The Use Your Tools Thread

[Dandolin]

Noice, dubkitty. To clarify, are you tuning these syncopations in by ear, or do some of your "tools" (I'm thinking specifically of the tremolo you mention) have rhythmic subdivision settings? Re-reading, it seems most likely that you are talking about a trem with the industry standard cyclical lfo and at most a waveform selector giving you approximations of sine and square. Even cooler that way, afaic.

[Dandolin]

Great idea for a thread!

Whalp, you gave me the idea...great minds'n'all. And BTW, welcome to the place where we lurve fuzz!

You'd be surprised how good a cheap guitar and crappy little solid state amp can sound when you can play guitar well.

Not me. But, here, let me fix that forya:

You'd be surprised how good a cheap guitar and crappy little solid state amp can sound when you put a fuzz between them and play the crap out of 'em.

[Gearmond]

i have an awesome fuzz pedal and a super chincy (mostly) digitech pedal.

one cannot exist with the other in the same chain without sounding like balls.

and while i LOVE the level of exploration i can get with the multi-fx, i'm seldom satisfied with the tone to the point where i use it for things that are either transparent (direct delay or trem or w/e) or just so out there, i'd have to buy $400 worth of gear to recreate it.

also, on a 5-string bass with rounds and active pickups, i can make it sound like a synth. secret though.

currently i'm working on a way to recreate dubstep wobbles wihtout the copilot fx pedal

[Astricii]

Only the last third of this video is actually cool. BE Warned.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMbP3Yr2nmk[/youtube]
EXP Pedal to control LFO sweep
into a fuzz.

Dub Stepz son.

[dubkitty]

Noice, dubkitty. To clarify, are you tuning these syncopations in by ear, or do some of your "tools" (I'm thinking specifically of the tremolo you mention) have rhythmic subdivision settings? Re-reading, it seems most likely that you are talking about a trem with the industry standard cyclical lfo and at most a waveform selector giving you approximations of sine and square. Even cooler that way, afaic.

i'm tuning them by ear at present. the RV-3's relative delay-length adjustability is limited to a selection of two ranges and a Delay Time knob which sweeps the selected range. i've been playing with the RV-3 and Boss tremolo for long enough now that i have a general feel for approximately where to set the trem to get close to matching a particular echo speed, and i then tweak by ear until the tremolo repeats match with the echo when the echo repeat comes around again. the modulation speed is somewhat less critical, especially if it's getting helicopter-chopped by the tremolo, but if you can get it to sweep back and forth at a rate matching or one-half that of the delay you can get fantastic sequenced-synth sounds by using the flanger as a swept high-mids filter.

when i use gear with digital time controls i find it difficult because i'm not particularly great with math, and get a bit flummoxed having to figure out 1/3s, 1/4ths, 1/6ths, 1/8ths, etc. of 282ms on the fly. that's why i love the Stereo Echo function on the PodXT...you set one side to your preferred time, e.g. 360ms, and then set the other channel to a percent value rather than a millisecond value. so if yu want a dotted-eighth, you just type in 66%.

[Dandolin]

Sounds like your math is just fine to me.... I wonder if any kindly math-rigorous type ever posted a chart with percentages and equivalent rhythmic outcomes? Google awaits....

[StudioShutIn]

get your repeats and modulations in some rhythmic relationship with each other. e.g. i like to use a RV-3 for echo, a tremolo, and some kind of modulation from a TC SCF chorus/flanger/"pitch modulator" (this last function combines vibrato and chorus) with the order being TC->trem->RV-3. i'll set the RV-3 for a particular rhythm; for this example let's be simple and say half notes over a 4/4 rhythm. if i then set the tremolo to a quarter-note triplet or a straight quarter-note rhythm over the half-note repeat and sync them up it reinforces the repeat, strengthens the part, and also broadens it by introducing any minor variations in the notes from iteration to iteration as they're dubbed over themselves. a subtle tremolo can create the illusion of a second delay unit/time; an on/off square wave "helicopter chop" can create the illusion of a synth sequencer. adding a subtle vibrato can introduce a third level of rhythmic complexity when synched to the other rhythms; a broader and/or slower synched vibrato will land you right in Loveless territory. faster rhythms synched together can make for wild guitar textures or boggling synth textures, especially whjen combined with stepped and/or swept filters.

awesome!..I've always wished somebody would give a concise, but informative explanation of how different modulation effects can interact and be used in combinations to create new textures. You, sir, have done just that.

[dubkitty]

the best thing to do is just take a Saturday and sit down with every effect you've got that produces a repeat or a wave pulse, and try running them in different combinations with different rhythms set on each of them. sometimes setting too fast of a rhythmic subdivision somewhere turns everything to mush...sometimes it makes everything blossom like a kaleidoscope.

for real synthy fun put a delay/echo BEFORE the whole modulation/trem/delay/reverb chain, and get all those guys in rhythm...with the right knob tweaks you'll be a Tangerine Dream album before you know it, with everything simulating analog synth modules controlled by a sequencer like we did back when "digital" meant "stick your finger in it."