Kevin Shields

"If I ever had a secret weapon it's the Alesis and the [Yamaha] SPX 90 and again, it's the reverse reverb program."

""All I Need" from Isn't Anything by My Bloody Valentine

There was a drum machine beat just going like a heartbeat effect. I played an acoustic guitar to it and then it's basically an Alesis Midiverb II, it's the reverse reverb program. If I ever had a secret weapon it's the Alesis and the [Yamaha] SPX 90 and again, it's the reverse reverb program."

Alan Moulder who worked with Kevin during the recording of Loveless says- “The sampling was uncharted territory. We didn’t know the gear properly – we had just gone from the S900 to the S1000 which was a massive jump – and there were lots of possibilities to explore. I remember there was what sounded like a blur of notes to me, but Kevin could hear that some were cutting off and weren’t playing properly, and we couldn’t understand why. Now it is obvious: we had overused the polyphony, but at the time we couldn’t work out why it wasn’t playing back. I don’t remember solving it but we managed to get it so he liked it.”?

In this recent article published by Sound on Sound, Kevin Shields explains his use of the Akai S900 when creating drum samples for My Bloody Valentine's classic album 'Loveless'

Mentioned in this May 2018 Sound on Sound interview.

Born in Queens, New York in 1963 to Irish parents who returned to Dublin when he was 10, Kevin Shields first picked up a guitar in 1980 and began recording at home two years later, using a Yamaha CS-5 synth and Tascam 244 Portastudio.

“There were only a handful of them around in Ireland,” he says of the latter. “It ran at high speed and it had the two parametric EQs covering the whole frequency range, which was kind of something at the time. My approach was as much about using the tape machine and the synth as the guitar. Nothing was favoured at that point. I appeared to be a guitar player years later. But really, from the start, I was coming from a kind of post-punk-influenced era where it was quite normal for people to do anything. It was quite an experimental period. The idea that you couldn’t do anything didn’t occur to me.”

During an interview with Tape Op in 2001, Kevin shields comments on the recording of "To Here Knows When" about how he used a TC unit that did "Delays and Dynamics" on the drums:

"and then there's programmed drums and they're put through this TC unit, I forget what it's called, but it does dynamics and delay and it's just adds this weird sort of feel to it."

This passage can be found in the 4th section of the said article, Issue 26.

In this Sound on Sound article, there is a picture of Kevin's studio outboard gear which includes a pair of Empirical Lab EL8 Distressors.

In this Sound on Sound article, there is a picture of Kevin's studio outboard gear which has two Manley Stereo Variable Mu compressors.

Shown in a picture from Kevin's studio in this May 2018 Sound on Sound interview.

Seen in the picture of his outboard gear from the May 2018 Sound on Sound interview.

Seen in the picture of his studio rack in the May 2018 Sound on Sound interview.

Seen in the picture of his studio rack in the May 2018 Sound on Sound interview.

Seen in the picture of his studio rack in the May 2018 Sound on Sound interview.

Seen in the picture of his studio rack in the May 2018 Sound on Sound interview.

Seen in the picture of his studio rack in the May 2018 Sound on Sound interview.

Seen in the picture of his studio rack in the May 2018 Sound on Sound interview.

In this article, there is a picture of Kevin's two tape machines.

It can be seen in his studio during this 2018 fender interview on top of his mixing console over the patchbay

we can see the Yamaha spx900 in Kevin's rig with the indication that it uses program 54 in live

In a user-uploaded photo of Kevin Shields' rig, the Yamaha GEP-50 Guitar Effects Processor is visible. The photo suggests the use of programs 61, 56, and 77, indicating Shields' customization and application of this gear.

"...at that time there were these things called Bel delay units, and you could basically use them as samplers. You could put something into the delay and then play it, as a part. It's all over Isn't Anything. You could do things like put a little sound into it, and there was an arrow going up and an arrow going down, and we were sat there going 'up up up up up...'"

In a YouTube interview conducted by Reverb titled "MBV's Kevin Shields on His First Signature Pedal: Fender Shields Blender," the Audient ASP8024 Heritage Edition 48-channel recording console is visibly featured in Kevin Shields' studio.

In Fender’s YouTube video Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine - Part 1: Obsession | Jazzmaster 60th Anniversary, a BSS Audio AR133 Active DI Box can be seen on the mixing desk at 0:07.