He borrowed a guitar. In that first hour he invented glide guitar. Two hours later he used it for the first time on record.
It was 1988. Kevin Shields had been playing guitar for years — knockoffs of popular brands, cheap instruments that approximated what he couldn’t afford. A friend named Bill Carey loaned him a 1964 Fender Jazzmaster. Shields found the strings were very heavy. He decided to tune two strings together and bend them. Then he noticed the tremolo arm was set unusually high. He picked it up and started playing. “This is cool,” he thought. He wrote “Thorn” in that first hour. He wrote “Slow” in the next hour, and for the first time created the melted, warping, reverse-reverb sound that would define shoegaze.
“Your brain hears where it should be, and it kind of ignores the fact that, 50 per cent of the time, everything I do is out of tune.”
That’s the glide guitar technique in one sentence: structured out-of-tuneness that the brain corrects in real time, producing a floating, dreamlike quality that conventional in-tune playing cannot achieve.
Loveless (1991) cost Creation Records £250,000 to make over two and a half years. It used 16 different studios. It nearly bankrupted the label. Alan McGee, who ran Creation, has said it was the most expensive album in the label’s history by a vast margin. Kevin Shields was a perfectionist who knew what he was hearing in his head and would not release the record until what came out of the speakers matched it.
What came out of the speakers is still the defining document of shoegaze, and one of the most discussed and reverenced recordings in the history of guitar music.
He tours with 63 effects pedals. He has about 12 good Jazzmasters and maybe 25 total. He recorded most of the guitar parts alone. He used tape on the tremolo arm so it wouldn’t fully seat. He used the Yamaha SPX90’s reverse reverb as his secret weapon.
He is still playing. My Bloody Valentine is still making music. The Jazzmaster tremolo arm is still taped.
Background: Queens, Dublin, London, and the Sound That Nobody Had Heard Before
Kevin Shields was born May 21, 1963, in Queens, New York, and moved to Dublin, Ireland, at age ten when his family returned to Ireland. He was drawn to music early — guitar, the instrument that seemed capable of making sounds nobody had yet made. He moved to London as a young adult and began the band that would become My Bloody Valentine in 1983 with drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig.
MBV’s early period (1983-1987) was very different from the shoegaze sound they would pioneer: “They’d been playing Cramps- and Pussy Galore–style heavy rock & roll,” as Rolling Stone described it, “but they’d already begun transitioning into more experimental territory.” The guitars in this period were knockoffs and cheap instruments — Ibanez copies of Jazzmasters and Jaguars, budget electrics that approximated the shapes he’d seen on musicians he admired without the cost of the originals.
The Creation Records deal in 1988 changed everything. The label approached MBV with the offer of making an album. Shields had only cheap guitars. His friend Bill Carey offered to lend him guitars — including a 1964 Fender Jazzmaster. In that first session with the borrowed guitar, the glide guitar technique appeared fully formed in Shields’s hands, within hours of first contact with the instrument.
The next three years — 1988 to 1991 — produced Isn’t Anything (1988) and the EP You Made Me Realise (1988), then the years-long recording process of Loveless (1991). The recording process became legendary for its perfectionism: 16 studios, two and a half years, £250,000, multiple engineers, multiple albums’ worth of recorded material that never made the final cut. Shields heard something in his head and would not release the record until the recording matched it.
The sound he was pursuing: layered guitar textures that simultaneously occupied the space of individual notes and masses of sound, with the glide technique producing the pitch instability that his brain described as “50 per cent of the time, everything I do is out of tune.” The reverse reverb of the Yamaha SPX90, which plays the reverb tail before the dry signal, produced the liquid, floating quality of the guitars. The Roger Mayer Axis Fuzz and Vox Tone Bender produced the distortion. The Jazzmaster tremolo arm, taped in a high position, produced the glide.
After Loveless, MBV went silent for 22 years. Shields worked on various projects, produced other artists, collaborated on film soundtracks. The reunion album mbv appeared in 2013. A new EP, ep, was released in 2024. The band continues.
Tone note: £250,000. 16 studios. Two and a half years. One perfectionist. The question of whether Loveless was worth this cost has been answered definitively by thirty-plus years of musicians citing it as the record that changed everything for them. What he was hearing in his head existed. It just took two and a half years and £250,000 to make what was in his head come out of the speakers. That’s not excess. That’s standards.
The Rig: Kevin Shields’s Guitars, Amps & Gear
Guitars: The Jazzmaster, the Jazzmaster, and More Jazzmasters
The Early Guitars — Knockoffs and Cheap Copies
Before the 1964 Jazzmaster loan, Shields played Ibanez Jazzmaster copies and other cheap approximations of the guitars he’d seen on musicians he admired. Stringjoy documented: “Shields’ very first offset and Jazzmaster-style guitar was actually an Ibanez Jazzmaster copy.” These instruments — affordable, disposable, approximately the right shape — were his primary tools through MBV’s first five years.
He also played a sunburst Yamaha SG600 in the very early MBV period — visible in TV footage of the band in rehearsal. The SG600 is a solid-body Japanese guitar known for its “killer tone and sustain — with some putting it on par with that of a Gibson Les Paul.” Its presence in the early MBV setup confirms that Shields was not fixed on any specific instrument type before the Jazzmaster revelation.
The “Only Shallow” video — the opening track of Loveless — still shows Shields using the Ibanez Jazzmaster copy rather than the original Fender. This is not irony; it’s the pragmatics of a musician using what he has.
The Borrowed 1964 Fender Jazzmaster — The Guitar That Changed Everything
Bill Carey’s 1964 Fender Jazzmaster, borrowed in 1988 when Creation Records offered MBV a recording contract, is the guitar that produced the glide technique and initiated the sonic direction that Loveless represents. Shields described the moment in detail to Rolling Stone: “It happened that the actual strings on this guitar were quite heavy. And I was like, ‘Man, this is hard.’ I said, ‘Oh, I know what I’ll do. I’ll just tune the two strings together, and I’ll bend it like that.'”
The tuning decision — accepting that the heavy strings were too stiff to bend individually and instead bending two tuned together — is the pragmatic origin of the glide guitar’s chord-bending approach. He wasn’t trying to create a new technique; he was solving a problem with the available materials.
The tremolo arm position on the borrowed guitar was “set kind of unusually high” — which meant that when he picked it up and started playing, the tremolo was already set in the configuration that produces the glide: the arm so high that you can only push it down (bending the pitch flat), not pull it up (bending sharp). This accident of the borrowed guitar’s setup was the technical origin of glide guitar.
“Literally the first song I ever did using it was a song from the You Made Me Realise EP called ‘Thorn’. That was the first hour I discovered it, and then two hours later I did a song called ‘Slow’. It was the first time I did that kind of melted effect.” The entire shoegaze aesthetic was discovered in two hours with a borrowed guitar.
The 1959 Jazzmaster (Refinished 1964) — The Loveless Primary
For the actual Loveless recordings, Shields used a combination of guitars. He told Rolling Stone: “Yes, but it was a mixture of another Jazzmaster I bought in L.A., when we were over there in ’89. It was a ’59 that was refinished in ’64. And I used some [Fender] Jaguars and Japanese guitars.”
The 1959 Jazzmaster refined in 1964 — an instrument that had been through one significant change before reaching his hands — became the primary recording guitar for the album that would define the instrument’s alternative legacy.
The Jazzmaster Collection — “Only About 12 Good Ones”
Shields’s current Jazzmaster collection is large by most standards but modest by his own. He told Fender: “Not that many good ones. Only about 12, maybe 14.” Rolling Stone reported him saying “maybe 25, but 12 good ones” at a different point. The specific count changes across interviews; the category is consistent: Jazzmasters, mostly, with a distinction between the ones that are really right and the ones that are merely available.
Each guitar is set up in his specific tremolo configuration — tape on the arm preventing full seating, arm in a high position so it can only push down, bridge pulled back as far as possible. He confirmed: “He uses tape on the arm to prevent it from seating fully, and he keeps the tremolo in a high position.” This setup is applied consistently across his entire Jazzmaster collection.
The Jazzmaster’s specific qualities that make it irreplaceable for his approach:
- The floating tremolo system: Unlike the Stratocaster’s synchronized tremolo, the Jazzmaster’s tremolo is a floating design where the bridge can also float — the two systems interact in a specific way that produces the “loose” feel Shields exploits. “I couldn’t play guitar without this,” he said about the tremolo
- The arm leverage: The Jazzmaster’s tremolo arm has specific leverage geometry that suits the glide technique — enough resistance that the pitch movement is controllable, not so much that it requires excessive force
- The pickups: The Jazzmaster’s wide, flat single-coil pickups produce a specific tonal character — slightly darker and more complex than Stratocaster single coils — that suits the layered, textural approach he uses
- The scale length: The 25.5-inch scale provides the string tension and feel that Shields’s technique requires
The alternate tunings: like Thurston Moore, Shields tunes different guitars to different configurations for different songs. He confirmed: “Every time I have new songs with different tunings… It’s hard to tune live, like go from one extreme tuning to another.” One documented tuning for “I Only Said”: E-A-B-G-G-E. The exact number and configuration of tunings across the MBV catalog is substantial.
Tone note: “I couldn’t play guitar without this” — referring to the Jazzmaster’s tremolo system. That’s the most complete possible statement of instrument necessity in this series. Not “I prefer this” or “this suits my style” — “I couldn’t play guitar without this.” The tremolo isn’t a feature of the guitar. It’s the instrument. The guitar is the tremolo delivery mechanism.
Fender Jaguars — The Close Second
Alongside the Jazzmasters, Shields uses Fender Jaguars extensively. Equipboard noted: “Pro Guitar Shop writes in this article ‘It is almost unimaginable to picture Shields playing anything but his Fender Jaguars and Jazzmasters.'” The Jaguar’s tremolo system is similar enough to the Jazzmaster’s for the glide technique, and the shorter 24-inch scale provides a different feel that Shields uses for specific songs or contexts.
Other Documented Guitars
- Mosrite Combo guitar — Documented in a photo on Equipboard; an unusual American guitar brand most associated with surf music and 1960s rock
- Gretsch G5420T Electromatic Hollow Body (Candy Apple Red) — Documented in a band photo; hollow body character differs from the Jazzmaster’s solid body
- Fender Classic ’69 Blue Flower Floral Stratocaster — Used occasionally; “Shields does not typically play Stratocasters, and this seems to be his only Stratocaster”
- Fender Newporter acoustic — Possibly the acoustic used for writing sessions; Bilinda Butcher mentioned Kevin using an acoustic Fender for writing songs
- Various Japanese Jazzmaster copies — Used alongside genuine Fenders on Loveless recordings
Complete Guitar List (Key Instruments)
- Ibanez Jazzmaster copy — First offset guitar; early MBV period; visible in “Only Shallow” video
- Yamaha SG600 (sunburst) — Very early MBV rehearsal footage
- 1964 Fender Jazzmaster (borrowed from Bill Carey, 1988) — The guitar that invented glide guitar; first hour: “Thorn”; second hour: “Slow”
- 1959 Fender Jazzmaster (refinished 1964, bought LA 1989) — Primary Loveless recording guitar; “a ’59 that was refinished in ’64”
- Multiple Fender Jazzmasters (12 good ones, 25 total) — All set up with tape on tremolo arm; arm in high position; alternate tunings per song
- Multiple Fender Jaguars — Close second to Jazzmasters; same tremolo system; 24-inch scale
- Mosrite Combo — Documented in collection
- Gretsch G5420T Electromatic (Candy Apple Red) — In collection
- Fender Classic ’69 Blue Flower Stratocaster — Occasional use; only Stratocaster
Amps: Maximum Gain, Maximum Volume
Kevin Shields’s amplifier philosophy is the opposite of a minimalist’s: he used multiple amplifiers simultaneously on Loveless, each contributing different tonal elements to the layered guitar sound. Loveless engineer Alan Moulder recalled that “all the rhythm guitars went through a 1960s Marshall head with an old 4×12 cab that matched the amp, and also a Vox AC30.” But across 16 studios and two and a half years of sessions, the amplifier selection was anything but fixed.
Documented Amplifiers
- Vox AC30 — The primary Loveless amp for rhythm guitars (alongside the Marshall); the AC30’s compressed, chimey character contributed the warmth layer that the Marshall’s aggression needed
- Vox AC15 and Vox AC4 — Also used during Loveless recording; Sound on Sound reported Shields using the AC4 specifically. The AC4’s small size (4 watts) produces natural power-amp saturation at lower volume than the AC30’s 30 watts
- 1960s Marshall head with matching 4×12 cabinet — Moulder’s documented primary recording amp for rhythm guitars
- Marshall JCM800 (×2) — Guitar Geek’s gear diagram documents two JCM800 heads in his live setup
- Fender Dual Showman — Among the amps used across the Loveless recording sessions as studios changed
- Hiwatt heads — Used in live contexts
- ADA MP-1 preamp — Used as a preamp stage in the recording chain
His live philosophy: “everything from Vox AC30s and Hiwatt heads to Fender Dual Showmans and Marshall JCM800s” running simultaneously. The wall of amplifiers at MBV concerts is the specific manifestation of this multi-amp recording philosophy applied to the live performance context — different amps contributing different frequency ranges and saturation characters to the combined sound.
Far Out Magazine summarised: “Maximum gain at maximum volume, paired with his unique use of the vibrato bar and just the right amount of reverb, does the work that hundreds of pedals could never do.”
Tone note: He used 16 different studios over two and a half years. Each studio had different amplifiers. He used all of them. The Loveless guitar sound is a palimpsest of dozens of different amp characters layered on top of each other, with the specific EQ, saturation, and room character of each studio contributing to the final texture. That’s not an amp setup you can replicate. It’s a historical accident that produced something nobody had heard before.
Pedals & Signal Chain: 63 Pedals, One Secret Weapon
Kevin Shields tours with 63 effects pedals. This number has been reported consistently across multiple sources — 63 pedals on stage simultaneously, organised and accessible for the specific requirements of different songs. But despite this extraordinary pedal count, the foundational Shields sound does not depend primarily on pedals.
Far Out Magazine captured the paradox: “unlike other shoegaze artists, Shields doesn’t actually rely all that heavily on pedals. Instead, a Yamaha SPX90 reverse reverb rack and pure amp distortion are the essential tools that Shields wields in crafting his tone.”
The Secret Weapon — Yamaha SPX90 Reverse Reverb
The Yamaha SPX90 is a rack-mounted digital effects processor from the late 1980s. Its specific value to Shields is a single program: the reverse reverb — also called “reverse gate” reverb, where the reverb tail plays before the dry signal rather than after it. The effect: the guitar sound appears to swell in from silence, with the reverb arriving before the attack of the note.
He told the Far Out Magazine journalist: “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] SPX90 and again, it’s the reverse reverb program.”
The gearnews.com article documented the specific SPX90 settings: “Type: Reverse Gate, Room Size: 20.0, Liveness: 6 or 7, Delay: 75.0ms, LPF: THRU.” These are the settings that produced the swirling, liquid quality of the Loveless guitar sound. The reverse reverb is the “melted effect” that Shields described discovering in that first two-hour Jazzmaster session.
The Alesis Midiverb II — mentioned alongside the SPX90 — uses Patch 43 for the reverse reverb program. These two rack units, combined with the Jazzmaster tremolo technique, are the foundational tools of the Loveless sound.
The Fuzz — Roger Mayer Axis Fuzz and Vox Tone Bender
The distortion layer in the Loveless guitar sound comes primarily from:
- Roger Mayer Axis Fuzz — Described as used “all over Loveless” by The Bold Musician; Roger Mayer built guitar effects for Jimi Hendrix and has continued producing high-quality fuzz units; the Axis Fuzz’s specific character suits the layered, textural approach
- Vox Tone Bender — Also used extensively on Loveless; “still seen on his pedalboard today” — the Vox-branded Tone Bender produces a specific British fuzz character
- Marshall Shredmaster — A Marshall distortion pedal used during the Loveless recording and live era
- Marshall Guv’nor (×2) — Used during the Isn’t Anything era; “Two Marshall Guv’Nor Distortion pedals (during Isn’t Anything era. Discontinued, replaced by the Guv’nor 2)”
Additional Key Pedals
- Digitech Whammy (original, multiple) — His pedalboard contains “multiple of the original DigiTech Whammy pedal”; the Whammy produces pitch-shifting and octave effects that complement the glide technique. Also: a Digitech Whammy 4 documented in a 2018 video
- Digitech PDS-8000 Echo Plus — A delay unit with specific character; documented in Equipboard
- Digitech 8-Second Sampler — Used for sampling guitar feedback; “Shields would record guitar feedback from his Jazzmaster to a DAT tape and then sample the guitar feedback through an Akai S1000, which they could then trigger from a keyboard to create melodies” (as a studio technique; the sampler captures specific feedback tones)
- Boss GE-7 Graphic Equaliser (×2) — EQ pedals for frequency shaping
- Boss PN-2 Tremolo (×2) — Tremolo effect pedals (additional to the guitar tremolo arm)
- Dunlop Rotovibe — A rotating speaker simulator producing Doppler modulation; seen on the 1991 Loveless tour pedalboard alongside the ProCo Turbo RAT
- ProCo Turbo RAT — Also on the 1991 tour pedalboard; the same Turbo RAT that Lee Ranaldo used
- Keeley Loomer Fuzz & Reverb — A modern shoegaze-voiced fuzz/reverb pedal named after the Loveless track “Loomer”; seen on his 2018 pedalboard; the pedal is literally named after his music
- Death By Audio Supersonic Fuzz Gun — Documented in Equipboard
- Devi Ever Shoe Gazer — A boutique fuzz specifically voiced for shoegaze
- Red Panda Context reverb — Used during a sound lesson at Dinosaur Jr.’s Camp Fuzz
- MXR Blue Box — Octave fuzz (also used by Lee Ranaldo)
Tone note: He tours with 63 pedals. His secret weapon is a rack unit from 1987 with a reverse reverb program. The 63 pedals serve specific songs and specific tonal moments. The SPX90 reverse reverb is the constant, the foundation that everything else sits on. Not the fanciest piece of equipment. Not the most expensive. The one that made the guitar sound “like some weird tape. Sort of a copy of a copy of a copy.”
Strings, Picks & Setup
The Tremolo Setup — The Most Important Configuration Detail:
Kevin Shields’s tremolo setup is unique and specifically documented in multiple sources:
- Tape on the tremolo arm prevents it from fully seating in the guitar’s body
- The arm is maintained in a high position — further from the body than standard setup
- The bridge is pulled back as far as possible
- The result: the arm can only push down (bending the pitch flat), not up (bending sharp)
- Because the arm is loose and high, the player doesn’t fully feel it: “I’ve got it in my hand so that I don’t actually feel it”
He explained the perceptual mechanism of the glide: “Your brain hears where it should be, and it kind of ignores the fact that, 50 per cent of the time, everything I do is out of tune.” The listener’s brain corrects the pitch instability, hearing a kind of floating in-tuneness over what is technically unstable intonation. This perceptual compensation is the psychological foundation of the glide guitar’s emotional effect.
Heavy strings, two tuned together: The origin of the glide technique specifically came from the problem of heavy strings — the borrowed 1964 Jazzmaster’s strings were too heavy to bend individually, so he tuned two strings together and bent both. This approach — treating two strings as one for bending purposes — produces a wider, more complex pitch bend than a single string can produce, with the two slightly different string tensions creating subtle beating and detuning effects during the bend.
Alternate tunings: Multiple guitars in multiple tunings, like the Sonic Youth approach. “Every time I have new songs with different tunings… It’s hard to tune live, like go from one extreme tuning to another.” He brings enough guitars to have each song’s tuning available without retuning on stage.
Picks: Not the most documented aspect of his playing — the strumming technique with the tremolo arm held provides the most distinctive technical contribution. He appears to use standard picks for conventional strumming.
Tone note: “50 per cent of the time, everything I do is out of tune.” That’s the complete technical description of glide guitar in one sentence, in his own words. The technique exploits perceptual correction — the listener’s brain hearing where the pitch should be rather than where it is. This is not an accident or a limitation. It is a deliberate musical strategy that produces emotional effects that perfectly in-tune playing cannot achieve. The imprecision is the point. The technique weaponises the brain’s tendency to hear intention rather than fact.
Playing Style & Tone Philosophy: The Architecture of Controlled Imprecision
Kevin Shields’s playing style is the most philosophically sophisticated in this series, because it explicitly depends on the relationship between what the guitar actually produces and what the listener’s brain hears. The glide technique is a psychological phenomenon as much as a sonic one.
The Glide Guitar Technique — Full Definition
Glide guitar: Shields strums chords while continuously holding the Jazzmaster tremolo arm, pushing the pitch down slightly below the intended pitch and allowing it to “glide” back up to pitch continuously during strumming. The arm is loosely taped so it provides minimal resistance; the high position means it can only push down (flat), not pull up (sharp). The result: every chord strum begins slightly flat and rises to pitch during the chord’s sustain — a continuous pitch glide upward rather than stable pitch.
The listener hears this as a liquid, warping quality. The brain’s pitch correction function — which is always attempting to find the “correct” pitch in ambiguous sounds — works overtime to hear the intended chord beneath the continuously varying intonation. The emotional effect: dreamlike, floating, slightly out of reach. You hear the music through a liquid medium that distorts and clarifies simultaneously.
The Layering Philosophy
The Loveless guitar sound is not one guitar. It is dozens of guitar takes, layered across each other, each slightly different in timing, tuning, and amp character. The gearnews.com article noted: “The multiple layered guitar takes on the album were recorded with different amp and mic set-ups.” Each layer adds a slightly different frequency content, a slightly different saturation character, a slightly different timing. The mass of these layers produces the specific quality of the album’s guitar sound: not one guitar playing, but a kind of guitar consciousness that surrounds the listener.
The Reverse Reverb Philosophy
The SPX90’s reverse reverb plays the reverb before the attack. This means the guitar sound begins with a swell of decayed reverb — anticipating the note — before the note itself arrives. The perceptual effect: the note seems to exist before it begins, as if it’s been there all along and you’re only now noticing it. Combined with the glide technique’s pitch instability, this produces the specific “melted” quality that Shields described discovering in the first two hours of Jazzmaster playing.
The Perfectionism
“Kevin Shields was a perfectionist, and his unwavering authority made My Bloody Valentine’s second studio album a masterpiece in control.” This is the gearnews.com description, and it captures the paradox: the technique produces imprecision (glide guitar is controlled out-of-tuneness), but the construction is maximally precise (£250,000, 16 studios, two and a half years of recording). The imprecision is designed. The out-of-tuneness is architectural. The sloppiness is engineered.
How to Sound Like Kevin Shields: The Shoegaze Guitar Tone
Shields’s tone is more accessible than its technical complexity suggests. The basic elements — Jazzmaster, reverse reverb, fuzz, glide technique — are achievable. The layering that makes Loveless extraordinary requires multitrack recording and time.
The Guitar
Fender Jazzmaster. The tremolo system is non-negotiable — the glide technique requires a floating tremolo that behaves in the specific loose, high-position way Shields has configured his instruments.
- Any vintage or current-production Fender Jazzmaster — The tremolo system is consistent across all Jazzmaster variants
- Setup: Tape the tremolo arm at the base (a small piece of masking tape prevents full seating); position the arm in a high position (further from the body than standard); pull the bridge back as far as possible. This gives the arm a loose, downward-only feel
The Amp
Vox AC30 (or AC15) for the core Loveless character. Run at high volume for natural power-amp saturation. The AC30’s compression and the specific treble character of its EF86 or EL84 tubes is a significant part of the Loveless guitar texture.
| Control | Setting | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Volume | High — approaching natural breakup | “Maximum gain at maximum volume” — the amp saturation is part of the texture |
| Treble | 6–7 | The Jazzmaster’s natural warmth benefits from treble presence in the amp |
| Bass | 4–5 | Controlled; the reverse reverb adds low-frequency content |
| Tone Cut (Vox) | Rolled back slightly | The Vox tone cut darkens slightly as it’s turned clockwise; slight adjustment |
The Essential Effects
Reverse Reverb (the most important element):
- Yamaha SPX90 (vintage rack; specific patches) — Authentic; requires vintage unit
- Strymon BigSky (Bloom mode approximates reverse reverb character) — Modern alternative
- Electro-Harmonix Oceans 11 (has reverse reverb mode) — Budget alternative
- DAW reverse reverb (for recording) — In a DAW, reverse a clip of reverb for the exact effect
Fuzz: Roger Mayer Axis Fuzz (most authentic) or Vox Tone Bender clone. Budget alternative: any good silicon or germanium fuzz at medium-to-high gain. The fuzz provides the distortion layer; the amp provides additional saturation above it.
The Glide Technique
With the tremolo arm in the high position (taped at base), hold the arm loosely in the strumming hand while strumming. Push the arm down slightly before each chord strum — just enough to push the pitch flat by a fraction of a semitone — then let it rise back to pitch as the chord sustains. The motion is subtle; the arm barely moves. The effect on the pitch is continuous and slight. Your brain will hear the chord as pitched correctly even though the guitar is technically slightly flat during the strum and only reaching correct pitch during the sustain.
Combine this with reverse reverb: set up the reverse reverb so the reverb tail leads into the dry signal. Strum. The chord will appear to build from a swelling of reverb, then crystallise into the glide guitar’s characteristic floating pitch. That’s the Loveless sound in its fundamental form.
Budget vs Authentic
Budget:
- Guitar: Any Fender Jazzmaster; set up tremolo per Shields’s documented method
- Amp: Vox AC15 or AC30 (second-hand, or AC15C1 current production)
- Fuzz: EHX Big Muff or Boss HM-2 (not identical but achieves the saturation layer)
- Reverse reverb: EHX Oceans 11 or DAW reverse reverb
Authentic:
- Guitar: Vintage Fender Jazzmaster (1958-1965); tremolo set up with tape as documented
- Amp: Vox AC30 (early-1960s if available) + 1960s Marshall head simultaneously
- Fuzz: Roger Mayer Axis Fuzz + Vox Tone Bender
- Reverse reverb: Yamaha SPX90 with Reverse Gate program (Room Size 20, Liveness 6-7, Delay 75ms)
Influence & Legacy: The Sound That Defined a Generation
Kevin Shields’s influence on guitar music since 1991 is one of the broadest in this series. Loveless is referenced in the origin stories of bands from Radiohead to Hole to the Smashing Pumpkins to Mogwai to Deerhunter — not as a genre they inhabit but as the record that showed them what guitar music could do in terms of texture, atmosphere, and emotional density.
The specific documented influences:
- Radiohead — Cited; the textural guitar approach of The Bends and OK Computer has Loveless as a primary reference
- Smashing Pumpkins — Billy Corgan cited MBV as an influence; the wall-of-guitars approach on Siamese Dream
- Mogwai — The Scottish post-rock band’s entire aesthetic is built on the foundations Loveless established
- Deerhunter — Bradford Cox’s approach to textural guitar has Shields as a primary ancestor
- Every shoegaze band since 1991 — The genre is named after the looking-down-at-pedals posture MBV is credited with establishing; every subsequent shoegaze artist inhabits the space Shields created
- The entire Jazzmaster market — Shields and Sonic Youth between them transformed the Jazzmaster from a cheap, unwanted obsolete guitar into one of the most sought-after instruments in alternative rock. The prices of vintage Jazzmasters now reflect this transformation
The Loveless recording’s extreme cost — £250,000, which reportedly consumed most of Creation Records’ resources — nearly ended both the album and the label. Alan McGee has described the recording as a near-death experience for the label. Yet the album’s influence since 1991 has been so extensive that its cost-benefit ratio, viewed over thirty years, looks unambiguous. Every album it influenced, every band it inspired, every studio session where someone reached for a reverse reverb and a Jazzmaster tremolo arm — all of these are the continuing return on a £250,000 investment in one perfectionist’s vision.
Tone note: The album cost £250,000 and took two and a half years. The foundational technique was discovered in two hours with a borrowed guitar. The gap between those two things is perfectionism: the idea came instantly; making it sound exactly right took everything Creation Records had. The instant discovery and the years of refinement are both Kevin Shields. The technique came free. The production was the investment. Both were necessary.
In 1988, in a recording studio, a friend named Bill Carey loaned Kevin Shields a 1964 Fender Jazzmaster. The strings were very heavy. Shields decided to tune two strings together and bend them both. The tremolo arm happened to be set unusually high. He picked it up and started playing. That first hour: “Thorn.” The second hour: “Slow,” and the melted, reverse-reverb, glide-guitar sound that would define a generation.
Three years later, after £250,000, 16 studios, and two and a half years of recording, Loveless came out. It is still the defining document of shoegaze. It inspired Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins, Mogwai, Deerhunter, and everyone who followed.
He has about 12 good Jazzmasters. He tours with 63 pedals. His secret weapon is a Yamaha SPX90 reverse reverb program. He tapes the tremolo arm so it won’t fully seat. He keeps the arm high. He can only push down, not up.
“Your brain hears where it should be, and it kind of ignores the fact that, 50 per cent of the time, everything I do is out of tune.”
That’s the technique. That’s the physics. That’s the sound. That’s Kevin Shields.
If Kevin Shields’s shoegaze architecture — the glide guitar, the Jazzmaster tremolo, the reverse reverb, the wall of fuzz — has you exploring the guitar texture tradition he founded, check out our complete guide to Thurston Moore’s guitars and gear — whose parallel Jazzmaster work at Sonic Youth helped create the cultural context in which Shields’s shoegaze could emerge and be recognised.
And for the band that first toured with Sonic Youth and helped both Moore/Ranaldo and Shields see the Jazzmaster’s potential — the guitarist whose Ram’s Head Big Muff and Jazzmaster approach runs through the same noise-rock DNA — don’t miss our breakdown of J Mascis’s complete gear guide.
FAQ: Kevin Shields Guitars & Gear
- What guitars does Kevin Shields play?
- Primarily Fender Jazzmasters — he owns approximately 25, with about 12 he considers “good ones.” His relationship with the Jazzmaster began in 1988 when a friend named Bill Carey loaned him a 1964 Jazzmaster, on which he developed the glide guitar technique within hours. He also uses Fender Jaguars extensively. All his Jazzmasters are set up with tape on the tremolo arm preventing full seating, the arm in a high position, and the bridge pulled back as far as possible. He uses different guitars for different song tunings, like Sonic Youth. Documented additional guitars include Mosrite Combo, Gretsch G5420T, a Fender Classic ’69 Blue Flower Stratocaster (his only Strat), and various Japanese Jazzmaster copies used on early MBV recordings.
- What is glide guitar and how does Kevin Shields do it?
- Glide guitar is Shields’s technique of continuously holding the Jazzmaster tremolo arm while strumming chords, pushing the pitch slightly flat before each strum and allowing it to rise back to correct pitch as the chord sustains. He tapes the tremolo arm at its base to prevent full seating (keeping it loose), positions it high (so it can only push down, not up), and holds it loosely while strumming. The result: every chord starts flat and glides up to pitch. The listener’s brain hears the intended pitch rather than the technical instability, producing the floating, dreamlike quality. Shields explained: “Your brain hears where it should be, and it kind of ignores the fact that, 50 per cent of the time, everything I do is out of tune.”
- What is the Yamaha SPX90 and how did it create the Loveless sound?
- The Yamaha SPX90 is a rack-mounted digital effects processor from the late 1980s. Shields used its reverse reverb program as his “secret weapon” for Loveless — a program that plays the reverb tail before the dry signal rather than after it, creating a swell of decayed reverb that precedes and introduces each note. The settings: Reverse Gate program, Room Size 20.0, Liveness 6 or 7, Delay 75ms. He also used the Alesis Midiverb II’s reverse reverb (Patch 43). Combined with the glide technique, the reverse reverb produces the “melted” quality he described discovering in his first hours with the borrowed 1964 Jazzmaster: “Sort of a copy of a copy of a copy.”
- How much did Loveless cost to make?
- £250,000 over approximately two and a half years across 16 different studios. The recording process was legendarily expensive and nearly bankrupted Creation Records. Shields used multiple engineers, moved between studios frequently, and recorded an enormous amount of material that didn’t make the final album. He knew what he was hearing in his head and would not release the record until the recording matched it. Creation Records head Alan McGee has described the recording as a near-death experience for the label. The album came out in November 1991 and is now considered one of the most significant recordings in guitar music history.
- How many pedals does Kevin Shields tour with?
- 63 effects pedals. This number has been reported consistently across multiple sources. His documented pedals include: Roger Mayer Axis Fuzz, Vox Tone Bender, Marshall Shredmaster, Marshall Guv’nor (×2, from the Isn’t Anything era), multiple Digitech Whammy pedals, Digitech PDS-8000, Digitech 8-Second Sampler, Boss GE-7 (×2), Boss PN-2 Tremolo (×2), Dunlop Rotovibe, ProCo Turbo RAT, Keeley Loomer, Death By Audio Supersonic Fuzz Gun, Devi Ever Shoe Gazer, Red Panda Context reverb, and MXR Blue Box, among others. Despite touring with 63 pedals, his essential sound depends primarily on the Yamaha SPX90 reverse reverb and pure amp distortion rather than the pedal collection.
- What amplifiers did Kevin Shields use on Loveless?
- Multiple amplifiers across 16 studios. Engineer Alan Moulder confirmed that “all the rhythm guitars went through a 1960s Marshall head with an old 4×12 cab that matched the amp, and also a Vox AC30.” He also used Vox AC15 and AC4 (the 4-watt amp providing power-amp saturation at lower volumes), Fender Dual Showman, Hiwatt heads, and an ADA MP-1 preamp. Each studio change brought different amplifier options, and Shields used them all — the variety of amp characters across 16 studios contributes to the layered complexity of the final guitar sound.
- How do I replicate Kevin Shields’s guitar tone?
- Fender Jazzmaster with tremolo setup: tape the arm base to prevent full seating, position arm high, pull bridge back as far as possible — this allows only downward pitch bending (going flat), not upward (going sharp). Into a Vox AC30 or AC15 at high volume (approaching natural saturation). Fuzz: Roger Mayer Axis Fuzz or Vox Tone Bender (or any good silicon/germanium fuzz at medium-high gain). Reverse reverb: Yamaha SPX90 (Reverse Gate, Room Size 20, Liveness 6-7, Delay 75ms) or modern alternative (Strymon BigSky Bloom mode, EHX Oceans 11, or DAW reverse reverb). Glide technique: hold the arm loosely while strumming; push down slightly before each chord; allow pitch to rise back to correct pitch during sustain. Your brain will correct the intonation; the listener’s brain will do the same.
