A Study of The Edge's Guitar Delay (U2) -- Pride (The Unforgettable Fire)

The Edge's Delay Settings > Pride (108 bpm)

The main riff for Pride, which Edge has claimed is his favorite guitar part, originates from a stop on the War tour in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Wednesday afternoon, November 16, 1983 (5 months after the Red Rocks show - four days before the Red Rocks album was released). Edge was playing around with the "I Will Follow" riff with heavy guitar delay during the sound check. He added some hammer ons to the riff and played it with up and down strokes (instead of I Will Follow's constant downstrokes).

Edge uses 2 amps, about 5 feet apart (see the mic bleed note on the main page). He split his signal to 2 amps, one panned slightly left, the other slightly right.

Starting at time 0.00 at the beginning of the CD track, the sample runs from about [0.0-1.0 secs].
In the sample you hear the first F#/B Edge plays in the song. There's clearly a mic bleed echo after that chord.
Then there's Edge playing his second chord (upstroke) and his 3rd chord (downstroke).
And finally, the 4th chord Edge plays at the same time that you hear the 418ms (3/16) delay from his first chord.
Note: there are some key ingredients to getting it to sound right.
- First, you need a delay with modulation (as always).
- Second, you need a strong delay repeats (about 85%) to get the rhythm to sound right in the '3-and-4-and' half of each measure.
- In The Unforgettable Fire recording, he pans the delay right where the main signal is panned slightly left. This gives it a more stereo sound.
- There's more overdrive than he usually uses, a warm tube-overdriven sound.
- He only uses 2-3 delay repeats (the third repeat is very faint).
- Also note, in the album version, there may be a second guitar track of Edge playing entirely string mutes on the 16th notes almost throughout the song with the same 3/16th delay added. This is not neccessary though: simply mute the high E and D strings with your left hand and hit them when playing the riff. This will add the string mute background.
- Finally, hit the first note in each bar louder than usual. This is important to get the rhythm and feel right (because that note is louder, the 3/16 delay of it is louder and that gives the main feel to the riff).
- He turns the delay off during the solo section.
- Here's an mp3 of me playing the main riff from the song, with no delay and, later, with delay. (I turned the delay on a few seconds into the recording).

Here's the sample clip I studied for this song (it's slowed down 8x maintaining the same pitch and matches the waveform in Figure 1)

For further evidence, here's the beginning of the 2001 Slane Castle performance where you can clearly hear the delay (it's slowed down 4x maintaining the same pitch)

Figure 1: Waveform of the sample clip

There's 1 delay. This is the most likely signal path:

   Guitar -> Guitar split to A/B ->

       A -> main signal (no delay) -> Amp A   (panned slightly left)

       B -> 418ms (1-2 repeats) (85% of initial signal) = 3/16 @ 108 bpm -> Amp B  (panned slightly right)   
               no dry signal (delay only) with modulation						  	   

You could emulate this well with just 1 amp: simply have the main and delayed signal together.  You
won't get the bigger stereo effect of course.

    Bass: B (E 2nd time)
 (Accentuate the notes in bold)
|---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---|
|---12--12--12--12--12--12--12--12--12--12--12--12--12--12-12--12---|
|:--11--11--11--11--11--11--9---9---11--9---9---9---11--9---9---9--:|
|:--x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x---x--:|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|  etc.

Guitar: 1959 Gretsch Falcon, with stereo pickups rewired to mono? (See the UF documentary on the Slane Castle DVD).

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Your Comments

WOW. I've had it so close for so long, and knew his two delays were set up syncopated, as in finger style blues guitar, some of the melody notes are "on the thumb," and some are off. But I could never get just right, till now. Thank you for your hard work. Have you let "The Edge" know you are on to him? Fred

-- Fred Duffer, Feb 22, 2005

Wow, great research. I play in a U2 cover band and was just looking to see if anyone had put his delay timings online so I could get one step better than faking it. If you ever research Brian May to this level let me know. I'd be prepared to buy books of this stuff!

-- Bufflo Speedway, Nov 16, 2005

Wow! Thanks for taking the time and energy to figue this stuff out. It's guys like you who inspirire me to keep climbing. Thanks again. Bruno O'D

-- Bruno O'Donnell, Aug 22, 2006

hello from france ! un grand merci toi et au travail que tu as accompli sur un sujet aussi pr cis.si tu as , ton tour,une question guitare ou musique ou autre,(je suis guitariste pro depuis 16 ans),je te repondrai avec plaisir. i hope that you know the french langage ! if it's no:after learning the edge delay you can learn french!!! salut christian.

-- christian, Oct 4, 2006

Are you using the korg in this sample?

-- Christopher, Aug 1, 2010

Can you elaborate a little on what you mean by 3/16 delay? Ive got a Boss DD-7 and Ive got the Levl aaround 8 wit the repeats set low (2 or 3 repeats). Ive set the time to aroun 420 ms. Ive got the rhythm down fine etc. but wit these settings it doesnt sond quite rigght and I yet dont know where Im going wrong. I think Im missing soething fundaamental with the 3/16, or is that just another way of saying 418ms?

-- Guy, Feb 4, 2012

Just a couple of corrections to this great tutorial (12 years on!). Firstly, Edge doesn't switch the delay off during the solo. If you have seen him play some circa '84 - '85 live versions (where he struck the open B string simultaneously with the first tick of the E string, like the studio version) he plays the solo 3 note riff 3 times then strikes the B string 11th fret twice. To do that you can only play the 3 note riff three times, with the delay overlaying the echoed 4th, while picking the aforementioned B string 11th freet.

Secondly, Edge didn't use the Gretsch White Falcon to record Pride. He used it at Slane (also for their songs) to jam with. In the studio he used the cream color Gibson LP Custom. You can see it in the TUF documentary about 2/3rds through when Larry in thumping his drums in the studio with headphones on. I believe that was when they recorded the extended version of Pride with some cuts that didn't make it (Bono singing "America" in the lead up to the solo in a disused cut).

One final piece of information which I read a very long time ago in a music magazine, the pickups used on the Gibson LPC in the studio were heavily modified. The top 3 strings were separated from the bottom 3, each group sent to different effects. By ear you can hear the difference in the effects applied to top and bottom groups with the bottom strings with a lot of reverb, no (or very little) delay and not as overdriven... and here's the speculative part... hooked up to a synthesizer that adds a atmospheric pad element as sustain!. The top 3 strings are more or less the same as used in the chorus settings. Guess that's why it's so hard to replicate the Edge sound...

-- Justin, Jun 22, 2016

Sounds a bit off in the strumming example. Does he not pause and let the delay ring the double stop instead of his doubling it? Like da da da Pause da da da da da da da da da da da Great work on the delay settings etc.

-- David Carriere, Mar 11, 2020

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