Interesting; maybe an already heavily clipped signal (effectively with a quasi-square wave pattern) has a different effect than a loud clean signal. When you say "it" messed everything up, do you mean that loud signal, or the EF chorus?
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
My Dirt Bender - Another Jounal
- Thread starter el murdoque
- Start date
I meant the massive volume spike riding down a carefully crafted cascade of gain sensitive pedals.
Okay. That Tech21 has arrived.
Two possible conclusions:
1. There's a learning curve to how one sets the Tech21, and it takes a while to learn the intricate interplay between the detune knob and the traditional chorus controls and once that's mastered, one can craft truly awesome chorus sounds.
2. It's good.
I have yet to understand what the depth knob does. When I set speed and depth to minimum and the detune knob at 11 or 1 o'clock, I get a chorus sound that sounds quite good, albeit the wobble is a bit too fast for my taste. Turning up or down the speed knob does not affect it much.
I think I need to re-read the manual and try a few of their suggestions.
There is a tiny amount of noise floor, but it's much better than the Julia, and the Julia is already very tolerable.
You can also easily go too wet when you activate the multi voice and turn the detune knob in either direction.
Two possible conclusions:
1. There's a learning curve to how one sets the Tech21, and it takes a while to learn the intricate interplay between the detune knob and the traditional chorus controls and once that's mastered, one can craft truly awesome chorus sounds.
2. It's good.
I have yet to understand what the depth knob does. When I set speed and depth to minimum and the detune knob at 11 or 1 o'clock, I get a chorus sound that sounds quite good, albeit the wobble is a bit too fast for my taste. Turning up or down the speed knob does not affect it much.
I think I need to re-read the manual and try a few of their suggestions.
There is a tiny amount of noise floor, but it's much better than the Julia, and the Julia is already very tolerable.
You can also easily go too wet when you activate the multi voice and turn the detune knob in either direction.
I think it’s best to look at the Speed and Depth as being your traditional “Chorus” controls with the Detune knob in the center (off) position wherein your second voice is changing pitch up and down via a sweeping LFO from the center point that is the pitch of your bass, while the Detune control when used by itself is a static (non-modulating) micro pitch-shifter on your second voice. If you turn Depth and Speed all the way down you should mostly just hear a static (non-modulating) detune- the “wobble” with the Depth control turned down isn’t from a modulating pitch but from the dissonance of your static detuned note against your clean tone (the same as when you are tuning your instrument to itself or tuning to another instrument where you get the sound of beating when you aren’t in tune). You can use the Mix control to decrease the intensity of the wobble when using static detuned sounds (this is one chorus pedal where I rarely have the Mix in the center- try turning the Mix both up and down depending on settings!).
With Multi-voice activated, a second detuned voice turns on that depends on the direction of the Detune knob- if you have the Detune above noon then the second voice will be at an equal interval below the clean pitch (so you will have one pitched up voice and one pitched down voice at the same time). With the Detune knob turned below noon, the second detuned voice will also be pitched down but at a smaller pitch interval than the voice represented by the Detune control (so both detuned voices will be below your clean pitch). For some reason I have mostly used the down-pitched Detune settings when using static detune for synthy tones, but there are tons of different possibilities. The Multi-voice button can make that “wobble” you mention either more or less intense depending on where the Detune control is set.
You can use both chorus and detune at the same time so that your static detuned second voice is now modulating via LFO (so you can actually move the center point of the modulating pitch away from your original pitch). Honestly with mine with bass I usually use one or the other, Detune or Chorus, but together you can get some pretty huge or crazy sounds.
Last edited:
Here's some good news for the die-hard analog people here:
I did sell the Headrush again.
Now here's a question: If I was to build a "Fly rig", based on a Nano, what should I slap on there?
I'd need a tuner (for muting) and a pedal with XLR out.
I did sell the Headrush again.
Now here's a question: If I was to build a "Fly rig", based on a Nano, what should I slap on there?
I'd need a tuner (for muting) and a pedal with XLR out.
I'd start with a small tuner (TurboTuner ST300 Mini/TC MiniStomp), the Aguilar Stormking, Cali76 V1, a VTBass V1/V2 (which seems to sound warmer than the VTDI) as basic tone shaper and use an external/provided DI.
Hurrah! Next will have to be that Tech21 abomination
.My most “fly” rig is a clip-on tuner (Peterson, of course), the volume knob on my bass for muting and a v1 Tone Hammer, AGS always on, phantom-powered, batteries if necessary. The AGS is a very cool circuit; it’s not my favourite dirt sound, but the compression and cabsim-like properties are really useful. The volume jump is a pain, but obviated by not turning it off. I did a number of gigs with that back in the day, easiest setup ever.
Then all I have to do is buy a vintage Fender Tube Reverb tank to replace my Strymon BigSky, and it's all analog goodness.
Or you could go back to Echo Fix, or to Crazy Tube Circuits or Carl Martin, or Surfy; or there’s a really cool-looking French maker (?Anadine or something like that) who make a separate standard-sized pedal driving your choice of 3 variously-sized external passive spring tanks. The Echo Fix is my always on reverb, and it even sounds really good to give a hint of splash at the front end when run into a hall reverb (digital, obviously).
Same here. AGS is my favourite dirt sound. I sometimes add JHS Mute Switch for muting...
Here is a picture of my current nano pedalboard. I don't have XLR out on that one as I usually use it together with my amp (which features XLR out).
That was just a fun remark, because I'm a die-hard Strymon fanboy when it comes to reverb - and I refuse to upgrade to the never versions because Strymon finally kicked the "Analog Dry Path" idea.
The spring reverb is capable of giving you the hint of reverb that suggests a room when listening back through IEM, but I also use larger reverbs quite frequently.
I think I see the signal path being tuner - RFE - Ultimate Drive - Jive .. ?
For me personally, this feels a bit weird, because my RFE doubles as cab sim and I need to have it after my drive pedals to block the unwanted harmonics. I guess that's not an issue for your since you send it to an amp?
Where did they kick the analog dry path? I haven't seen a single pedal of theirs that doesn't allow for analog dry through. Their new small pedals seem to default to digital dry path, but they can all be set to analog.
I think this is the time to address something I've not addressed yet.
Since I do own a Tonehammer amp, I never bought the pedal.
Which is a shame, because I always liked the dirt sounds of the Tonehammer.
Looking at the pedal and the amp, there are two relevant differences. The amp does not come with an AGS switch, but is equipped with a knob called "Drive" along with the gain knob. My guess would be that on the pedal, you can jump between two fixed settings of the amp's drive knob.
I have played the pedal in the past, but never got over what I called a dramatic design failure, mapping a function to a footswitch that is essentially unusable because of how the levels jump.
However, now I kind of want a Tonehammer pedal.
Since I do own a Tonehammer amp, I never bought the pedal.
Which is a shame, because I always liked the dirt sounds of the Tonehammer.
Looking at the pedal and the amp, there are two relevant differences. The amp does not come with an AGS switch, but is equipped with a knob called "Drive" along with the gain knob. My guess would be that on the pedal, you can jump between two fixed settings of the amp's drive knob.
I have played the pedal in the past, but never got over what I called a dramatic design failure, mapping a function to a footswitch that is essentially unusable because of how the levels jump.
However, now I kind of want a Tonehammer pedal.
On the Cloudburst, you'll have to find it hidden in the manual. I think I had to bury mine under an oak tree under a full moon, then sacrifice a goat and
perform several rituals until the LED turned from amber to red, and then I could select the analog dry path (could also be that it was a little bit simpler than that, my memory is not as it used to be).
The Strymon BlueSky v2 does, to my knowledge, not offer the option, neither hidden nor obvious.
I was under the impression that the same happened with the BigSky MX, but that is indeed not true, the analog dry path is still mentioned in the spec sheet.
So it's not as bad as I assumed. I can actually buy that BigSky MX. I will do that as soon as the reverb options in the BigSky start to bore me and there are seveal hundred currency units burning a hole in my pocket.
Yeah it appears that it only has the "analog dry through", there's no digital dry path option on that one. I glanced at the manual and it only mentions "analog dry through path".
I've just re-read the manual for the V2. I swear the last time I did this, the word analog was only mentioned in context of the input and output stages.
Now that I look at it, there is the usual paragraph that claims all analog dry path, zero latency.
Okay, guys from Strymon. That was all in my head. You're back in my good graces now!
The signal path is as follows: tuner - Ultimate Drive - RFE (in the clean FX loop of the Ultimate Drive) - Jive
I understand your concern about the placement of the RFE.
There are several reasons for me to have it wired as described:
- it allows me to cut highs and mids from the clean channel of the Ultimate Drive (with LPF set at 330Hz) without affecting the drive channel; the result is similar to biamp setup: clean lows and driven mids and highs (the drive channel on the Ultimate drive is basically a band-pass filter with peak at the frequency determined by the position of the Tone control)
- having HPF in the Clean FX loop helps the compressor to operate properly (within the Ultimate Drive, the FX loops are placed before the compressor)
- my drives do not create "unwanted" harmonics, i.e. with moderate settings which I use, all harmonics created are "wanted"..
Sort of...
Engaging the AGS is equal to turning the Drive knob to 3 o'clock-see the post No. 1825 in the following thread:
Latest posts
-
Uber Eats class action lawsuit alleges their priority delivery is a scam- Latest: buldog5151bass
-
-
-
