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LPF recommendations? (Moog or Electrix)

#21
It can definitely do straight cutoffs without sweeps. I was able to dial in a straight cutoff to make it sound extremely similar to the DOD FX25, and of course the Moog LPF can do that as well. Tonight I'll experiment with sweeps to see how close it can get.

The trick with the Filter Factory is the SINGLESHOT button under the WAVEFORM button. That disables the LFO completely so you can use it as a straight sweepable filter. Like I said, the trick is sweeping it with something other than your hand while you're playing. ;) I have a Behringer FCB1010 coming today which will hopefully be able to control the entire FilterFactory from the floor via MIDI.
 
#26
There's certainly pros and cons to the FilterFactory. Pros are that it's rackable and MIDI controllable and has built in LFO which is great. Cons are that there's no OUTPUT LEVEL control and it's seemingly less thick and loud in the extremely low filter frequencies compared to the Moog LPF. The OUTPUT LEVEL comes into play as the Resonance directly affects the output level. So if you want less resonance, you lose output volume. Increase resonace, output level increases thanks to the resonant peaking. However, the Moog has an overall output drop that I had to boost with my LS-2 level controls, but I don't recall there being such a spike in volume when using the Moog resonance below oscilation.

The FilterFactory seems to have a lot more scope in the mid/high range than the Moog as you can really bump the Resonance up and get some controllable screeching bumps in frequency. I'm going to experiment with pushing some more low end via EQ to the FilterFactory to see if I can compensate for the lack of volume against lows in the frequency sweep.

The LFO section seems intersting, but honestly I have no experience with LFO controlled filters so it'll take me a while to figure out some applications. But you can roll the Frequency down, set the LFO to inverse Saw, and play with resonance/depth to produce some bass drum pulse sounds. Square LFO seems to provide a sound similar to a hard tremolo though I haven't A-B'ed Square VS Trem to see what kind of audible differences there may be. I can see Env Follower being used to provide some auto-Q type funky auto-sweeps but I haven't played with it enough to see if you can really tame the sweep range via playing technique or not as the sweep seems pretty wide. Maybe some limiting in front of it would let you be able to tune it more to a usable attack-based auto-LPF by keeping it from sweeping super high. More experimentation is needed. Too many damn features! :)

As far as the MIDI capabilities of the FilterFactory, they physically exist and work. However, since you have to control EVERYTHING via CC (no program changes since there's no presets available) it makes finding a MIDI controller that can fully control all of the various settings extremely difficult. For example, the Behringer FCB1010 can only control a max of FOUR CCs. Two static values via foot buttons (could be used for Tap Tempo and probably any of the Engage switches assuming the CC toggles them on/off instead of requiring a hi/low range to be sent), and two sweepable values via the two expressions. And you have to set the MIDI CHANNEL (device) to a GLOBAL value meaning whatever MIDI Channel you assign to each of those four CC settings is GLOBAL for every single patch on the FCB1010. If you're going to use the FilterFactory purely as a manually controlled LPF what I found is using one of the Relay Switches via 1/4" cable to the Foot Pedal jack on the Filter Factory to manually control Bypass On/Off. Then permanently assign one of the Expressions to CC5 on the Filter Factory to control the sweep. That still leaves a single CC foot button and one Expression on the FCB1010 free to be assignable to your other MIDI devices.

Just sharing my thoughts as I continue to experiment with the FilterFactory. The "problem" with devices with so many features is there are so many features you have to learn. Add the MIDI and now you have to marry your controller to the device successfully.

In contrast the Moog is much more plug-and-play. However, I think it has it's own pros/cons. The cons being that it's huge once you add up all the related equipment on your pedal board needed to run it successfully, needs a dedicated expression (which I'm doing via the FCB1010 anyway), and has such a terrible bypass you need to stick it in it's own bypass loop which I used my LS-2 for which eats more board space, plus a bunch more cabling.

If I was picking purely based on my experience thus far I'd vote for the Moog. The sound is there once you stick it in a bypass loop. And it's super easy to use. Price is probably about the same for a new Moog + Expression + Bypass + Cabling VS used FilterFactory + MIDI Controller + Cabling. I probably have $300 into the FilterFactory + FCB1010 + cables. The Moog retail (super hard to find used) surpasses that if you figure in the cost of a LS-2.

Pros and Cons, like everything else in life.
 
#27
Good review and cool clips man! Definitely what I was looking for. My plan is to wait a couple weeks and see if a Moog pops up used anywhere, if not I'll just break down and buy it new. Yesterday I just purchased a Roland FV5 Exp Pedal to use with my SYB-5 and possibly the moog, but I'll need to buy another exp sooner or later.

I really like how the filter factory sounded on the upper harmonics in your test, it actually sounded more interesting than the moog, but at the expensive of the moog's super fat low end.
 
#30
I experimented with the FilterFactory LFO tonight. The more I play with this bad boy the more I've grown to like it even for a straight manually swept LPF.

I've got the FF set as follows:
* Resonance at one notch above 2.5
* MIDI CC5 expression set for 10-55 to give the pedal the most control over the low range without totally excluding the highs.
* LFO set to 1:1
* LFO speed 3 notches past 12 O'clock
* LFO Wave on reverse saw wave.
* LFO Depth at 11 O'clock

Bass run thru DOD FX25 and Brown Dog.

The following fun resulted.
 
#32
It specifically takes a +4 line level signal. No way to change that. It's one issue I have with racked effects in general. They all generally take different line levels and some don't have any way to account for differences, such as the Filter Factory which has neither an input nor an output level control. My SansAmp RBI effects loop runs at -20. My Rane DC24 can switch between -10 and + 4. My BOSS VF-1 can switch between -20 and +4. It's all over the place. :) I currently run everything at +4 and put a BOSS VF-1 at the beginning and again at the end of the chain as it has the ability to control both input and output levels.

One thing I discovered recently with the FilterFactory is that even when you have the Singleshot button below Waveform selected (which disables LFO cycling/wave) you can still select Envelope as the wave and control the Envelope depth via the Depth knob. Then still manually sweep the frequency. Another way to get a different swept filter sound without requiring LFO. Experiment with different Depth and Resonance settings while in Envelope mode to get some really different amplitude driven filter sounds.
 
#33
I would also try to check out the Akai MFC-42. They can be found on the cheap and sound better than the Electrix IMO. It's made for hip-hop guys and has serious "bigness" down low. It's got pretty extensive modulation and you can do some cool stuff like feed your bass to the mono input and drums into the stereo inputs and link the cutoff to go up on one and down on the other. It's got midi and big cutoff knobs and like I said can be found pretty easily 2nd hand on the cheap.
 
#34
Thanks for the recommendation. The Akai seems like an interesting unit. 1:8 and 1:16 ratios on the LFO, and looks like MIDI presets which is the FilterFactory's biggest weakness for guitar/bass use as it's nearly impossible to easily control everything via CC.

The MAM Warp 9 and Waldorf MiniWorks seems to both have similar functionality and also supports MIDI patch access, though the Waldorf isn't in rack format.

I also saw the Frostwave Resonator which is in pedal format but is CV controlled.

The FilterFactory wins with it's availability and low price though, you can always find them. The other products are much more rare used. And even less reviews for bass applications specifically.
 
#35
One thing though, the Akai doesn't have presets, but can accept Midi dumps of all the parameter settings. You hit record on your midi sequencer and there's a funtion that shoots out midi commands for where all the knobs are. You then play back that midi dump to the filter for recall. They're kind of assuming you're using an Akai MPC with it. I've just been thinking about grabbing one again because I've got the Moog Control Pedal coming in the mail right now that I think would solve all the unit's shortcomings I delt with when I had one. I would still keep an eye out as they pop up randomly for $150 or less from time to time. The Electrix is pretty cool though, I used to have a roommate that had both the big one and the smaller one. I just hated the Moog when I had one, it was noisy and leaked spanish radio while I was trying to play.
 
#36
gastric said:
The MAM Warp 9 and Waldorf MiniWorks seems to both have similar functionality and also supports MIDI patch access, though the Waldorf isn't in rack format.
Click to expand...

It makes me sad to see these two units lumped together. My love for the Warp 9 is WELL documented on this board, and while the waldorf has similar functionality, it can't hold a candle to the W9 soundwise. Technically, I've never used a Miniworks, but the miniworks is just the VCF and VCA portions of a Waldorf Pulse, which I have owned, and whose filter is the very definition of meh and lifeless.

Anyway, to recap, Warp 9 is :bassist: and Waldorf is :atoz:
 
#37
I've owned, nor tested any of these units. I simply found them based on specs and theoretical used price of $200 or less. The Warp 9 seems much more feature rich than any of the other units mentioned based on it's fully MIDI capability and 20 presets which would be more than enough, I'd think.

The problem is you can never find them used.

I've noted that with the exception of the Moog LPF all of this stuff is discountinued, old gear. Isn't there any current MIDI compatible, in-production gear like this that doesn't cost $1k?
 
#38
Well, the Sherman Filterbank II is around $750 new but can be found used considerably cheaper. It's got Midi but no presets. That thing can absolutely scream when you push it, but that might not be what you're going for. It can do some rumbling lows too though. I've been using the filters on a Studio Electronics ATC-1 synth (fabulous) but it takes a good deal of outboard gear to make it work right with a bass.
 
#39
If you have infinity dollars, this might be good: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

A DSI Evolver would be cool to mess with. It has 2 inputs and an envelope follower and peak holder that react to the input, plus a lot of routing craziness.

I think that these old rack units were aimed at synthesists not bassists, and now all the synthesists are using softsynths (not all, but you get my drift) so there's no more rack synth gear coming out.
 
#40
If I start making electronic music my main thing, I will definitely be checking out a few of these filters. The Sherman Filterbank, the MAM Warp 9, and especially the IOTINE CORE caught my eye of the above suggestions.

Gastric, that last clip was really awesome! The Electrix Filter definitely sounds useable in a live context, especially if you can change the resonance and frequency on the fly. Even if subdivisions are hard to mess with, this gives you plenty of variety in your sound, as your clip shows.

But, I am happy to say that we have conceived a child. A Moog MF-101 is on the way to my house as we speak!! I've been waiting for this for a loooong time
 

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