Re: OT Tremelos, Choppers and Panners

["mark francombe" <mark@markfrancombe.com>]

I completely agree with Rick on this one, and also have had a
facination for tremelos and slicers.
Firstly I have always loved the traditional "Rock n Roll" tremelo on
amps, and for that I use a Vortex, the tremelo is NOT unfortunately
possible to synch via midi, but that half the point of that effect on
guitars.
But secondly, the ability of a slicer to add beats to an otherwise
ambient loop has alway been a well used trick of mine, and for this I
have used many different boxes:

The good old Electrix MOFX: has tremelo/panner, that can synch to
different beats, and also has different amounts of cut, from soft
triangle wave to 50% duty cycle squarewave to 10%, almost clicks.

But one ting I have been into recently, (a tip) is to check out DJ
effects, they tend to be table top devices, cheaper than musician
effects (no flames about DJs not being musicians here please - I know
they ARE... but you'all know what I mean) and they go out of
production FAST... so you tend to find them cheap on EBay.

Have 2 reccomendations here, for Ricks Thread: Bearing in mind that
they also do lots of other stuff. Both are midi synchable AND beat
synchable (they DETECT the beat) and are tap tempo-able.

1. The Red Sound Federation: Filter - Slicer - Delay - and Auto panner.
VERY cool this... the filter has an LFO (low frequency oscilator to
sweep the filter) thats synchable. The Auto panner is worth a special
mention, cos it can sweep different frequency ranges opposite to each
other (so when the treble goes right the bass goes left - very
psychedelic) AND... the whole device has a kind of seqencer where you
can program a rythym. This rythum can be applied to all effects except
the delay (shame that WOULD have been cool, but maybe impossible).
Using this device I can reduce a rather FULL sounding loop down to
throbbing rythymic beats.

2. (My new baby) The Roland EF303 - Many effects, from delay, slicer,
filters, phasers, bit chrushers, even a drum machine and a... well...
acid 303 synth!!! Hence the name. Now this does only allow ONE effect
at a time, but every effect has 4 variables, (4 knobs that change
their use depending on which effect you have selected). BUT.. and
heres the thing... ONE of the varables can be er... varied, by using
the inbuilt analog sequencer. A series of 16 sliders, that run in
synch (multiples of) with the midi clock you feed from your looper.
Now this is scary.. It slices - It dices. As a BONUS... the sequencer
can send midi CC's or notes, so downstream items (repeater in my case)
can be messed around with...

Its a bit new to me, and I have some issues (sometimes I hit a preset
that effectivly wipes out my sound) but Im getting around this by
RE-saving all the patches with a mix knob at the NO effect end.. that
way I select an effect andTHEN fade it in, I can then HEAR whats gonna
happen, before its too late...

Mark


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