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Re: vibrato tremolo (off-topic)



Tim,

What I meant by "the converse is also true" is that many
people - music dealers and musos often use the term tremelo
when they really mean vibrato.

I totally agree with your definitions of each:
Tremelo - modulation of amplitude (volume)
Vibrato - modulation of frequency

For some many folks transpose the two - or use them
interchanegably.

- Larry

-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Nelson <tcn62@ici.net>
To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com <Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com>
Date: Friday, October 22, 1999 11:12 PM
Subject: Re: vibrato tremolo (off-topic)


>Disclaimer: None of the effects mentioned in the following post can loop 
>by
>themselves, but the relevance depends on the length of your patch cords.
>
>Hi Larry,
>
>At 07:45 PM 10/22/99 -0400, you wrote:
>>The converse is also true...
>
>After I wrote:
>... A lot of pedals marketed as vibratos are actually
>>>tremolos.
>
>And I'm wondering which pedals you're referring to. I'm not really
>disagreeing with you; I just can't think of any.
>
>The Rocktek Vibrator is a tremolo, as are the Boss TR-2, the Dunlop TS-1,
>the Ibanez TL-5, the Rocktron Surf, the Dunlop TVP-1, etc. The channel on 
>a
>lot of vintage Fender amps that says "Vibrato" features a tremolo 
>(although
>I'm fairly sure the old Vibrosonic and a couple of others did actually 
>have
>what Fender called a "harmonic" vibrato). The "vibrato" on some old 
>Selmers
>featured a cool little light that pulsed in time with, you guessed it, the
>tremolo. Vox amps had a very distinctive sounding tremolo with a nice hard
>on-off pulse, yet the trade name for this feature was VibroVox.
>
>Dual-duty pedals like the Carl Martin Trem O'Vibe offer tremolo and actual
>pitch modulation vibrato, as supposedly does the Marshall VT-1, although I
>haven't checked this one out.
>
>Some pedals (e.g. Rocktron's Purple Haze) have both distortion and
>phase-shifting circuitry, which can modulate kind of like a vibrato, but
>they're not.
>And they're not calling it a tremolo, either.
>
>Then there are the Lovetone Doppelganger, the Uni-Vibe, the RotoVibe, and
>so forth... Leslies, even, taking advantage of the Doppler effect. But 
>none
>of these say "tremolo" on 'em.
>
>I'm sure there are isolated examples of "tremolos" which do actually
>modulate pitch, and I agree that the terminology has often been used
>interchangeably, but to say "most so called tremolo pedals are actually
>vibrato pedals" as was stated at the beginning of this thread is patently
>untrue. I wish we COULD all get real pitch-modulating vibrato pedals for
>twenty bucks apiece, but it's just not gonna happen...
>
>Tim
>
>