"Experimental" Effects

[Ghost Hip]

What does it mean to you?

Some pedals claim to be experimental by having an oscillation function, or a ring mod effect. But I'd say taking a Big Muff and cranking tone and rolling back the sustain would be just as experimental as the tremolo mode on a Devi Rocket. I've been thinking about how silly it is for a pedal description to contain the word "experimental" when most of the time it's emulating or sounds like something else we've heard before. Which makes sense, we like things because they're similar to other things we like, nothing wrong with that.

I guess the reason I find it silly, is I had a Mid-fi Clari(not) once. "Pick sensitive vibrato, fuzz and delay!" I said, "Oh boy!" And yeah that was pretty wild and "experimental" for me. But I could turn the delay off and the modulation off and use it as a straight fuzz... which is how I mostly used it... mostly a fuzz/delay. Not too experimental...

I want to say that these "experimental" functions on pedals shouldn't have an off button, to force and confront the user to deal with noise; to come to terms with it. However we all know what great "normal" tones come out of a tamed "experimental" pedal.

I'm getting a little long winded here, so what do you define as experimental? Is it in the pedal? the user? the knobs? What pedals have expanded your playing, sound. or technique?

[rfurtkamp]

It's the player, followed by the piece of gear. Lots of options, including non-musically useful or seemingly useless ones, for many options and 'what do I get now' factor.

The experimental factor of the gear doesn't have to necessarily be what it has, but what allows the player to do that isn't 'normal', particularly if it's in a random or outside of normal musical genre odd. The strange has to be switchable off as well; sometimes the most experimental thing beyond playing nothing is playing dead clean normal stuff.

The single most experimental thing I've played with gearwise in 20 years is the Roland GR-55 though. Handsdown, no competition. This isn't 'take one shitty tone, and you're done' guitar synth of old with four dismal 1-100 'tone' options per PCM. Deep editing and automation is available with a third party editor, and is amazing.

Can dial in musically useful. Can create virtual instruments. Can mix multiple synths together and go abusive. Can make ugly non-musical noises and see how the thing tracks it. Decent selection of onboard, reroutable effects, virtual expression pedals for autosweeps and the like, etc. Virtual tunings, virtual instruments, etc. open up a bunch of 'what do I want this second' choices. Virtual instrument modelling is passable; it may not be exactly like every unit of its name or type out there it's trying to emulate, but it gets you different on tap in a good way. Since the virtual stuff isn't synth, latency is non-existent, and latency on all but one (fixed in next software update) piano patch is pretty damn good. You only have another 80+ pianos to hold you over until then.

It just makes me approach making music differently, but it's still relatively intiuitive after the learning curve kicks in (about a month, I'm well past that)

I'm not having to compromise with analog mono units that might track some of the time (and gloriously non-track at others) - but I'm learning to glitch it out or to add sweeps and program changes that accomplish the same thing.

Not cheap, but neither is POG.

[hbombgraphics]

I hate the "experimental" description attached to any piece of gear. Like any tool they are only as experimental as the people using them.

What has really expanded my playing lately is a pretty straight forward Hartman Rat copy, Using the rat in place of a heavier distortion has really forced me to play better, also it made neck pickups and tone knobs on guitars interesting for me again just when I thought I would rip them all off. It even makes me rethink which strings to bend and how just because of the way it distorts.

Subdecay Echo box was a revalation as well when I got it, because you can get it to oscilate and then stomp off and the trails will leave that sound in the mix you can use it to play over your own noise, really sweet feature.

Some of the guitarists growing up that I thought got insane sounds had relatively simple boards: Morello / Dime for example.

There was a time when most of us were getting what we thought was awesome sound out of a cheap guitar and a crappy amp. i had a single pickup kay and a peavey classic VT (not crappy but not "experimental") and I could lay on the ground and get the kay to feedback on specific strings and then play them like an ebow, you get away from that when you have a big pile o pedals.

I don't think I answered the question at all!

[Ghost Hip]

There was a time when most of us were getting what we thought was awesome sound out of a cheap guitar and a crappy amp. i had a single pickup kay and a peavey classic VT (not crappy but not "experimental") and I could lay on the ground and get the kay to feedback on specific strings and then play them like an ebow, you get away from that when you have a big pile o pedals.

I did this with my Crestwood and a Fender Frontman amp over the summer. So refreshing.

The strange has to be switchable off as well; sometimes the most experimental thing beyond playing nothing is playing dead clean normal stuff.

I suppose, but couldn't you play even cleaner if you just turned the pedal off? I'm not sure if I was clear in my original post about turning the strange off, I meant gate switches and the like. For example I had a E13 Disaster Fuzz that didn't have a gate switch, no matter what it would be spitting out noise and oscillation. Sure it wasn't on all the time but if I did turn it on, I had better be ready to deal with it being on. On the other hand something as tweakable as your Roland GR-55 can be just as challenging in another way.

[theavondon]

I find every pedal that usually is "too experimental" or "out there" is "just right" and "plain useable" for me. The Great Destroyer is a good example of this, most people see it as some crazy oscillating fuzz, but I saw it as a huge buzzsaw tone that I straight up adored. It's the more "useable" and "transparent" or "clean blended" effects that are less interesting. But, I'm never just making noise with my pedals, I'm playing fucking bass. It's not like I'm spending the show hunched over a board, I just apparently have really odd tastes.

On the same sort of topic, most of the time when someone says a pedal "loses low end", it's just fine for me. Like, juuuuuust enough low end. the only exception is the Destructo Noctavia, but there was still a time and place for using that one on bass.

[rfurtkamp]

The strange has to be switchable off as well; sometimes the most experimental thing beyond playing nothing is playing dead clean normal stuff.

I suppose, but couldn't you play even cleaner if you just turned the pedal off? I'm not sure if I was clear in my original post about turning the strange off, I meant gate switches and the like. For example I had a E13 Disaster Fuzz that didn't have a gate switch, no matter what it would be spitting out noise and oscillation. Sure it wasn't on all the time but if I did turn it on, I had better be ready to deal with it being on. On the other hand something as tweakable as your Roland GR-55 can be just as challenging in another way.

None could get more cleaner. What I mean I suppose (it's early and I haven't slept) is that dead clean isn't even necessarily happy lounge jazz clean or even guitar/DI clean; it may vary by the situation.

I'd like multiple settings on the phaser, stun to kill.

[01010111]

I agree experimental really only applies to the player. But effects I would call experimental are ones that deal with some sort of performance aspect, i.e. gives the user an additional way of interacting with the pedal as opposed to the normal input>modulate>output and expression pedal use. Optically controlled effects fall under this category to me as well as spring pedal units because you can kick 'em and get crazy sounds. But generally it really is up to the person making the sounds as to whether or not its experimental.

[coldbrightsunlight]

I agree that it's really about the player; what the player does with the effects is the experimental part. That said, I think feedback loops are one of the very few things that could be described as "experimental" because when you put stuff in a feedback loop and turn it on you don't really know what's going to happen, and just switching stuff around/on and off/adding and taking away pedals gives you loads of unpredictable sounds without even playing an intrument.

I also think that some gear with non-standard things like photocell controllers could be thought of as experimenting with how gear is made, when most pedals are a switch and knobs (and maybe more switches), pedals with weird design/control features are interesting.

[tuffteef]

when you lose all control

or when you dont read the instruction manual

[Adoom]

The inability to "turn off the normal" would eliminate options.

I love my FUCK and my delays, and all the odd sounds I can get with using my gear in a way that to me is exciting. I can make some pretty wild sounds with normal sounding things, but sometimes, I just want a distortion or straight delay, and if I have to get another pedal or two to do that, fuck it.

It's always the person using the gear. No pedal will make you Miles Davis, or Jimi, or anyone for that matter. Those dudes were pretty experimental.

[D.o.S.]

The inability to "turn off the normal" would eliminate options.

I love my FUCK and my delays, and all the odd sounds I can get with using my gear in a way that to me is exciting. I can make some pretty wild sounds with normal sounding things, but sometimes, I just want a distortion or straight delay, and if I have to get another pedal or two to do that, fuck it.

It's always the person using the gear. No pedal will make you Miles Davis, or Jimi, or anyone for that matter. Those dudes were pretty experimental.

Erm, you mean this bastard won't do that?


Next you'll be saying companies slap pictures of famous musicians on pedals to market them to players?
Say it ain't so!

[Gone Fission]

Few players who describe themselves as "experimental" really are. If they really are, what if they use a Tube Screamer? Depends how, I guess.

The performance element comes up. Is there something about the sound that you switch in and out or that you can play off of? Does doing so create opportunities for an experimental mindset of musicianship? That can go to compositional, performance-oriented, or sonic-explorer approaches.

[rfurtkamp]

Few players who describe themselves as "experimental" really are. If they really are, what if they use a Tube Screamer? Depends how, I guess.

The performance element comes up. Is there something about the sound that you switch in and out or that you can play off of? Does doing so create opportunities for an experimental mindset of musicianship? That can go to compositional, performance-oriented, or sonic-explorer approaches.

Sure, they can use a TS or a whatever as part of the sonic palette and overall color wheel available. Much as I laugh, sometimes the most experimental thing you can do is to take your preconceptions and unhappiness and expectations, and force yourself to play with them. Hello, Lounge Act Featuring Re-perry Cuomo and Tubescreamer set!

[Rob Fossil]

Few players who describe themselves as "experimental" really are. If they really are, what if they use a Tube Screamer? Depends how, I guess.

^^^This^^^ To a lot of people, slathering a song in reverb makes it "experimental". You have to be open to the potential of what the pedal can do, otherwise you will just be wasting your time and $$$. I was watching a Gearmandude review of a ring mod that I was interrested in, and he just played standard blooze licks and admitted that he had no idea how to use the pedal. Some pedals are instruments unto themselves and your guitar or bass is simply the controller. Moogerfoogers come to mind as an example of this. If I am using my bass murf I am sometimes "playing" the pedal more than my bass. If the pedal can lead you into new sonic territory, then for you, it can be experimental.

[sylnau]

Even if you give a Mid-Fi pedal to John Bonjovi, he won't sound experimental.