Best combination of pedals to get that shoegaze sound

Fuzz aside what are the other key ingredients to that massive noisey sort of shoegze/noise-rock tone? Currently to get it I'm using my BM, dotted eighth delay, and deep chorus, with verb maxed out quite nicely on the amp.

my shoegaze era pedal line up was (if I recall correctly):

big muff -> vox wah -> bf2 flanger-> boss limiter -> DOD distortion -> Ibanez chorus -> tubescreamer -> quadraverb GT mostly for delays and over the top modulation -> blackface fender combo with reverb turned up pretty high

I think I also had a Rat and some other big muff type of pedals swapped in and out... maybe a distortion plus at one point too, just whatever crap I could pickup in the cheap sued effects case at Bob's Route 13 music!

later on I did a little shoegazey stuff with this rig:

germanium rangemaster clone cranked until it fuzzed itself out -> small stone phaser -> BF2 flanger -> Yamaha spx90 for insane stuff and as a stereo split -> roland chorus echo for chorus delay and spring reverb, wet to an early dual showman or sometimes a 100 watt univox bass head, dry to a marshall 1959 plexi or when I didn't wanna be deafening I would use my 62 ac30 and a jcm800 4401 or ampeg VT40

but my reference for shoegaze was on the more noisey side, I am a huge swervedriver and mbv fan and less of a slowdive/ride kinda guy

multiple big, loud amps of different types are a big part of it as well as effects, they add a lot of texture to the effects. But pretty much you should chain up every darn effect you can find, digital rack effects imparticular as well as lots of really skronky fuzz and distortion boxes... not boutique shit, just basic, meant and potatoes stomp boxes and rack units being set in the most extreme ways possible

look at Adam Franklin's rig from the last 90s swervedriver US tour:

https://www.guitar.com/rigs/adam-franklin-swervedriver-1998-rig-and-gear-setup?v=fullsize

How about harmonizer pedals? Seems like that's missing yet it provides that beautiful shoegaze sound. Something like Eventide H9.

the rack processors I had did pitch shift and harmony stuff... there was no H9 in 1997... the spx90 does some really cool stuff in that vein, eventide was not the only game in town though they are the best going.... most shoegaze bands did that stuff with more affordable processors or boss pedals

why not go with authentic gear and not modern, better stuff? part of the shoegaze thing was the budget friendly chain of excessive effects

now I am going to point out that this is over, shoegaze happened, I was late to the party and that was 20 years ago... do something new, be yourself

Yeah I'm more on the MBV, sonic youth style side of things, though I don't mind slowdive. Just a bit more inventive, and a bit better at the physical songs not the sounds.

Yeah my pitchfork which I use for chorus, does a lot harmonisation, and octave stuff.

the pitchfork can chorus?

I've always felt like a combination of pedals and rack effects work together really well for that genre of music! Some of the rack processors guys used are not incredibly expensive today. Slowdive used the Yamaha FX 500 on a couple of albums (with other effects units/pedals included). As Jimimarch1 said the yamaha spx90 is a really good one. Also the Alesis Quadraverb & gt models show up on a lot a shoe gaze gear lists. Not to mention the Eventide h3000, lexicon pcm70-pcm90. But IMO...Shoegaze was always about experimentation! I cant emphasize that enough! Mess around with feedback loops, reversed reverbs, Pitch shifted delays huge reverbs, etc! If you have any means of recording what your experimental playing leads to do it! And write down what patches effects, pedals, guitars and even amp your using (if you have multiple amps) so that way you can reference back to it if you record that unbelievable sound. Just experiment and have fun! Be creative!

in the late 90s I had an alesis quadraverb GT, alesis midi verb (awful apart from the MBV reverse reverb thing), Yamaha SPX90, and a little later on a Lexicon 70 and A-Lex too. SPX90 was the best of bunch for cool sound quality and diversity of effects but Yamaha's SPX range have always had quite a following and therefore pretty high resale... nothing else really sounds like it, it does a lot of what the odler eventide gear does, but its got a bright n gritty quality that really jumps outta the mix

bang for buck buy a used quadraverb gt, darker sounding, similar range of effects to a Yamaha, just not an amazing timbre to any of it....but it has certainly been used by numerous shoegaze bands

Well its called detune, but essentially its a chorus. I can't adjust it though, only use the three modes; high,low,deep

oh, like the digitech 'un chorus pedal' based on the original whammy's glitchy sounding detune mode

Yup

Welcome Chad! I apologize but I no longer remember the oddball tuning for Never Lose that Feeling even though I covered it in one of my bands as a kid. I want to say its close to DADGAD, maybe DADGBB (Adam does a lot of stuff with doubled notes in his alternate tunings to get a mechanical chorus sound from the top strings by working the vibrato on his Jazzies). Another common swervie tuning is GCDGCD, but there are dozens more if I recall. I have a good friend who is also a swervedriver fan who knew all the tunings back int eh day because he bouht every guitar rag that Adam was interviewed in. I could text him and see what he remembers for you (or try a google search for "swervedriver tunings guitar world" someone is bound to have a scan of one of these 90s articles I remember ;-)

with all these tunings I found they worked best if I blayed around mixing strings from different sets to make custom gauges for each tuning... after awhile I was like "why bother?" unless you are doing a cover all these crazy tunings can be more trouble than they are worth as you destroy hundreds of dollars worth of string setstrying to get the tension right. Plus the trouble of reintonating for every tuning, argh! I ahd less guitar back in the day though, these days I could probably get away with keeping a guitar or two in a wonky tunng.

anyway, try the double B tuning and let me know if you figure it out.

I actually never bothered to learn a lot of swervedriver songs. One of the things I like about them is that they make music I would never write myself so I don't pick it apart so much when I listen to it, I just enjoy the ride like a non-musician. For instance I am an accomplished home cook who attended a lot of culinary school classes and there are aren't a lot of meals I can't make perfectly myself right down to decorative plating if called for, so when I go out to eat I like to find resturants who specialize in cuisine I don't know how to make or places that do fusion dishes that I would never THINK of making. In a musical sense swervedriver falls into both categories, I don't know the ingredients and techniques because of the tunings and I would never even think to write that way ;-) Its a big part of their appeal.

I used to sometimes gang the stereo channels of my SPX90 in series to create insane feedback loops and nasty digital clipping on recordings hahahaha

screw around with the double B tuning

as for swervedriver's US fan base, its pretty small here, it just seems big because there are a lot more yanks in my age bracket than there are British subjects, its a question of population density

swervedriver has always played pretty small venues in the states, I've seen them at places my bands have played and I have never been in a band that was bigger than a regional phenomenon (and even then not a particularly popular regional act), but my biggest band and swervedriver played a lot of the same venues and neither of us managed to sell them out on a regular basis (in my hometown there was a time when my band could sell out the Troc but swervedriver never has)

I give Adam props for keeping it going so long and also for having the balls to reunite recently. I am not sure why wervedriver's career has had more downs than ups as they are a talented and original sounding band with a great pop aesthetic under the blistering rock and trippy psychadelia... the song "Last Train to Satansville" should have been a hit allover the world in 1994, but I guess A&M was only shelling out serious promotional bucks for Soundgarden that year :-(

I wasn't actually referring to playing with swervedriver on the same bill though in 1999 (?) I was the 1st act on a multi-band bill with swervedriver as headliners. 99th dream era when they had ac30s and JCM800s which was hugely influential on my future amp purchases (not that the early tour I attended didn't fuel my love of hiwatts).

I am a huge fan of husker du and sugar. I imitated Mould's amp switching rig in my best/biggest band, though instead of JC120s my clean amp was typically a blackface fender showman.

here's the earliest version of my Mould rig, strat and all: https://youtu.be/EXszFV4EadM

but swervedriver and mould taught me my sound was at least 2 amps

off the top of my head I have opened/closed for or played withthe following name acts playing guitar or bass in various bands:

swervedriver

the white stripes

Peter Murphy

porno for pyros

the birthday massacre

silversun pickups

shiny toy guns

halestorm