Re: Flanger for that 80's Zappa sound
Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2011 2:20 am
Gearmond wrote:'zactly what it says on the tin.
i like how it sorta sounds like the guitar is made out of metal, or sounds like a resonator being picked weird. lots of squeaky harmonics n stuff and i could use another pedal anyways.
Dweezil Zappa had a post on his blog ages ago. I saved it ...
Dweezil Zappa wrote:My favorite units hands down are the Mic Mix Dyna Flangers. They are the primary tonal landscape for the entire "Shut Up And Play Yer Guitar" album as well for classic solos on the "Joe's Garage" album and "You Are What You Is". The sound they create is so cool and the stereo image is wild.
To get the sound Frank got on those records you need 2 Dyna Flangers and 2 Aphex Expressors. The Dyna Flangers have to be set a very specific way or they don't even sound close to the sources I mentioned. In stereo, one unit needs to be set for flange with maximum modulation, (which makes it sound out of tune - in a good way) and the other following the high frequency envelope, (almost like a phaser mixed with a formant filter), then they need to be squeezed with considerable compression from the Aphex units. Once you do that, you play with your wah pedal and it further tweezes the phase of the signal resulting in that unique sound we're all familiar with.
There's also this interview with Frank: http://www.musictoyz.com/articles/chop010101.php
What kind of effect did you take out on the road with you on the last tour?
I took three MXR Digital Delays -- two with minimum memory storage, and one with tons of it. I also used two MicMix Dynaflangers. I didn't have any fuzztones or octave dividers. I used three different amps -- a Marshall 100-watt, a Carvin, and an Acoustic -- and each has interfaced with a different digital delay. So I could store three different signals and get some weird sounds. For instance, you take your whammy bar and get some terrible tweezed noise, an store that. Then it would come out of the right, and another one would come out of the left one, and you could play over the top of it all. I've got a recording of that from the tour, and it's really an ungodly sound.
Did you take a pedalboard on the last tour?
My setup was pretty basic for that particular tour. You see, things don't always go according to plan here at the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen. A very elaborate digital setup that had been in preparation for about six months prior to the tour turned up a semi-fatal design flaw, which was allowing some digital grit to get into the audio path, just at the last minute as we were getting ready to pack up. And a lot of work on it had to be redone -- and it still isn't as perfect as I would like to have it before I take it anywhere. That particular rack had some unbelievable features, because it allowed you to do presets of any combination of effects that you might want with preset levels to each effect and preset control to all the parameters. So, during the sound check, you could set one sound with a flanger and fuzz and an octave divider and bi-phase, and set all those parameters in a memory storage. And when you'd hit your switch, it would go exactly to that sound. With the use of a pedal you'd be able to cross-fade to any other preset using any other combination of devises that you had in the rack. It was a really great idea, but so far we haven't gotten it perfected.
You really put yourself at the mercy digital equipment on the road.
Well, I'm perfectly comfortable going out and doing a tour with nothing but an on-and-off switch on the amplifier. For much of the guitar I wasn't using the effects at all. The only one I would turn them on at all was when it deemed appropriate for some event during a solo. The guitar I played the most was my Strat with the Floyd Rose on it, and it was capable of such ungodly noises with that parametric EQ and the pickups that were in it. It made plenty of noises without any fuzztones or other crap.
Did you use a Strat on the song "You Are What You Is" [from You Are What You Is]?
No. That's the Les Paul. I also used a Mu-tron Octave Divider.
On "No Now Now" [Drowning Witch] there's an extremely distinctive bass line. Did you write it?
I just made it up. The bass part was done like this: Arthur Barrow came in to play bass, and bar by bar I would hum it to him. We'd play it, and he'd go as far as he could, and then he'd make a mistake, and then I'd show him the next part, and then we'd punch him in. And that's how it was done: like eight bars at a time. It's a wonderful bass line.
The entire album's bass lines are played up quite a bit. Did you purposely spotlight the bass on the album?
I think that's a result of mixing on the 4311s -- it just gets accentuated. It's up in the mix, but not to a radical extreme for a comfortable listening level. I like bass lines. They're good, because for people who don't understand what's going on in the rest of the song, there's always the bass line.
What kind of effects did you use on the guitar throughout the album?
I used a MicMix Dynaflanger and Aphix compressors. The signal is compressed after the flanging. And the flanger is set to follow the envelope of the high-frequency decay, rather than the amplitude envelope.
What kind of difference would that make?
It gives a totally different sound. It makes a more pillowy effect from that particular device?
Why would you compress the signal after the flanger?
Well, for one thing, you would compress it if you didn't want more flanger cycle. And flangers boost certain frequencies in the midrange that go hog-wild if you don't control them. So, we started off just to control those frequencies, and then by cranking that Aphex compressor to some ridiculous extent we got this other kluge sound.
Other than um...energize harmonics.. 