Jonny has tapped in a delay time of a dotted quarter note. Delays set for a single repeat, especially ones with a distinct rhythm, have become one of Jonny’s favorite techniques in recent years, and he’s used them on tracks including Staircase, Present Tense (live only), and Identikit.
You can read more about Jonny’s 2016 tour pedalboard here. His 2017-2018 board is identical, except that his old Demeter ‘The Tremulator’ was replaced by a modern Demeter TRM-1 Tremulator by the start of the 2017 tour.
A photo of Jonny from during the Santa Barbara performance of Like Spinning Plates on April 11, 2017 (reddit).
Jonny enters during the first “it wears her out” chorus, using his Small Stone, Tremulator, and Space Echo. Here, the Small Stone’s slow and resonant sweep gives a spacey character to Jonny’s guitar sound, the Tremulator’s deep pulses give it rhythmic motion, and the Space Echo both adds to the atmosphere and makes the rhythm more complex. Jonny used the same effects for this section in performances from 2006 to 2017, but had set the Space Echo for more repeats and set its length to be roughly in sync with the Tremulator. With a single repeat and a dotted dotted quarter note length, the 2018 version of the section is deliberately just a little more peculiar and unsettling.
During the second verse of Fake Plastic Trees, Jonny turns off all of his effects in order to a play a delicate clean part – no different than during mid-90’s performances. Then, during the second “it wears him out” chorus, Jonny re-activates the Small Stone and Space Echo, both with the same settings, but doesn’t use the Tremulator. In performances from 2006 to 2017, Jonny used the same effects during this verse as during the first. Interestingly, he did use the Tremulator during the 2018 Santiago performance, but by the São Paulo performance (11 days later) Jonny seems to have decided against using the pedal.
For the climactic third verse, Jonny switches to his “distortion channel”, using his classic combo of a Marshall Shredmaster and Fender Eighty-FIve for a focused high-gain sound. The “distortion channel” bypasses the Space Echo, so it is not used during the third verse, but the Small Stone is sometimes still used during this section.
For the rest of the song, Jonny switches back to his “clean channel”. As on the first chorus, Jonny’s new Space Echo setting gives a new sound to a part which is otherwise similar to past performances. Since the OK Computer tour, Jonny has used his Small Stone, Whammy, and Space Echo during this section, and since 2000 he’s played near-identical arpeggios. In 2018 performances, the Space Echo’s new dotted rhythm interacts melodically with Jonny’s arpeggios (this is particularly notable on the high notes), rather than providing a supportive ambience as in the past. Perhaps the most notable – and the most subtle – use of effects during this section is that of Jonny’s Whammy pedal.
A screenshot of Jonny adjusting his Digitech Whammy WH1 pedal with his foot, from during the 2003 performance of Fake Plastic Trees on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross.
Starting in 1997, Jonny began using his Whammy at the end of each measure during this section. He would do so only after he had finished playing each arpeggio, and would activate the Whammy and move its treadle to the toe position (octave up) while the notes were ringing out. Just before the next measure began, he would deactivate the Whammy and move its treadle back to the heel position (no pitch-shift). By turning on the Whammy after he’d plucked each note of the arpeggio, but while the notes still were ringing out, he was able to shift only the “sustain” of the notes up an octave. When done in combination with Jonny’s original Space Echo setting, the result was a layering of delayed repeats of the un-shifted arpeggio with the “washy” sound of the pitch-shifted sustain. This technique can be seen and heard very clearly during the band’s 2003 performance of the song on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross.
At the first two 2018 performances of Fake Plastic Trees (in Santiago and Lima), Jonny played the part in the same way, albeit with his new Space Echo setting. But on the third (and latest) performance in São Paulo, Jonny played a new – seemingly improvised – guitar part during the short outro section, when Thom sings wordlessly. Jonny accents this new, melodic guitar part by using more Whammy, bringing out certain notes by shifting them up the octave. The distinctive “warble” of the Whammy’s pitch-shifting algorithm is a lot more audible on these prominent notes, giving a shimmer to them (this is likely why it was though by one fan to be a ring modulator). We’ll need to wait until Radiohead’s upcoming performances to determine whether Jonny’s new outro part was a one-time improvisation, or a new tweak to the song.
A screenshot showing Jonny with his No.2 Telecaster during the 2018 São Paulo performance of Fake Plastic Trees (youtube). The gig was possibly the only time that Jonny has ever used this guitar for that particular song.
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