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Guys and Gals, I need your help.
I'm setting up a pedalboard for trombone/bass trombone usage and need input for certain effects. The goal of this pedalboard will be to get ambient, stacked sounds with great body and mass. The board will be fed by Trombone or bass trombone played through mic and preamp. Afterwards it will go to my trusty old Marlboro Amp and 4x10 Bass cab.

Current setup:
Digitech Digidelay -> Feedback Loop (DOD DFX9 -> Mooer Mod Factory) -> Muza FD900 -> Behringer BDI21 (for DI recording)
The Feedback loop is wired in a way that the pedals are always in the chain, just the feedback gets engaged/disengaged.

I'm planning to add a Looper somewhere in there (either a Ditto or RC-1) to get some sound stacking.

Now I'm looking for some pitchshifting and modulation goodness to fill up leftover pedalboard space. I also wanna try some dirt, would prefer options without internal tone shaping/eq due to simplicity.
I don't want to spend top dollar on this, so standard off-the-shelf pedals, preferrably broadly available on the used market are king. I'd also like some expression control capabilities. For that swoosh swoosh, you know.

For best board space - to - function - to - money ratio I would have thought something like used Line6 M5? Should have enough modulation and pitch shifting? Different suggestions?
I'd like to put the pitch shifter in the feedback loop, to get them organ sounds on but would be open for different suggestions, maybe some EHX Superego or something?

Thanx!

I think the M5 or something similar is a great idea if you want a variety of effects. Not used one for years but my friend had an M9 and I remember it sounding great.

Do you mean the superego? That's the fancy freeze, and while the superego plus has effects like pitch shift it's mostly for the freezy stuff.

Can the M5 do "stepped" sounds? I have a Boss PH-3 on the Guitar/Bass board solely for the stepped phaser sounds. Gives awesome soundscapes with stacked delays.
Hmmm... Superego is maybe not the best then? Something like the B9 or C9 maybe? I don't know. Too many options.

Are you into Jon Hassell? He's a particular favourite of mine and an obvious reference point for effected brass. The signature sound of his early recordings was trumpet into harmonizer, which I've since heard recycled by other players exploring similar territory. You hear it as a complex modulation on one voice rather than a simulated ensemble. Someone with more hands-on than me could probably give you chapter and verse, but I imagine the settings on the rackmount Eventides that Hassell favoured on 'Aka Darbari Java' etc would now be readily available from pedals.

On distortion and such: I heard a really good demo of someone playing a brass instrument into a phase-locked loop, but couldn't turn it up easily for this note. It sounded like you could pretty much base an entire oeuvre on it. I think it was the newish Pigtronix PLL pedal, so you could try their site.

EDIT: It was the Pigtronix Ringmaster (and I liked the demos on this page more than Horn-FX did):

http://www.horn-fx.com/pigtronix-ringmaster

I like the Mooer Pitch Box for small footprint pitch shifting. I can't testify on it's tracking ability though (accurate tracking not important to me).

Schlatte wrote:Can the M5 do "stepped" sounds? I have a Boss PH-3 on the Guitar/Bass board solely for the stepped phaser sounds. Gives awesome soundscapes with stacked delays.
Hmmm... Superego is maybe not the best then? Something like the B9 or C9 maybe? I don't know. Too many options.

Hm just glanced at the M5 manual, looks like one of the phaser modes can do a square wave but not stepped. So maybe that's out.

Oh yeah those x9 pedals might be fun for weird effects noises with trombone but honestly I have no idea haha.

Thought about a boss PS-x for pitch shifting?

I just wanna say I am excited to hear the results of this.

How about those zoom multi stompboxes? 70-CDR or 100? They mainly get praise for their reverbs and delays, but maybe they are quite small and relatively cheap.

I think superego/c9/b9 might be cool, but I'd half worry that those color the sound so much that you wont really know its a trombone being played? Same would go with Hog2/pog2 I'd say. If I was listening to trombone ambient, I'd want to hear the trombone ifyouknowwhatimsayin. I'd perhaps instead get a looper that can record at different speeds so you can get the layers in different pitch. I think ditto X2 can do this...

Aaaand, yes the timebender will do everything you want here. Pitch shift, loop, funky reverbs, pitch shifted delays, pitch shifted loops, and some modulation. I am tired of myself only recommending this fucking pedal but I cannot help it.

timebender is a correct recommendation actually. yes.

coldbrightsunlight wrote:timebender is a correct recommendation actually. yes.

great, I anyway have one
I'll rip it from the guitar board and put in on the trombone board, then I don't even need to buy a looper

coldbrightsunlight wrote:

Schlatte wrote:Can the M5 do "stepped" sounds? I have a Boss PH-3 on the Guitar/Bass board solely for the stepped phaser sounds. Gives awesome soundscapes with stacked delays.
Hmmm... Superego is maybe not the best then? Something like the B9 or C9 maybe? I don't know. Too many options.

Hm just glanced at the M5 manual, looks like one of the phaser modes can do a square wave but not stepped. So maybe that's out.

Oh yeah those x9 pedals might be fun for weird effects noises with trombone but honestly I have no idea haha.

Thought about a boss PS-x for pitch shifting?

I had the Behringer Version of the PS-5 in the beginning of my pedal endeavors like 10 years ago... I'll check the local used market for some PS-x availablilty. I remember loving the Pitch Shifter in the Feedback loop...

niftyprose wrote:Are you into Jon Hassell? He's a particular favourite of mine and an obvious reference point for effected brass. The signature sound of his early recordings was trumpet into harmonizer, which I've since heard recycled by other players exploring similar territory. You hear it as a complex modulation on one voice rather than a simulated ensemble. Someone with more hands-on than me could probably give you chapter and verse, but I imagine the settings on the rackmount Eventides that Hassell favoured on 'Aka Darbari Java' etc would now be readily available from pedals.

On distortion and such: I heard a really good demo of someone playing a brass instrument into a phase-locked loop, but couldn't turn it up easily for this note. It sounded like you could pretty much base an entire oeuvre on it. I think it was the newish Pigtronix PLL pedal, so you could try their site.

EDIT: It was the Pigtronix Ringmaster (and I liked the demos on this page more than Horn-FX did):

http://www.horn-fx.com/pigtronix-ringmaster

Holy shit, that site is gold, thanks!

So basically what's missing now is some stepped moudlation (preferrably phaser) sounds (I could always just buy a 2nd PH-3 ) and some dirt. I'll try my silicon fuzz face mini and all the other fuzzes and drives I have laying around here anyways.

fcknoise wrote:I just wanna say I am excited to hear the results of this.

How about those zoom multi stompboxes? 70-CDR or 100? They mainly get praise for their reverbs and delays, but maybe they are quite small and relatively cheap.

I think superego/c9/b9 might be cool, but I'd half worry that those color the sound so much that you wont really know its a trombone being played? Same would go with Hog2/pog2 I'd say. If I was listening to trombone ambient, I'd want to hear the trombone ifyouknowwhatimsayin. I'd perhaps instead get a looper that can record at different speeds so you can get the layers in different pitch. I think ditto X2 can do this...

Aaaand, yes the timebender will do everything you want here. Pitch shift, loop, funky reverbs, pitch shifted delays, pitch shifted loops, and some modulation. I am tired of myself only recommending this fucking pedal but I cannot help it.

Me too, believe me
Thanks for the suggestion on the timebender, almost forgot what that thing could do... I'll try it out!
I thought about the Zoom Multis too, I even have the B3 on the Bass board that I could try out, but it is just too massive for the small trombone board. Especially if I now move the timebender there...
I try to keep it as compact as possible. The small Zoom Multis sadly don't have expression inputs, which would be highly preferrable here. All the EHX A/B/C/D/E/F/G/...9 pedals are therefore out of the race - as you said, I'd like to keep my basic tone in tact.
But for that reason, I'm also having a quite usable setup - I have a Behringer UMC204HD dual channel audio interface, where I go with the trombone mic into channel 1, then have a splitter cable that gets me the signal from the FX insert loop but still passes the signal straight through. So basically I get the preamplified signal from there and go through the pedalboard into either a mic'd amp or a DI into channel 2 of the interface... so on channel 1 I always have the clean tone and on channel 2 the wet signal. That enables me to use the dry recording afterwards for blending or even some manipulating.
Well, at least thats the plan once I have all of this set up properly

haha I think the timebender might do your pitch shifting needs too depending on how often you want that at the same time as other delay stuff.

haha maybe another PH-3 is the thing. I have a digitech hyper phase and it does the same effect, it's cool. I know there will be expensive stuff that does the same thing but... if that's all you need.


The most important thing is to provide clips when you've done it. lol

I just found a Hyper Phase on the local ads for 25€, so I'm just gonna buy it thanks for the tip!

As soon as I have everything set up properly, you can expect clips, yes!

This is exciting!!!
The only useful piece of information I can offer is that a Superfuzz-type circuit sounds awesome with trombone

Achtane wrote:This is exciting!!!
The only useful piece of information I can offer is that a Superfuzz-type circuit sounds awesome with trombone

That is valuable information, thanks! Will try one!

I also just picked up the key for the new practice space I'm renting, so noiseful endeavors are on track!

speaking from experience, just get a zoom ms50g and a ditto of some sort (i use a x4) and call it a day. if you can't do it with a zoom patch and looper on top of what you already have, chances are you are overthinking things in life way too much. if you are picky about overdrive/fuzz tones then that is the only area that i can see you wanting or needing something else in addition to it, but the zoom can do just about anything you want in a live situation. im never selling mine and most likely will get another backup here in the next year or so. was hands down one of the best music investments of my life