Re: Clueless gear reviews and never-ending entertainment.
Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2015 6:21 am
Oh, I don't disagree about liking the sound of broken things - I've had several intentionally-sounding broken things built for me over the years and still use 'em.
It's just that the wow+flutter on "tape echo" replicas is both exaggerated and wrong in how it's carried out - there's no randomness or building of that. It's a badly-done LFO seasick chorus that wouldn't be mechanically possible for transport (which, again, is the glory of modelling/emulation few makers are willing to go down - the "what would have happened if..." modelling equivalent of the Fender Pawn Shop guitars).
I'm all about "if it sounds good, it is good" - but when I want tape echo, I want tape echo or something that actually sounds like one. When I want warbling weird, bring it on too.
It's how I roll on a lot of stuff - I'd rather have an accurate-sounding (based on the deviance in the actual units given aging and the like) reissue of a pedal that *also* has some tweaks that are switchable on and off (Boss DM-2W got that right recently) versus a reimagining that wrecks the soul of the thing. And so damn often, the particular aspect of how an old thing sounds is the precise reason it wasn't loved by the old folks - dismal boosts, nasty EQ sections, and the like - so when somebody "fixes" that, they wreck the charm of the shipwreck.
It's just that the wow+flutter on "tape echo" replicas is both exaggerated and wrong in how it's carried out - there's no randomness or building of that. It's a badly-done LFO seasick chorus that wouldn't be mechanically possible for transport (which, again, is the glory of modelling/emulation few makers are willing to go down - the "what would have happened if..." modelling equivalent of the Fender Pawn Shop guitars).
I'm all about "if it sounds good, it is good" - but when I want tape echo, I want tape echo or something that actually sounds like one. When I want warbling weird, bring it on too.
It's how I roll on a lot of stuff - I'd rather have an accurate-sounding (based on the deviance in the actual units given aging and the like) reissue of a pedal that *also* has some tweaks that are switchable on and off (Boss DM-2W got that right recently) versus a reimagining that wrecks the soul of the thing. And so damn often, the particular aspect of how an old thing sounds is the precise reason it wasn't loved by the old folks - dismal boosts, nasty EQ sections, and the like - so when somebody "fixes" that, they wreck the charm of the shipwreck.