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Iron Ether FMeron

#23
Phe said:
@40Hz : FMeron and such could also save a lot of gigs for bass players. Nowadays keyboard players seem to take all the paying pop gigs (at least in Finland). If the bass player can cover at least some of the bass synth parts, then he or she might have a gig in the future.
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Fortunately, the electric bass is firmly esconced in most music played in the USA. Possibly because it was mostly invented here. We like to encourage abd support the locals. ;):laugh:

But I'm for whatever works. For me the bass role is a function and not so much the instrument. Synth, electric bass, upright, tuba, baritone sax, horn, viol da gamba, tympani - whatever is called for.

But I don't usually refer to myself as a bassist. I usually just say I play the low notes. :cool:
 
#24
Great to hear all the awesome feedback, everybody! This has been something I've wanted as a bassist for years, and this particular design has been in development for a year now. So I'm excited to finally be able to bring it to life. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about the FMeron.

Chrisk-K said:
A two osc FM synth is extremely rudimentary in generating good tones. Even a very cheap FM synth in the 80's and 90's used a four osc (ie, operator) architecture.
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That's true, but, it's really a matter of interface. The DX7 has hundreds of parameters that can be programmed, and it would be impractical (and big and incredibly expensive) to have hundreds of knobs, so the designers locked all of those parameters behind a single data entry slider. As a result, almost no users of FM keyboards ever created their own sounds, instead using it as a box of presets.

Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but my own musical philosophy is different. I want to be able to create my own sounds on the fly while making music, and especially when playing bass or guitar, I don't want to be locked into other people's presets.

So, if you consider the challenge of trying to boil down FM synthesis to what can be controlled by 4 knobs (since 2 of the 6 are dedicated to volume control), and especially if one wants "WYSIWYG" controls that aren't controlling ten different things, where you can never tell where anything is set by looking at it, it's a very different design problem.

If people write to me and say they want a gigantic FM synth pedal with 300 knobs that costs more than the rest of their rig, I will definitely consider it! :D I have a Eurorack modular, which I built and/or designed all the modules in, so I'm not afraid of knobs. What I'm afraid of is an interface that makes music-making a PITA.
 
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#25
@Taylor Livingston - This, like all of your other designs, is well thought out. Simple, and easy to use.

Does the expression pedal work like the Xerograph Dlx, where it can be used to set the low point of the sweep, and the FM knob to set the hi? Essentially start & stop controls for the sweep? (Not something I could pick out in the demo).
 
#26
Alien8 said:
@Taylor Livingston - This, like all of your other designs, is well thought out. Simple, and easy to use.

Does the expression pedal work like the Xerograph Dlx, where it can be used to set the low point of the sweep, and the FM knob to set the hi? Essentially start & stop controls for the sweep? (Not something I could pick out in the demo).
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I appreciate that! I know you're one with an eye for the design details. With this one, the expression pedal always sweeps from zero FM (pure sine wave) up to the amount set by the FM knob, so it's different from the XD. That's because there wasn't room for both an FM knob and an expression limiter knob like the XD has, but also because it usually makes the most sense to be sweeping from zero with this effect, whereas with a filter the zero point might be below whatever you're playing and thus silence.
 
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#30
I love the FMeron.

It really is it's own color on the bass synth palette.

It isn't a pedal that I use to just add a bit of "color" to a bass line - it's a box that provides inspiration.

It took me a bit of time to dial in (like all IE pedals it has a deep set of controls) but now that I am comfortable with it it's easy to jump to my favorite sounds quickly.
 
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#33
Blu bro said:
seriously considering one of these to replace my octave pedal- seems over kill but sounds so dang good!
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This is sort of my thinking as well - for the first 20 years of my playing or so, I never touched an octave pedal as I didn't grasp what they were for or how they sounded. In the past couple years I've grown to dig the sound and have had a few octave pedals, but all in all I use them pretty much just in places I want to sound a bit synthy, and I tend to use things like my Slash or an Octron that have upper-octave fuzziness available too. So something like this might indeed just replace that!

@Taylor Livingston - how low does this guy track? I know, I know, play to the pedal, but sometimes I just like to kick on a pedal and be able to still play whatever strikes me, all over the neck. Cheers, sounds amazing!
 
#34
DDXdesign said:
@Taylor Livingston - how low does this guy track? I know, I know, play to the pedal, but sometimes I just like to kick on a pedal and be able to still play whatever strikes me, all over the neck. Cheers, sounds amazing!
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Thanks! It tracks lower than typical analog octavers and lower than the Subterranea. You can see Zach going down to I think the C# on the low B string in the video (correct me if I'm wrong here, Zach). Ultimately the tracking stability will depend a bit on your instrument, setup, technique, etc. but there's no arbitrary limit as you sometimes see on tracking pedals where it just won't register below a particular note. I have a P-bass strung BEAD and regularly play down to the low B with the FMeron.

It's typically on the tail end of long sustained notes where tracking pedals start to get confused, as the fundamental frequency of the note you're playing will have decayed more than the harmonics, so you can get more stable tracking on really long notes with a compressor at the front of the chain.
 
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#36
Taylor Livingston said:
Thanks! It tracks lower than typical analog octavers and lower than the Subterranea. You can see Zach going down to I think the C# on the low B string in the video (correct me if I'm wrong here, Zach). Ultimately the tracking stability will depend a bit on your instrument, setup, technique, etc. but there's no arbitrary limit as you sometimes see on tracking pedals where it just won't register below a particular note. I have a P-bass strung BEAD and regularly play down to the low B with the FMeron.

It's typically on the tail end of long sustained notes where tracking pedals start to get confused, as the fundamental frequency of the note you're playing will have decayed more than the harmonics, so you can get more stable tracking on really long notes with a compressor at the front of the chain.
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Well, that's amazing and now I have more GAS. Wish I could try before buying just to be sure, because it's not an inexpensive venture, but I am sorely tempted...
 
#37
Taylor Livingston said:
Thanks! It tracks lower than typical analog octavers and lower than the Subterranea. You can see Zach going down to I think the C# on the low B string in the video (correct me if I'm wrong here, Zach). Ultimately the tracking stability will depend a bit on your instrument, setup, technique, etc. but there's no arbitrary limit as you sometimes see on tracking pedals where it just won't register below a particular note. I have a P-bass strung BEAD and regularly play down to the low B with the FMeron.

It's typically on the tail end of long sustained notes where tracking pedals start to get confused, as the fundamental frequency of the note you're playing will have decayed more than the harmonics, so you can get more stable tracking on really long notes with a compressor at the front of the chain.
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You are correct Sir. It was stable for me down to a Low B
 
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#38
How aggressive can this get? I was thinking of doing a PLL (probably a Data Corrupter) for noisier synth sounds, but if this gets gnarly it could be a solid alternative.

For frame of reference on this I'm comparing literal analog synthesizers to FM synths and I find FM tends to be less aggressive or at least not oriented to make tones that are less polite/hollow?
 
#39
The beauty of these types of bass pedal setups is you can make this more dirty and aggressive by running a fuzz right after it. I find that thinking about your entire chain and not just one effect can really help you figure out usage.

For me, I like to find 2-3 killing tones I can dial in on a synth type pedal and then stick to those as my foundation. I can then pump an octave pedal or OD into the front or add fuzz/filter/reverb after to change the sound. It takes 3 patches and turns them into a lot more that you can use throughout a record or set and they will always sound fresh.
 
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