Can you "Tame" a noise box?

rnilson · #1 09-26-2008, 07:32 AM

Ok guys,
I have finally gotten a solid foundation for my basic D'n'B, Dub,Electronic sound.
EBS Valve Drive>Boss ME 50 (Always Octave Down, some times phaser,delay,reverb or more fuzz.)>Moogerfooger 101.
Now I want to add a "stunt pedal" to give extra craziness for certain sections. I really like the Sub-Decay Nosie Box for it's bit crushed, almost ring mod, squirting chaos thing, but all the clips I hear on the internet are way over the top distortion/drive harshness. Can this be toned down while not losing the things I like about the pedal?

GingerConor · #2 09-26-2008, 09:53 AM

yes, id say so if not through the settings then through the buying of a blend pedal or true bypass pedal:

http://www.bargeconcepts.com/vbjr.html

Jared Lash · #3 09-26-2008, 10:05 AM

Can you bottle a rainbow? Lasso a hurricane? Make Spanky wear pants?

Truthfully, the answer is yes and no. I wouldn't recommend a blend. It didn't seem to "tame" it and the combination of clean and effected sounded pretty bad, at least to me.

But you can "tighten" it up to some extent, mainly by turning down the chaos knob and adjusting the frequency and sens knobs to just the range you want affected.

But the caveat is that (1) by it's very nature it's a crazy pedal and (2) it acts very differently with different basses. That's a long way of saying that you'll really need to try it out to know if it will work for your needs and with your gear.

rnilson · #4 09-26-2008, 11:15 AM

Ahhhhhhh.........
Thanks BigO, I figured as much. I will just have to give it a try I guess. I am afraid the search for the last pedal in my chain is gonna take a lot of buying and trying. I can hear my wife after looking at the credit card bill now. Somehow she does not understand the search for a perfect pedal. I can't seem to explain how each pedal is like a different color crayon in my box, or a different piece of jewelry to accent an outfit. Believe me I have developed quite a list of great explanation all of which have been unjustly dismissed.
Oh well the tongue lashing must continue I guess.

Mr. Pickles · #5 09-26-2008, 11:29 AM

It can be done! I have a track with Noisebox on fretless and it lays the melodic foundation for the song. I'll put up a link later tonight.

I've found that placing a chorus, flanger, or phaser after the Noisebox reigns in some of the chaos, softens its edge, and reveals the related harmonic information that seems to get buried under the pedal's "chaos."

A nice choppy trem such as the Hummingbird or Valcoder makes for nice bursts and dynamics as well.

Noisebox!

Mr. Pickles · #6 09-26-2008, 11:31 AM

Oh, yeah- I agree with O on one point: the Noisebox does not work well in a blend loop.

Word

BigBassBob · #7 09-26-2008, 12:13 PM

From my experience, the noisebox doesn't work well in a loop... just doesn't sound good.

Now, I may have this wrong, but I was under the impression that the noisebox takes your signal and uses that as a sort of reference for the noise it's going to make (hense the name, "frequency generator").

I find that if I roll back the volume on any of my basses, you can find some very interesting variations. For instance, I keep the sense knob on full and keep the volume on my bass at like 0.5. No matter what you feed into it, as long as it has a signal being fed to it, it will interpret the input and produce a note. By having my volume so low, the noisebox is very tame... still with a bit of glitchiness, but far more mellow than by running a normal signal into it and fiddling with the control knobs. Also, with my settings, I use it to make video game sounds, and in general it sounds like an old synth, but I can do stuff like hit a note and then turn the volume up on my bass which then triggers the already sensitive envelope filter in the pedal and, well, basically I can emulate the use of a wah by using hammer-ons and turning the bass volume up and down.

Trust me, it can easily be tamed, you just need to play with it for a while.. when I first got it, I liked it but I was thinking (I'll never find a practical use for this). Use it at my last gig to play the supermario theme and shoot a mate of mine in the crowd with my bass (hitting the strings percussively to produce a laser-gun type sound... "pewpewpew!") xD

JohnDavisNYC · #8 09-26-2008, 07:30 PM

people will hate me for this, but.... TECHNIQUE...

the NoiseBox has really busted my ass on the clean technique front... you really REALLY gotta give it clean, precise notes, and not let any **** ring in between, or you aren't gonna sound good.

I love the noisebox, but it definitely takes some wrangling... practice playing short notes with it without any junk in between the notes... really tough.

John

rnilson · #9 09-26-2008, 08:53 PM

John,
I agree technique is a fundamental of all sound.
I know your a big fan of the noise box and play very similar music to what I am doing. (Your really the reason I am looking into it.) How do you use the settings? What do you use with the noise box in the effects chain? I know you had done some sound clips at one time, but they are not posted any more. Is there any way those could get put back up for a little bit?
I love your sound. You and Tim Lefebrve are really pushing the live D'n'B genera in the area of bass playing. Thanks!

JohnDavisNYC · #10 09-26-2008, 09:16 PM

Tim is the MAN... I am like the Jack DeJohnette to Tim's Tony Williams....

or something like that...

I will post pics of my pedal board from the gig I have tomorrow... hopefully you will be able to see my settings.

John

Mr. Pickles · #11 09-27-2008, 10:47 AM

John,
I totally would love to come to your gig and geek out on pedals, but a buddy of mine has his first big show in years tonight. Gotta' represent! Anyway, have a good gig and show us some pics!