Does anyone know of a pedal or a chain of pedals that can get an orchestral effect? something similar to a shimmer effect but possibly a bit more pronounced.
If you're looking for "shimmer" there are a few pedals that can do that-Both the Eventide Space Reverb and Strymon Bluesky Reverb have settings that are literally called shimmer, and are extremely pronounced, even overpowering on high settings. Also the ICE setting on the Strymon Timeline can do some shimmery stuff, as well as the crystals setting on the Eventide Pitchfactor.
Combine any one of those four pedals with a slow gear type pedal or a volume pedal and you can get some really beautiful and lush "orchestral" or synth pad type sounds.
I spent about an hour on the Strymon Bluesky and the Pog 2 yesterday looking for exactly this. The Strymon is a beautifully built pedal but the Pog 2 works far better on bass. It also has more tonal variety. Never thought I would favour an EHX pedal :-)
I spent about an hour on the Strymon Bluesky and the Pog 2 yesterday looking for exactly this. The Strymon is a beautifully built pedal but the Pog 2 works far better on bass. It also has more tonal variety. Never thought I would favour an EHX pedal :-)
Not sure why you would A/B the two to try and achieve a particular sound-They are made for two very different purposes.
If you're looking for "shimmer" there are a few pedals that can do that-Both the Eventide Space Reverb and Strymon Bluesky Reverb have settings that are literally called shimmer, and are extremely pronounced, even overpowering on high settings. Also the ICE setting on the Strymon Timeline can do some shimmery stuff, as well as the crystals setting on the Eventide Pitchfactor.
Combine any one of those four pedals with a slow gear type pedal or a volume pedal and you can get some really beautiful and lush "orchestral" or synth pad type sounds.
But does the shinmer effect on those pedals work well with bass? I was under the impression that reverb shimmer is a sort of harmonic multiplier that uses the harmonics of each string when you're playing a chord, no?
Anyhow, I did like what i heard with the pog2 chained with a reverb and delay. But the pog2 definitely has a lot of features I would never use.
If you're looking for "shimmer" there are a few pedals that can do that-Both the Eventide Space Reverb and Strymon Bluesky Reverb have settings that are literally called shimmer, and are extremely pronounced, even overpowering on high settings. Also the ICE setting on the Strymon Timeline can do some shimmery stuff, as well as the crystals setting on the Eventide Pitchfactor.
Combine any one of those four pedals with a slow gear type pedal or a volume pedal and you can get some really beautiful and lush "orchestral" or synth pad type sounds.
But does the shinmer effect on those pedals work well with bass? I was under the impression that reverb shimmer is a sort of harmonic multiplier that uses the harmonics of each string when you're playing a chord, no?
Anyhow, I did like what i heard with the pog2 chained with a reverb and delay. But the pog2 definitely has a lot of features I would never use.
Not just a chord, but when you are playing any note. And you don't lose any low end just so long as you're careful with the settings. Of the four I mentioned, the Eventide Space I think gets the best sound and is by far the most tweakable-You can set two different pitches if you're running stereo, and they can range anywhere from -2 octaves to +2 octaves. There is also a two band shelving EQ-So you can cut the bass out of the reverb mix and only have your highs effected by the shimmer, or vice-versa.
A slow gear is a pedal that does auto-volume swells. The POG2 has one built in, and Guyatone makes a couple versions as well as VFE.
Not just a chord, but when you are playing any note. And you don't lose any low end just so long as you're careful with the settings. Of the four I mentioned, the Eventide Space I think gets the best sound and is by far the most tweakable-You can set two different pitches if you're running stereo, and they can range anywhere from -2 octaves to +2 octaves. There is also a two band shelving EQ-So you can cut the bass out of the reverb mix and only have your highs effected by the shimmer, or vice-versa.
A slow gear is a pedal that does auto-volume swells. The POG2 has one built in, and Guyatone makes a couple versions as well as VFE.
Not sure why you would A/B the two to try and achieve a particular sound-They are made for two very different purposes.
Fair point. The sound I was looking for was the upper octave, swelled tone and I felt that reverb shimmer was (to my ears) a close approximation of this. I guess my tonal goal was to get as far away from synthy or overdriven octave up as possible. I found the pog 2 attack (I think this is what it called) knob in combination with one octave up got me a great version of this tone. It turned out that volume swell plus octave up worked better for me than reverb and a type of octave up modulation. Seeing I already use a Nimbus, it was the shimmer reverb type warmth that I really wanted to test on the Bluesky- not the conventional reverb.
The Pog 2 surprised me. I expected something really artificial sounding and and at first that's what I got. But with some tweaking, there's a bunch of nice tones in it.
Love the POG2 for this purpose, add some washy tape or analog BBD and you are set! Also love the mode 7 on my Boss PS-3! Cool reverse pitch-shifting? WIN.
I got some interesting results by doing volume swells into a POG with a phaser and delay on it.
I do the same with my HOG, though it's a much more complex and expensive solution than I'm sure the OP is looking for. I really dig the features they've added to the POG2 and I think if I had to, I'd probably (at least try to) replace my HOG with one of those before I went the route of buying two huge pedals and an expression pedal.
They're pricey to find, but the old Digitech Space Station does that orchestral swell thing better than any other pedal I've heard.
edit: Here is a quick example. The sound quality is terrible because this was back before I got my current mixer. The first is mode 1 (octaves), the second is mode 5 (which lets the dry signal through, with a digital delay added to it), the third is mode 2 (fifths) which is my favorite mode.
