Please help me understand what is going on in the last 40 seconds of "Once in a Lifetime"

After the last chorus, where that buzzsaw "guitar" kicks in and David Byrne starts repeating "Same as it ever was", I'm fairly certain that guitar isn't actually a guitar but rather some sort of heavily overdriven organ or keyboard. The problem is I have no idea what it actually is, and I've been searching desperately for answers and can't find a damned thing.

Are there any gearheads who can approximate what is going on? Has anyone read interviews with either Byrne or Eno that would have explained their setup? This is bothering me to no end.

The book Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa goes into some detail about Belew's guitar techniques on the parent album.
That might be of some help.

http://www.ciao.co.uk/Fa_fa_fa_fa_fa_fa_The_Adventures_of_Talking_Heads_David_Bowman__5812348

heavily overdriven organ

^^^ I would hazard a guess at this. Some of the descending note sequences seem more "natural" played on a keyboard compared to a guitar. Also it sounds like the organ is put through a phaser before being overdriven through a guitar amp.

Another possibility is: Rhodes > phaser > guitar amp

gearhead/producer here! ok, i actually sat down and listened to this with headphones maybe a month ago in order to figger this out - its one of my favorite eno production moments. ok, so here's the breakdown:

one (1) gritty distorted buzzy guitar doing powerchords, i'm guessing just a simple 1-5 chord kinda high up the guitar neck. the distortion sounds a bit like an ibanez tube screamer, run very dry with the mids cranked right up.
2 (two) organesque sounds (probably yamaha dx7 knowing how much eno loved them, plus it sounds kinda dx7-y)
one (1) organ with a wah effect (probably a pedal, though i don't think it's a crybaby - it sounds like this other pedal with a bigger sweep, forget what it's called) and yes it's overdriven
one (1) organ doing some little fills off in the right channel that kinda follow the big overdriven chords
that distortion on the organ sounds kinda tube-y, like, not a rat pedal or tube screamer but more like they ran the dx7 through an old tube amp at very high volumes.
also i suspect he ran them all through the same echo/reverb patch to make it sound more like a single instrument.

damn i love this song! i'd love to know all the patches and layers that go into that evolving ambient loop that runs through the whole song too, but i've never been able to break it down. though now that i've got some new high end speakers and amplifiers i'm beginning to hear some of the individual elements... actually i'm listening to it very closely and i think it's simpler than i thought - analogy blurp loop thing faded right, same sound delayed about a 1/2 to 1 1/2 seconds with heavy layers of enoFX (mostly eq and reverb with maybe a touch of phaser on top of the whole thing, then run through another reverb) panned 10pm right, and a sampled female vocal (not sampled from a record but more like one of those roland sampler presets, "female ah 3" or something) buried under a reverb then ran through a second reverb. or something like that. also, the balance between these elements is slightly different on each verse.

i've now listened to this song loud about 8 times in a row, and i could easily listen to it another 10.

That was amazing, thank you so much.

anyone got a couple of dx7's and an old tube amp?

Yeah, that is cool, messiahwannabe. Incredible song and yeah, incredible ending. The live versions of this song always fall flat to me -- some kind of serious studio magic happening there.

that kinda gear is pretty cheap these days, especially the dx7. but it wouldn't be the same without an analogue blerp-loop and david byrne channelling a southern reformist preacher at the height of his genius though. also you'd need 3 (three) eventide h3000's and 1 (one) brian eno. not to mention the tom tom club on rhythm, and some very good drugs if what i heard is true

also there must be like 7 other guitars going as well, jesus this song is very deeply produced. how'd they ever manage to come in on budget?!?!?

I'm a poor college student, anything >$25 is too much

I wonder what software I could use to vaguely approximate it?

http://www.eventide.com/AudioDivision/Products/PlugIns/Anthology%20II.aspx
http://www.nativeinstruments.de/index.php?id=fm7_us
http://www.guitarampmodeling.com/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=2631
and/or
http://www.softube.se/vintage_amp_room.php
and/or
http://www.native-instruments.com/index.php?id=guitarrig3
+
http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2009/02/16/imaginary-landscapes-a-film-on-brian-eno/

you could probably get buy with just guitar rig and the fm8 if you didn't have money for all the high end eventide plugins and a convolution reverb but for the authentic eno virtual experience i think eventide stuff was a big part of his signature sound at that period

if you didn't want to actually reproduce this particular sound but rather wanted to just sort of be a virtual eno, the fm8 and eventide bundle would be a really good start actually. you'd have to be sick in bed for a month, stuck with nothing to read but the manual for the dx7/fm8 first though.

I believe the Rip It Up & Start Again book has practically a whole chapter on this album. There were definitely lots and lots of guitar and bass tracks, sometimes 5-7, all just playing really simple parts, but put them together and WOW. Yeah, one of my favorite albums ever made.

probably yamaha dx7 knowing how much eno loved them, plus it sounds kinda dx7-y

That would've been a neat trick, given that Yamaha didn't release the DX7 until three years after Remain in Light was recorded.
Any standard-issue transistor organ would provide that general effect, when distorted.

i don't think it's a crybaby - it sounds like this other pedal with a bigger sweep, forget what it's called

mess., could you be thinking of the Fulltone Clyde?

actually now i'm worried that somehow brian eno will read this thread, register and post "no, actually you're completely wrong, that's not how i did it at all!"

and yeah former golden boy, you're right it could really be any synth that mades a vague aproximation of an organ. but i'll add somewhere around listen 12 i decided that a key part of the sound was that they ran that organ, *with reverb*, through whatever it was they used to distort it, ie. distrorted the reverb along with the original signal (they usually do it the opposite)

also, theres this guy singing "de dep... de de dep..." along with the bassline.

Say, while we're on this topic of distorted keyboards, what do we make of the first 20 seconds of Pavement's "Texas Never Whispers"?

for reference:

messiahwannabe: you should get the 5.1 surround sound version which makes the separate tracks stand out by themselves even more.

> I'm a poor college student, anything >$25 is too much

impulse reverb, eventide IRs, eventide in general, multiFX units in general, dx7 emulator, guitar rig, multitrack DAW, warez, etc

i'd love to find a copy of remain in light 5.1, along with a nice 5.1 system to hear it on. after about 15 spins i took itunes off repeat and listened to the rest of the album, it's pretty much all this deep in complex production, innovation, etc

oh by now I've already gotten fm8 and vintage amp room and the like (though eventide anything was nowhere to be found). I just need a rigorous case of mono and I'm good to go.

So I was listening again on the way to class today, and if I understand correctly, the buzzsaw guitar actually IS a guitar with an organ that is overdriven but not exactly buzzsawish, and they (along with all the other organs happening) were sent through the same fx patch to "unify" them into a single sound (which is what's making this whole ordeal so delightfully puzzling)

judges?

yeah, that pretty much sums it up. the rest (which synth, which distortion pedal, signal chain etc) is just my edumacated guess, but i do believe it's *clearly* a powerchord guitar layered with some sort of overdriven organ sound. actually tbh i'm not even 100% sure they're running through the same reverb chain during mixing, i just strongly suspect that's the case. also i'm pretty sure there's a reverb on the organ that's also running into the overdrive, and it's a big component of the sound.

i've been mixing synths and guitar sounds together a lot lately, if you're playing the same rif/timing it's pretty easy to make them sound like a single instrument

Me and a friend made the esxact Texas Never Whispers tone once, pretty ordinary Casio thru a Boss Super Feedbacker and Distortion pedal and a bass amp

Whoaaaaa at this NPR interview--so enlightening!!

http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/vote/list100.html#O

where is startrekman when you need him

just wanna remind you all that this is the best 40 seconds in recorded music history

ha stevie this song came on the radio today and i thought of u and yr thing for overdriven organ sounds

hahahaha

I really, really <3 overdriven organ sounds!!
see also: organs being held down

also i was driving alone and mimicking eno's backing vocals very loudly

rly love in stop making sense when he does a v slow backbend when This Sound enters, remains for a while at what looks like 90 degrees w his crotch magmetized to the mic stand, then scrambles back vertical for another chorus

magnetized, obv. dunno what a magmetized crotch is but it sounds, uh, hot.

toni basil did the choreography for the video

still not sure what exactly is going on here

reminds me of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OtEMBwxDso

acc to wiki, this podcast sez its a Hammond (influenced by what goes on). sounds like some really wild harmonic/resonating distortion or something, like maybe slight ring modulation or something in addition to the upfront phasing idk

https://www.npr.org/2000/03/27/1072131/once-in-a-lifetime

oh right lol, apparently I posted that 10 years ago but forgot

ya there is def some overlap w both Stereolab and "What Goes On", especially this song, which is essentially Stereolab's cover of "What Goes On"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPJ_AIfntwg