Dist/fuzz that leaves digital artifacts alone

Swimming Bird · #1 07-19-2008, 08:48 AM

This is driving me crazy -- I have two Whammy IVs going to a compressor and then a DOD Bass Grunge and the DOD is making the digital artifacts from the two WH4s very audible, even when I try to squash that with the comp (which generally works for just one WH4).

I've got virtually no distortion added to the highs, but that doesn't seem to make a difference. The only thing that has helped so far is turning the mix knob down on the DOD, but doing that sacrifices the tone that I love so.

Please advise.

bongomania · #2 07-19-2008, 10:00 AM

Digi artifacts are funny that way. Sometimes it's just a question of EQ'ing them out, or using a pedal that rolls off the top end a bit. But other times it has more to do with the common grounding and cabling used between the pedals, amp, etc.

If I was a studio engineer who had to solve that problem pronto for recording, I would first make sure every pedal was on an isolated power supply, then add a tube pre pedal with the ability to mush up the signal a bit, and if it can roll a bit off the top end, all the better. A DHA VT1 or similar would do the trick. I would put it between the digi items and the distortion, so that the distortion would not get mushed or rolled off. I would also look at the order of other pedals in the chain, as even with isolated powering I've sometimes gotten weird noises from reverse-polarity pedals in a given order.

Jared Lash · #3 07-19-2008, 10:15 AM

Well, the brute force answer is to grab a Wooly Mammoth. It (or any other similarly non-transparent fuzz) will swallow up all those artifacts along with your original tone.

Short of that or EQing them out, I don't see a ton of options. Maybe an LS-2 so you are blending the whammys with distortion being applied to the original signal which I'm not sure would be ideal for your purposes.

The difficulty here is that they'd be very difficult to eliminate but very easy to cover up. But covering them up would mean a loss of articulation with everything else too.

rratajski · #4 07-19-2008, 10:33 AM

What about a true bypass box for the Digitech Whammys? I read that they are not true bypass...

Jared Lash · #5 07-19-2008, 11:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rratajski

What about a true bypass box for the Digitech Whammys? I read that they are not true bypass...

They aren't true bypass, but that doesn't factor in here. If I understand the OP correctly he is talking about the little digital warbles and other noises that the Whammys put out when being used and how to not have them get picked up by his distortion.

Swimming Bird · #6 07-19-2008, 10:39 PM

I'm using the WH4s mostly for + octave stuff, so EQing out the highs won't work.

I suppose I can try moving things around a bit again, put the comp and fuzz after the first whammy, then the second, but I generally dislike a whammy after the Bass Grunge.

Do any of the noise canceling pedals kill this type of high end artifacts?

scotch · #7 07-20-2008, 08:29 AM

I would think that the compressor after the Whammies is probably emphasizing the digital glitches. It might help to lessen the compression or put the comp before both Whammies....

The bottom line, unfortunately, is that the Whammies are adding sounds you don't like. Adding more processing to the equation is rarely a great fix. Ultimately, you have to take the good with the bad unless you really start carving out eq bands to a drastic degree - which adds problems of it's own!

Good luck - that's a tough one...

Swimming Bird · #8 07-20-2008, 03:19 PM

Hmm...

Comp before the whammies makes it worse and WH4 >> comp >> distortion sounds better than WH4 >> distortion. However, I did take down the amount of compression a little and cut the overall volume a bit (at the compressor), turned down the mix on the Bass Grunge and it's a bit better.

I'll keep whacking away, but this is a pain. Thanks for all the advice so far.