#thin thing

Jonny dramatically muting the strings of his late-70s natural finish Les Paul Standard during a performance of Read The Room in Cleveland on July 11, 2023 (Ryan J).

Verse

Read The Room starts with just a guitar through a single-repeat delay. Well, technically two guitars: the same guitar part is recorded twice, with one recording panned hard left and the other panned hard right. Each one has its own delay. Jonny almost certainly used his Boss DD200, given the clarity of the delay sound (a Space Echo would be too warm in the highs). If we count quarters at ~61.5bpm, we can hear that the delay time is set for a single quarter note.

There’s also medium overdrive and a flanging effect added to Jonny's guitar. The overdrive is probably Jonny's Boss SD1, which he's found a new affection for with The Smile (since 2007, he's used a Boss OD3 with Radiohead instead of his older SD1). The flanger is almost certainly from the EarthQuaker Devices Pyramids visible on Jonny’s board in studio photos.

At 0:09, Thom’s bass guitar enters. Based on live usage, he's probably playing his vintage, modified Gibson EB0. You can also see that bass in a photo from the the Wall of Eyes zine, which we included in our last post.

At 0:13, the drums enter, with Tom playing a stuttering pattern on the kick and snare, with occasional cymbals and open hihats for emphasis.

At 1:07, Jonny’s Sequential Prophet 5 REV4 adds a nice descending counter-melody (at least, it's probably the Prophet based on studio photos and similarity to the live tone). When the synth enters, Jonny switches to plucking muted strings on his guitar for a totally percussive sound, which leaves space for the synth to stand out. At live shows, he mutes the strings rather dramatically, sliding his hand up and down the fingerboard to vary the sound of the percussive plucks.

At 1:37-1:41 some slightly open hihats lead us to the next section...

A photo from Jonny's home studio in Oxford, showing his Sequential Prophet 5 REV4 nestled between a 1980s Sequential Prophet 600 and an Elektron Digitone Keys. This photo by Sam Petts-Davies was originally posted on the Smile's twitter on October 31, 2023, but was definitely taken much earlier since the band were on tour at that time.

Chorus

At 1:41, the song switches to a softer “chorus” section, and a center-panned acoustic guitar becomes the main rhythm instrument. However, Jonny’s left and right panned electric guitars keep playing, adding subtle swelled notes. He’s probably using the “freeze swell” trick he first used for the Skirting On The Surface outro solo — more info in this post. However, it’s hard to say for sure, given the amount of woodwinds in this section. Robert Stillman's clarinets and Pete Wareham's flutes enter more clearly at 1:53. They add a rich, undulating texture through to the end of the chorus at 2:08.

For most of the chorus, we only hear a gentle hihat pattern from Tom. But at 2:00, we first hear cymbals, then the kick and stuttering snare from the verse enter to lead us back out of the chorus.

A photo of Pete Wareham playing flute in Abbey Road Studio 2, from the Smile's Wall of Eyes zine. Wareham previously collaborated with Tom Skinner’s past band Sons Of Kemet.

Verse 2 and Chorus 2

At 2:08-2:11, the start of the next verse, we briefly hear the main riff on the single acoustic guitar from the chorus. Then Jonny's two hard-panned electric guitars return at ~2:11. This verse (2:11-2:40) mainly repeats the instrumentation from first verse, but with more cymbals and more intense vocal delay. However, we do get a left-panned clarinet playing the counter-melody at 2:25-2:36, replacing the synth from the first verse. We also hear some fun sliding noises — seemingly from a “delay time” knob being turned — at 2:26-2:30.

The second “chorus” (2:41-3:11) brings back the acoustic guitar, swelling electric guitars, woodwinds, and gentle hihats from the first chorus. The main difference is that the winds play a richer texture, and Jonny’s two electric guitars start to add spacier delayed notes at ~3:00 (possibly with his Boss RE-202 Space Echo pedal).

A photo of Jonny in the live room at Abbey Road Studio 2 from March or April of 2023 (Sam Petts-Davies). We can see his EHX Freeze, Boss SD1, Boss DD-200, and Boss RE-202 in the bottom row. His EQD Pyramids is at the end of the top row. For more info on his pedalboards, check out Jonny's page.

Coda

The coda begins at 3:12 with a right-panned single electric guitar from Jonny and a cymbal crash from Tom. Jonny plays a riff that initially feels pretty simple, until you notice that he keeps skipping eighth notes. There's a few ways to divide it up, but the full pattern is 22 eighth-notes long (two measures of 11/8, though it's easier to count as two measure of 6/4 with the last eighth note or each measure skipped, which also feels closer to the way the band play it).

Unlike the previous sections, this guitar has no delay or other effects. Instead of delay, Jonny’s riff makes use of open strings to give a fuller, multi-voice sound. On the studio recording, his B-string is detuned to an A for this section, allowing him to add an open “A” ringing over his riff. This is pretty notable, because the song’s main riff used an open B-string in standard tuning! At live shows, Jonny doesn’t bother with the high “A”, presumably because he has no time to detune the B-string or to switch guitars. So that's a little extra studio magic!

Jonny most likely played his late-70s natural finish Les Paul Standard for most or all of the studio recording. He's seen with other guitars in a few studio photos, but his tone on this track has a richness that's characteristic of his Les Paul through his Super Reverb — particularly his clean tone in the code.

The cymbal crash from the start of the coda slowly fades from 3:12-3:19. Then at 3:20, a couple of snare hits call in a new pattern of kick, snare, and closed hihat. The pattern is reminiscent of the "motorik" beat found in a lot of Krautrock, with a snare on 3. But the skipped eighths in the riff make the beat much more varied than in a traditional Krautrock track.

Thom adds a distorted bass guitar at 3:23, mirroring Jonny’s riff an octave below. He’s probably using his EarthQuaker Devices Plumes pedal for the added punch. In live footage, we can also see Thom and Jonny grab plectrums at the start of the coda. Thom may have been using the Plumes earlier in Read The Room, but the plectrum really emphasizes the punch.

When Thom’s vocal re-enters at 3:45, there’s a ton of vocal layers and reverb. The layers all seem to match the main vocal, so it might a dual delay setting from Thom’s Strymon DIG pedal, albeit with some heavier reverb added to the delays. At live shows played after the Abbey Road recording sessions, Thom had a drone from his Moog Matriach playing during this section, but it’s not present on the album.

At 4:05, Jonny adds a second electric guitar layer, panned hard-left and playing patterns with a new single-repeat delay. At live shows, he relied on Thom to keep the riff going. But on the studio recording, his right-panned riff guitar keeps playing too.

Tom brings back the cymbals in earnest from 4:13-4:48, bringing the song to its climax. Then, after a choirs of Thom say "everybody thinks so" at 4:48, the cymbals and vocals drop out (with a long vocal delay fade-out). The guitar, bass, and drums continue up until the track ends abruptly with another statement of "everybody thinks so".

We’ve already posted a quick overview of The Smile’s gear for NPR’s Tiny Desk and a detailed description of Thom’s setup.

We’ll have an analysis of The Smile’s KEXP setup in the near future, but for now here’s the last post in our analysis of their Tiny Desk set:

Robert Stillman and Jonny during Panavision (youtube). Note the extra holes in the pickguard for a “tugbar” finger rest below the G string — that means the bass is from before 1974, since that’s the year Fender moved the finger rest to above the E-string to serve as a thumb rest.

For Tiny Desk, Jonny mostly used the same gear as at live shows this year, but stripped down to the essentials for guitar and bass. He played his his 1970s Fender Precision Bass on Panavision and We Don’t Know What Tomorrow Brings, and played his vintage Gibson Les Paul on The Smoke and  Skirting On The Surface. Jonny only used his Boss RE-202 Space Echo as a reverb on The Smoke. But on Skirting, he used his RE-202 as a delay, his Akai Headrush E2 as a looper, and his Electro-Harmonix Freeze during the solo. He brought several other pedals, but sounds like they weren’t used in the released tracks. Read on for a nice photo of Jonny’s pedal setup and lots more analysis (including an exact delay time for Thin Thing).

It’s a shame they decided not to share We Don’t Know What Tomorrow Brings, as it would be interesting to hear a stripped down version of the track. It looks like Jonny didn’t bring his Studiologic MIDI pedals, so they must’ve played it without his extra synth lines (and without Thom’s intro synth lines).

Jonny’s Instruments:

Gibson Les Paul in Natural finish (late-70s)

Fender Precision Bass in Natural finish (early-70s)

Jonny’s Amplifiers (shared with Thom):

Tiny Desk’s Fender ’68 Reissue Deluxe Reverb combo amplifier

Tiny Desk’s Ampeg RB-110 combo amplifier

Jonny’s Effects Pedals:


Guitar ->

Boss TU-2 tuner

Electro-Harmonix Freeze

Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive

Boss DD-200 delay

Akai Headrush E2 delay/looper


Boss RE-202 Space Echo

-> Amplifier

GigRig Generator and Distributor power supply.

A photo of Jonny’s 1970s Precision bass and the shared amps (joshrogosin). The mic on the Ampeg RB-110 bass amp is an AEA R84 ribbon microphone. The mic on the ‘68 Custom Deluxe Reverb is an AEA N22 ribbon microphone. The amps and mics belong to Tiny Desk, and the same ones can be seen in various performances on their channel.

The blue jewel lamp shows that the Deluxe Reverb is the ’68 Custom reissue, not a vintage silver-panel Deluxe (which had red jewel lamps). Jonny plugged into the Deluxe Reverb’s "vintage" channel, using input 1. On the ’68 reissue, the “vintage" channel is based on the original black-panel Deluxe Reverb (despite the silver design), but without the bright cap on the volume control. In contrast, the “custom” channel is based on a modified Bassman circuit.

A photo of Jonny’s guitar pedals for the Tiny Desk show (joshrogosin).

The Akai Headrush in this setup has a bunch of stickers indicating a multi-head delay setting, but it is set to "Looper" mode. It also has a piece of foam(?) to prevent the mode switch from being hit accidentally. The Headrush on Jonny's pedalboard doesn't have those stickers, so it seems likely that these pedals are the backups for Jonny's main board. Jonny might also use these pedals to play on the band's tour bus or at their hotels. That would explain the extra strikers.

Jonny's DD-200 has some tape listing his presets:

1 - Thin Thing

2 - Opposite

3 - Just Eyes and Mouth

5 - Pillows

Presets 4 and 6 are unreadable, but they are almost certainly for the unreleased songs Read the Room (previously called either “IT” or “Flangers”) and Bending Hectic. Jonny uses his long rhythmic delay technique on both tracks.

For more ambient delays on songs like Skirting On The Surface and Open The Floodgates, Jonny instead uses the Boss RE-202 Space Echo. That’s why the DD-200 has no presets for those tracks

In the image above, the DD-200 is set to preset number 1, and the digital display shows a delay time of 779ms. But if you’ve even tapped along to a live version of that song (on every fifth eighth note), you probably figured that out already.

Jonny with a pair of Roland RE-201 Space Echos during the recording of In Rainbows (deadairspace).

When Jonny first acquired a Roland Space Echo in the late-90s, he used it as more of an textural effect. Airbag is a great example: he uses the delay to "thicken" his tremolo picking during the verses, and on live versions of the outro solo he turns the delay on and off repeatedly to create glitchy sounds during. For those kinds of sounds, you'll definitely want a Space Echo emulation that includes the slightly wonky spring reverb, so that rules out pedals like the DD-20 and DD-200 (both of which get close to the Space Echo delay sound, though they lack the preamp for the dry signal). For these more textural sounds, any of Boss's Space Echo pedals will do a good job.

It's only worth noting that Jonny only used his Roland Space Echo with his Vox AC30 amplifier (his board is set up so its in a separate signal path from his Eighty-Five). Turning up the preamp on the Space Echo to push the Vox's preamp is doubtless a key part of Jonny's sound during the late-90s and 2000s.

But for Jonny's rhythmic-delay techniques from the past decade, you'll want a delay with tap tempo. It's usually still possible to dial in the right delay time using the "repeat rate" knob, though the longest delays on the RE-20 are only accessible through tap tempo. But for the rhythmic delays on song like Staircase, Identikit, Present Tense, and Thin Thing, it's significantly easier to use a tap tempo footswitch. Perhaps that's the reason Jonny wrote those guitar parts after obtaining a Boss RE-20 in mid-December, 2007.

The RE-20 and RE-202 both have dedicated tap tempo footswitches, while the RE-2 has a jack to add an external tap tempo footswitch. Of course, if you add a footswitch to the RE-2, it's the same size as an RE-20. Still, with the RE-2 you do have the flexibility to choose when you want the tap footswitch.

The "wow and flutter" is at a fixed setting on the RE-20, but it offers a full baxandall EQ to shape the sound of the delay (it doesn't change the dry signal). In contrast, the RE-2 has a simple "tone" knob, but offers an extra "wow and flutter" control. Which of those you prefer is up to you, but the RE-20 more accurately recreates the vibe of the original.

The RE-20 also offers a preamp volume control, which affects the level of the dry signal and the delay signal (like adjusting the “instrument volume” on a RE-201). When Jonny uses the pedal with his AC30, he sets the volume control for a hefty boost. With a solid-state amp, this won't matter. But with a tube amp, it means you can’t use the Space Echo's preamp’s to push the input. While the RE-2 does offer a “preamp emulation” as a secondary function, the volume is not adjustable. However, you could always pair a boost pedal with an RE-2 to emulate that sound.

On the RE-201 and RE-20, turning up the volume on the preamp also causes the delays to saturate, giving a richer and more compressed sound. On the RE-202, there’s a new “saturation” knob to adjust it without changing the volume of the dry signal. If you do pair a boost pedal with your RE-2, you’ll want to put it before the RE-2 so that it pushes the delays into saturation.

The RE-20 does have another bonus feature however: the ability to cancel the dry signal with the flick of a switch. On the RE-2 and RE-202, you need to unplug power from the pedal to turn off the dry signal. On the RE-20, you can use the switch on the back of the pedal at any time. If you want extra ambient settings (perfect for stuff like House of Cards), then you may want the RE-20 instead.

The RE-202's extra features push it beyond the capabilities of the other units (including the original RE-201), adding more sounds and more flexibility. However, if you just want the sound of an RE-201 in a smaller box (plus some tap tempo and extra delay length), then the RE-20 and RE-2 should fit the bill perfectly.

Jonny playing The Smoke at Amsterdam’s Paradiso (karindgr). Note the pedals resting on top of the Rhodes piano next to the Prophet 5 REV4 synthesizer: those are used with the Prophet.

Jonny experimented with some new pedals during The Smile’s rehearsals in late-2021 and early-2022, including a Strymon Timeline, a Nano POG, and a vintage Ibanez TS-808. But by the end of rehearsals, he had settled on a relatively concise setup with eight pedals for his guitar. He subsequently used that setup for The Smile’s three live-streamed shows at London’s Magazine in January.

However, it seems that Thom and Jonny are both using the Smile’s 2022 European tour to experiment with even more pedals! So far, Thom’s new Grand Orbiter pedal helped to inspire the new song Bodies Laughing. As for Jonny, probably the most notable addition is his new Earthquaker Devices Pyramids flanger, which seemingly helped to inspire the new song IT/Flangers.

Jonny’s guitar pedalboard has most of the pedals from the Magazine shows, and he’s started to use his DD-200 instead of his RE-20 on even more songs (including The Opposite)! He has stopped using his Demeter Tremulator (set as a 6db boost during Thin Thing at the Magazine shows) and his big box Electro-Harmonix Small Stone, but he’s added more than he’s taken away. His board at Amsterdam’s Paradiso includes an Earthquaker Pyramids, an Earthquaker Organizer, and one of Thom’s old Telenorida Kompressors! He also has a Boss LS-2, with cables connected to the A and B outputs, but not the main output.

The following is a list of Jonny’s pedals for The Smile’s performance in Amsterdam on May 27, 2022. However, Jonny continued to adjust his pedalboard during the tour, as we’ll see in a future post. The signal order is based on his setup for the Magazine and other past pedalboards.

Guitar Signal Chain

Gibson Les Paul Standard (vintage)

Boss TU-3 tuner

Earthquaker Devices Pyramids flanger ↑ IT/Flangers

Telenorida Kompressor

Earthquaker Devices Organizer pitch-shifter ↑ Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses (?)

Electro-Harmonix Freeze ↑ Skirting On The Surface (outro solo)

Boss SD-1 super overdrive ↑ The Opposite, Thin Thing

Akai Headrush E2 looper ↑ Skirting On The Surface

Boss RE-20 Space Echo ↑ The Smoke The Opposite (with reverb knob at maximum), Skirting On The Surface (outro only)

Boss DD-200 delay ↑ The Opposite, Thin Thing, Just Eyes and Mouth, Under Our Pillows, IT/Flangers

Boss LS-2 line selector ↑ may be part of bass setup instead.

Radial Engineering DI box ↑ sits on top of Jonny’s amp. Sends output to both the amp and the PA.

Fender ‘65 Reissue Super Reverb combo amp

Electro-Harmonix single-output expression ↑ off-board, connected to RE-20.

Bass Signal Chain

Fender Precision Bass (vintage)

Boss TU-3 tuner

Radial Engineering DI box ↑ sits on top of Jonny’s amp. Sends output to both the amp and the PA.

Ampeg SVT-CL amp head (late-90s)

Ampeg SVT-810 cabinet

MIDI Pedals

Studiologic MP-117 MIDI pedalboard ↑ controls Jonny’s synth modules on The Opposite, Waving a White Flag, We Don't Know What Tomorrow Brings, Just Eyes and Mouth, and Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses.

Blackstar Live Logic 6-button ↑ controls a Max/MSP patch to loop Thom’s vocals on A Hairdryer.

Prophet 5 Signal Chain

Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 REV4

Peterson StroboStomp HD tuner

Earthquaker Devices Avalanche Run delay/reverb

Radial Engineering DI box -> FOH mixer -> PA speakers

A closeup of Jonny’s pedalboard during The Smoke at Amsterdam’s Paradiso (karindgr). The black rectangle at the top center of the image is a Blackstar Live Logic 6-button MIDI footcontroller.

A shot from the second concert, with Thom singing Open The Floodgates through one of his Audio-Technica Artist Elite microphones.

Vocal Microphone

Audio-Technica Artist Elite AE6100 or AE4100 Thom has four of these set up for the concert: one by his pedalboards, one by his synths, one by the upright piano, and one by the Rhodes piano.

Guitars and Amplifiers

Martin 00-18 acoustic Free In The Knowledge

Epiphone Casino in Sunburst (1962/1963) Speech Bubbles

Epiphone Casino “natural” (1963/1964) The original finish of this guitar was probably sunburst, but it’s so faded that it looks like a natural finish. You Will Never Work In Television Again

Fender Jazzmaster in Olympic White (1964) We Don't Know What Tomorrow Brings

Gibson SG in Cherry-Red (1964) A Hairdryer

Gibson Les Paul Custom in Black (1950s/1960s) It's Different for Girls (Joe Jackson cover)

“upside-down” Vox AC30/6 (1963) Thom’s main guitar amp.

JMI Vox AC30/6 in fawn tolex (1962) Kept behind the other Vox and used as a backup.

Bass Guitars and Amplifiers

Fender Mustang in Olympic White The Smoke Thin Thing

Guild Starfire-II in Cherry-Red (late-1960s) Skirting On The Surface The Same The Opposite

Fender Super Bassman amp head

Fender Bassman 610? cabinet

From the second concert: Thom playing his circa-1963 sunburst Epiphone Casino during Speech Bubbles.

From the second concert: Thom playing his vintage Les Paul during  It's Different For Girls.

A Schaller strap lock can be seen in this shot of the vintage Les Paul.

A closeup of Thom’s JMI Vox AC30/6 with fawn tolex. While it’s been his favorite for many shows (including In Rainbows — From the Basement), at this gig it’s only used as a spare for the “upside-down” AC30/6, hence the lack of input. Settings are only marked for the “normal volume” and “tone cut” controls, indicating that Thom only uses the Normal channel. Photo by a.lonsohuerta.

Keyboards

Yamaha U1 upright piano Panavision

Fender Rhodes Suitcase 73 electric piano (pre-1974) Open The Floodgates Only Eyes And Mouth

Waldorf STVC Waving a White Flag (as string synth) Thin Thing (as vocoder)

Moog Matriarch analog synth We Don't Know What Tomorrow Brings

Teenage Engineering OP1 digital synth Free In The Knowledge

A close-up of Thom playing the Rhodes from Open The Floodgates during the first concert.

From the first concert: Thom playing his Waldorf STVC on a string synth setting during Waving A White Flag. His OP-1 pedalboard can be seen resting on the Fender Super Bassman amp beside him.

Effects Pedals

Thom’s pedals are scattered across two pedalboards, plus a few floating pedals. The pedalboard to right of Thom’s mic stand (from his perspective) are for his guitar and bass. That board is configured as three separate signal paths: one for acoustic guitar, one for electric guitar, and one for bass guitar. The pedalboard to the left of his mic stand are for his vocals. That board is also configured in multiple signal paths, allowing Thom to process his vocals in different ways. The floaters are all volume pedals for Thom’s synths and vocal effects chains.

And as usual, this doesn’t include the extra effects added by the FOH mix engineer. There’s doubtless a little EQ, compression, and noise gate on everything. There’s some more overt effects as well, like the vocal delay during parts of Panavision. And note that the vocal effects are all in send-return loops from the FOH mixer.

Vocal Effects Chain 1

Line 6 DL4 (configured as a looper)

Boss FV-30 volume

Boss RE-20 The Smoke Speech Bubbles

Radial Engineering J48 direct box

The FV-30 controls how much of Thom’s vocals are sent to the RE-20 delay. In this video, Thom initially sings a line without delay, then moved the FV-30 to the “toe” position to add delay to his vocals.

Vocal Effects Chain 2

Ernie Ball VP Jr Thin Thing

Earthquaker Devices Rainbow Machine Thin Thing

Boss RE-20 delay Thin Thing

Radial Engineering J48 direct box

The Ernie Ball VP Jr controls how much of Thom’s vocals are sent to the Rainbow Machine and RE-20. Thom can be seen adjusting the pedal repeatedly in this Thin Thing rehearsal video.

Acoustic Guitar Effects Pedals

Boss TU-2/3 tuner

Electric Guitar Effects Pedals

Boss TU-2/3 tuner

Death By Audio Echo Dream 2 delay You Will Never Work In Television Again A Hairdryer

Tortenmann/Telenorida Kompressor TK-23

Tortenmann/Telendoria Overdrive TA-100 A Hairdryer

Earthquaker Devices Astral Destiny reverb A Hairdryer

Death By Audio Interstellar Overdrive We Don't Know What Tomorrow Brings ? You Will Never Work In Television Again ?

Thom can be seen adjusting the Astral Destiny and the Echo Dream during this A Hairdryer rehearsal video.

Bass Effects Pedals

Boss TU-2/3 tuner

Death By Audio Interstellar Overdrive Thin Thing

Tortenmann/Telenorida Kompressor TK-23

Radial Engineering J48 direct box

The direct box splits Thom’s bass signal, so he can send it to both his Super Bassman amp and to the PA.

Synth Effects Pedals

Boss FV500 volume Controls the volume of Thom’s Moog.

TC Electronics Ditto X4 looper Kept on the OP-1 board, used for Free In The Knowledge.

Earthquaker Devices Space Spiral delay Kept on the OP-1 board, used for Free In The Knowledge.

Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2+ Kept on the OP-1 board, powers the pedals.

Boss FV-30 volume Placed near Thom’s mic stand, controls the volume of his OP-1 board.f

A shot of Thom’s guitar and bass pedals from during the first concert.