Hahaha so true! I have to admit I'm a bit of a sucker for it though1988 called, they want their groove trick back.
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Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread
- Thread starter ttasselm
- Start date
The Erica takes audio in, which I routed from the AI. The AI is interesting but can lack low end. The Erica provides plenty of low end. The mixed output is great with some tube crunch added.
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So the FM9 arrived. I feel like all the gear head internet debate about “most accurate” or “most things modelled” really buries the lead. This thing is a modular guitar processor that can, if you want, also work like a linear FX chain into an amp. The concept between this and something like Line 6 is night and day.
—I really really love the control over sounds, and that lots of control elements are built into effects (EQ, LFOs, scaling, etc), and that the effects themselves aren’t black boxes—they contain all the building blocks. So yes, you can have a shimmer verb if you want, but how about it’s set up as a whole boatload of pitch shiftable delay taps that can be fed back or diffused if you want? Every distortion has tons of eq and tone shaping options. You can also induce and introduce many different flavours of distinctions. Every reverb and debate has high and low pass mode. Even my H9 doesn’t have that. Scaling parameters, stereo offsets (which I wouldn’t use for live), expression curves.
—I love the ability to customize the foot layout control options. Also absent on other modellers I’ve tried.
—pitch, ADSR (which of course also means ASR, AD, and AR options) and envelope control are great, and it looks like there is even a possibility for nonlinear or feedback patching, though the latter may be an issue in the digital domain.
Soundwise I’m finding it inspiring too. Except for cab IRs. I somehow don’t get them. But there’s tons of control there too so I need to experiment.
Will I finally replace my pedalboard with this? I don’t know, too soon to tell, but that would be a nice outcome. Also, Fractal as a company really has it together, like Soma and a few others. Well built, internal power supply, does not overpromise, good support.
—I really really love the control over sounds, and that lots of control elements are built into effects (EQ, LFOs, scaling, etc), and that the effects themselves aren’t black boxes—they contain all the building blocks. So yes, you can have a shimmer verb if you want, but how about it’s set up as a whole boatload of pitch shiftable delay taps that can be fed back or diffused if you want? Every distortion has tons of eq and tone shaping options. You can also induce and introduce many different flavours of distinctions. Every reverb and debate has high and low pass mode. Even my H9 doesn’t have that. Scaling parameters, stereo offsets (which I wouldn’t use for live), expression curves.
—I love the ability to customize the foot layout control options. Also absent on other modellers I’ve tried.
—pitch, ADSR (which of course also means ASR, AD, and AR options) and envelope control are great, and it looks like there is even a possibility for nonlinear or feedback patching, though the latter may be an issue in the digital domain.
Soundwise I’m finding it inspiring too. Except for cab IRs. I somehow don’t get them. But there’s tons of control there too so I need to experiment.
Will I finally replace my pedalboard with this? I don’t know, too soon to tell, but that would be a nice outcome. Also, Fractal as a company really has it together, like Soma and a few others. Well built, internal power supply, does not overpromise, good support.
@JES
Do any of those units (FM9, Helix or H9) have an oct up algorithm that can detect a palm mute?
Either with a pick or the more old school palm and Thumb.
thanks for any info you might have.
Any of the regulars here have any leads/solutions suggestions to this issue?
Do any of those units (FM9, Helix or H9) have an oct up algorithm that can detect a palm mute?
Either with a pick or the more old school palm and Thumb.
thanks for any info you might have.
Any of the regulars here have any leads/solutions suggestions to this issue?
@Ugly: Can you say a bit more about what you're trying to do? Do you want the octave timbre to change when you palm mute (unlikely, though I can do duration ok), or just that when you're palm muting you *get* an octave up? I can then try it on my end and report back, or even record for you.
I want the oct up note to “choke” like a muted note.
Every octaver that has the up function dectects the note regardless of muted or note and then spits it out higher and “not choked”
Think of a chugging heavy guitar riff with lot’s of dirt sound I’m looking for.
I mute with both my right hand palm and left hand “à la Rocco” kind of thing.
I use either technique that works best for each particular situation
Am I making sense??
I dug up a video from back in May - hoping to recreate this piece so was looking for a pic of my Subharmonicon settings (I made a "patch sheet" I can record settings with) and found this performance that I initially rejected because of some flubs, but hey, it has a bass solo!
- Mar 8, 2011
- 12,232
- 51,187
- Disclosures
- Authorized greenboy designs builder/Owner of BNA Audio
Some retro crap right here! Fun as heck to make. Oxi One, Octatrack, EssenceFM, eurorack. Octatrack is the best drum machine I’ve ever owned
you're gonna try making sense?
biiiiiggggg mistake
but, by all means, let us know how that works.
Thanks! I think this piece made me appreciate the Subharmonicon more - I love that it can produce something in 5 without too much work on my part. But I finally realized I need to document the settings of what I come up with.
I'm also not satisfied with the McMillen 12-step - should get out my Roland PK-5A, it takes up way more space but works so much better too. Though I still gotta figure out the octave switching thing...
8-string bass! And if you only need it for certain spots, then 8/4 doubleneck!!
That was fun. I almost expected young Uncle Al to start singing.
I’m probably gonna just have to take the Octa plunge. I keep wondering about other devices, but that seems to be the machine.
The Octatrack is complex but the trick to learning it is just to ask it to perform a specific task, that than all tasks it could perform. It is a rare case of a device that lacks “modern” capabilities and still does a whole whack of things no other hardware does.
- Mar 8, 2011
- 12,232
- 51,187
- Disclosures
- Authorized greenboy designs builder/Owner of BNA Audio
Well, it’s just a completely unique instrument. Some (like me) find it to be the coolest machine ever, but some just don’t click with it. There’s still a ton of functionality I don’t personally use, but I often find it invaluable for the things I do use it for. It’s a great midi sequencer. Great sampler. Time and pitch stretching is pretty darn nice. I like it as a mixer and of course a sampler. Nothing mangles drums better. Or anything else that needs mangling, for that matter
Just for a fun exercise, I tried to see how close the M8 could get for sample manipulation and it gets pretty darn close. The M8 is incredible and in many ways I prefer it for full song construction.
Feel free to ask any questions you might have and I’ll answer if I can
That sounds about right to me
So yesterday was my first regular gig since the pandemic. It was with the dad rock band, outdoors, with families and kids around, and in the late afternoon. Part of a neighbourhood porchfest. There was beer but also lemonade. We had somewhere between 100-150 audience members, not counting small kids. Since we had to supply our own PA (my wife and I own the PA in our practice space), the band spent the last couple weeks working on levels so the vocals could be clear and everyone said it worked. I got to use both my bass cabs, which I almost never need (I figured some extra air for outdoors with no reinforcement would be good) and it sounded great and huge, and I barely had to turn up past 1 on my master volume. Our only mistake: no swag. People wanted t-shirts. In many ways, of the four projects I have, this is furthest from my own aesthetic, but it is audience-pleasing and with friends, which is a lot of fun. As a bonus, we got to watch people who hadn’t seen one another in 3 years greet and embrace as we were playing.
I’m working on sequencing with the Bloom and Pam’s into the Sample Drum and an Oscillator. It gets fun with time divisions. Bloom is mutating the melody on one channel and the drum pattern on the second channel. The drum sequence has CV control over kick/snare samples, while Pam’s is doing Euclidean things to the hat. I got pretty lost in it for a chunk of time. Thank goodness the modules can keep time because I sure can’t.
