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Hello everyone

I don't often call on your collective intelligence (at least not on Saturday night when nobody should be that smart, collectively or not!) but the below track (Bert Jansch - Bittern) has some amazingly beautiful effects on the mandolin parts and I've been playing this song repeatedly trying to work out what the Mandolin player (Martin Jenkins) is using and it's driving me nuts, so I thought, why not inflict it on someone else! The original track was recorded in 1978 (this live version is from 1980, but it's the same effect) and I can see at times there appears to be a pale blue stompbox next to his feet, but the resolution is too low to work out what it is... Martin Jenkins doesn't appear to be using a Wah pedal (unless it's in a cocked position and somewhere behind him?). What sort of filters/wahs/autowahs were around in 1978? Would that be something by EHX? That must be pre-Boss making them... any guesses or thoughts would be appreciated thanks! The effect can be heard around 47 seconds on in the below clip:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML3XahMwJ-U[/youtube]


Thanks very much!

Beautiful piece, moid!

Could be a phaser with the resonance up high? I often confuse wah and phaser sounds.

Certainly sounds like a phaser on the record.

Oooh I never thought of a phaser! Thanks, I'll try that - I've been trying to use an autowah and haven't been very successful.

Chank you are a genius It needs to be a four stage phaser with high resonance like you said, blended with the dry instrument sound, phaser depth to maximum, rate to something at least half that speed you play at. I used my Boss PH3 and it works well... it might be worth trying a more subtle phaser (I don't own one!) to see if that is better, but the result sounds good to me!

Yeah, I love phasers with the resonance set high like that.

Don't think a subtle phaser is what you want in this case.

Not sure how much shipping'd be to you on this, but (if you've never tried one,) you might like one of these:



https://reverb.com/item/39887335-pearl- ... aser-black

That price isn't too bad, shippin' to the States is a GAS killer though.

Sounds like the flanger that Zappa used in that era, which was supposedly this.
Don't know what current pedals do similar.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ-UCvlRGlc[/youtube]

Very lovely song! I would definitely think phaser first (and that's what I'd use to approximate this) but it is not impossible to get these sounds with some flangers too. Glad you got an answer and thanks for sharing the song Cool sound with a mandolin

Chankgeez wrote:

Yeah, I love phasers with the resonance set high like that.

Don't think a subtle phaser is what you want in this case.

Not sure how much shipping'd be to you on this, but (if you've never tried one,) you might like one of these:



https://reverb.com/item/39887335-pearl- ... aser-black

That price isn't too bad, shippin' to the States is a GAS killer though.

I tried 6, 8, 10 and 12 stage phasers (all fun of course) but they all sounded very different to the sound in the video (they sound interesting, but not the sound I was after) Normally i use my PH3 on 8 stage because I like that sound the most; I was just wondering if a 70s phaser would've had that many stages? That's why I wondered what a 2 stage would sound like.

That Pearl Phaser sounds good, but wow that postage charge! I'm in the UK and they still want £33 just to send it across the channel??? That's taking the piss in my opinion!

Doctor X wrote:Sounds like the flanger that Zappa used in that era, which was supposedly this.
Don't know what current pedals do similar.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ-UCvlRGlc[/youtube]

Now that sounds damn cool - especially at 2min14 or so! When I first looked at the thumbnail image I thought the flanger was in the awesome wooden box I was thinking that looks incredible... and then I realised it's an amp (albeit a very nice looking one!)

Where in the video is the pale blue pedal? Around 0:59, I see a blue wedge at the base of a chair, which I'd guess to be an Ibanez PT-999 (produced from 74-76). Pre-74, try searching for "Ibanez Phase Tone." You can acquire an Ibanez/Maxon 999 (original or reissue) in the $90-120 range. Also, Ibanez currently makes a 4/6 stage mini that's $120. Although, I'm not sure how close it is to the 70s units.

https://www.tonehome.de/ibanez/first-series/

When you first mentioned a filter/wah sound and pale blue, I instantly thought of the Tycobrahe Parapedal. There's a reissue by Chicago Iron ($400). Like you said, I didn't see a wah, though, when glancing at the video.

https://www.axeandyoushallreceive.com/p ... apedal-wah

Listening at the 0:47 mark, the electric mandola reminds me of most electric piano clips from this era---Fender Rhodes or Wurlitzer + phaser. I could definitely see you getting this tone with a fairly stripped-down phase shifter, nothing exotic or rare needed.

coldbrightsunlight wrote:Very lovely song! I would definitely think phaser first (and that's what I'd use to approximate this) but it is not impossible to get these sounds with some flangers too. Glad you got an answer and thanks for sharing the song Cool sound with a mandolin

Thanks! Bert Jansch is not someone I know much about musically; this was the result of late night should be sleeping but I'm skipping from video to video on Youtube and it suggested this track and I knew right then I had to buy that album! I've got closer to the sound of the mandolin by duplicating the dry track of my guitar recording, and offsetting it by a few ms and then adding a really short analogue delay - 100ms with one repeat (all in the DAW) and then blending that back into the phaser recording, which feels a bit more like the doubled up strings of the mandolin...hmmm note to self, need to by a mandolin

Just so you're not disappointed when you get your mandolin, he's actually playin' a mandocello (which's like a really big mandolin).

(Yeah, think a four-stage phaser is what you're lookin' for. )

Yeah that mandocello thing is huge haha. Mandolins are mega tiny. That is a good point I failed to pick up on

It looks like those amps they are using are MusicMan amps with a Fender badge? Maybe they were sold as Fenders in the UK since Fender owned Music Man...? A lot of those Music Man amps had onboard phasors. I wonder what those amps are, I didn't know Fender made black amps in the 70s, googling shows a bunch of Twins and an amp called the Fender 75 that are all black like that.

edit didnt see echorecs post, definitely looks like a PhaseTone

Chankgeez wrote:

Just so you're not disappointed when you get your mandolin, he's actually playin' a mandocello (which's like a really big mandolin).

(Yeah, think a four-stage phaser is what you're lookin' for. )

Aha, I thought it was large for a mandolin.... hmmm and mandocellos seem to cost double what mandolins do... aaah yet another instrument to add to my 'when I'm rich' list... I guess faking it on guitar will have to do!