I am sure this has come up before, as anyone interested in studio production winds up mentioning this record, but anyone know how Kevin Shields did what he did on Loveless? Sounds like samples, backwards guitars, tremelos, open tuned guitars played with a slide and pulled in and out of tune and other assorted craziness? Any idea on his equipment?
As far as I remember they usually played Jazzmasters and Jaguars and made almost permanent use of the trem in a slow rythmic motion, which is part of the pulsing sound that slips in and out of tune. Another part is a huge wallop of reverse reverb or echo, I believed they used Alesis Microverbs and a Yamaha SPX900 for those sounds. Amps I don't know, I believe I saw Marshall stacks when they performed live. And, open (part dissonant) tunings. I still love this record although I never tried to emulate it's sounds or songs.
Keep in mind, the gear shown at that link is Shields' live setup. "Loveless" is one of those "studio as instrument" albums. I'm sure there was LOTS of manipulation going on in the production.
Loveless is one of my favorite records of all time.
Tinus is right about the use of the on-guitar tremelo arm. I saw them live too, and noticed that their trem arms were in their picking/strumming hands for almost the entire show. I saw Jags and Marshall amps too. Too bad they sucked!
Anyway, give a listen to This Little Clip. This is my Mexi Fat Strat straight into a mixer and then the computer, with just distortion and chorus plugins added. I'm not touting this as any great accomplishment, just illustrating how use of the trem arm can get really close to the MBV sound.
Of course, in the studio, Kevin Shields did just about everything gslive mentioned (except possibly for the slide), and did it on many separate tracks a la Tom Scholtz.
FWIW: One of the writers at Tape Op magazine did an interview with kevin Shields in which they discussed the recording of Loveless in depth. If i remember right, the guitar sounds were a big part of the interview. I'm not sure if Tape Op keeps their back issues available online (as PDF files) or what, but it is worth checking out.
For lots of good general background on the making of the album, check out David Cavanagh's book called My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry For The Prize: The Story Of Creation Records. Not much hardcore tech detail but a fascinating insight into Shields's philosophy of sound and the band's working methods - recommended.
I remember reading in a interview where Shields describes how he got his tremolo on loveless. Useing two amps and connection differant tremolos with differant speed, one fast and choppy, the other rather slow and rythmic. Probably having the fast one on square wave and slow on sine.
Also two common misstakes I read about are layerd guitars and reverb. My Bloody Valentine used no reverb apart from reverse reverb. Reverse reverb is all around the record on the vocals. You should also try it on an acoustic guitar. It gives a shineing edge when you layer it over massive distortion. The layered guitar idea comes from when two strings are tuned the same says Kevin Shields. The double (or triple) tune with the whammy bar makes upp for slight chorus feel to it (explaining the chorus in the above sound clip).
I belive there are a lot of other tricks on this album, loop samplers and other samplers do at least some of the work. Track 3, Touched, is only samples from the drummer O'Ciosoig.
Music Toyz.com Forum ! 
