Was messing with some pad and bass sounds early this morning.
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Pedal Demos!
- Thread starter Proton Lenny
- Start date
I feel you. Zach’s recent BEAD demo, the latest version with the internal trim pot for low passing the clean blend, made me want one too. So I bought one from their Reverb store in early November. Today I finally got a tracking update beyond Moscow. My BEAD has made it to Chicago!! I was getting close to emotionally preparing for the disappointment of a lost shipment, now I’m as giddy as a little schoolgirl.
Buy-when-in-stock, and it is, 4 on his Rvb store. I ordered one when the current batch hit (with a personal alert on request from Alex himself on request via 'Gram), but reading about your wait, and with the sky now falling in Eastern Europe, I guess I'll have to settle in for a long wait of my own.
@Proton Lenny I wanted to ask about your placement of the Microcosm. Trying to figure out if I would prefer Volante-NightSky-Microcosm (what I would usually expect) instead of Microcosm-Volante-Nightsky or some other configuration. It’s all still hypothetical for me, but wanted to get your take
I have been considering getting one for a while, and just ordered it due to potential uncertainty of getting one in the future.
Honestly I'm finding it doesn't matter too much. They are all so expansive and big, that when you turn on multiple it just washes out into a glorious haze. But there are some subtle things to consider. I always like to have reverb at the end, that's just me. So the Nightsky (or Mercury7 in my case) is always at the end. However there are definitely some cool effects you can get with reverb earlier in the chain. The Nightsky is not really just a reverb, so that might differ for you. I like having the Volante after the Microcosm currently because I enjoy recording the Microcosm's effects into the Volante. It is especially fun to have the sequencer or arp running on the Microcosm (which is quantized) and have them slowly drift form each other (since the Volante isn't quantized). Also the Microcosm's reverb is great, so if I want I can have reverb before delay, or after with the Mercury 7. I also really like having the pitched delays from the Microcosm get 're-delayed' by the Volante. But honestly all of this is pretty subtle. Just experiment and see what you dig!
Every indication is that it will be worth the wait. Hiero told me the longest shipment took 5 months, I feel lucky at just 3 months. Once I’m all wrapped up in knob twisting, the shipping time will be inconsequential. Good luck to you.
Zachary, The control that you are getting from your MF-101 is exquisite! It’s almost like you are side chaining it.
I am side chaining it! I have a split at the front of my board into an envelope trigger in I added to my 101. So the 101 is always triggered with my dry bass.
I was thinking about how I can achieve similar results with my existing gear. My Source Audio Ultrawave is more than capable of nailing the BEAD distortion, or certainly getting into a reasonable ball park. One area that Digital Dirt is certainly different to analogue is impedance influence. So I can model say a Woolley Mammoth digitally, but it might not react in the same way at different volumes because the digital dirt is effectively impedance isolated. This can be a blessing and a problem. It's great that digital dirt doesn't need a buffer and doesn't react negatively to different basses pickups / impedance / long pedal chain paths. However, some dirt's tonal personality is actually defined by that trait. Which is why (I think) the SA Aftershock has such a problem emulating the afore mentioned Zfex pedal.
I use a lot of Source Audio gear, no affiliation, I just like their gear. My current board went all digital / all midi early last year and I've been knocking on that particular door for about 4 years now. I use both the SA Spectrum and C4 as my primary filters. I tend to focus on my Spectrum as my prime filter choice.
I went deep diving through the Spectrum's manual to see if I could try something similar to what you are doing with your Moog LF-101 modifications. I noticed that a single voice can indeed be side chained. So while I'm not looking to mimic your sound (that's yours) it is causing me to research a whole new avenue and approach to how I want to trigger my filter and why.
As I've said many times before, Zachary, you are a massive influence and I find that you are often bringing something new to me...not just in the "what" but in the "how" and "why". We are truly blessed to have you as an influencer in our community.
As a general comment / reaction to your new board (congratulations, it's a stunning piece of work), love the filter side chain. Although you have avoided Midi control...something like a Morning Star MC6 can easily be plugged into your board's Midi input...just saying...that's an easy option down the road for you. It wouldn't interfere with your current experimentation in "real time table top live tweakery" (is that eve a word?).
I'm also wondering how long it will be before you use your centrally placed H9 to harmonise your earlier Hog2 and OC-2 harmonies
. I find a mid placed H9 is just so darn versatile and cool.
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Thanks for the kind words! When I used a C4 I definitely used a side chain to the envelope and it worked great. I probably will use some sort of controller eventually, but honestly I don't have enough 'preset' sounds yet to make it worth while. Plus I am amazed how much more creative I am without it. I am constantly finding new sounds because I'm essentially always starting blank. Similar to the concept of a prewired vs modular synth. But we'll see, im sure much will change. And I certainly love harmonizing the Hog with the h9, that's where that lovely pad sound came from!I was thinking about how I can achieve similar results with my existing gear. My Source Audio Ultrawave is more than capable of nailing the BEAD distortion, or certainly getting into a reasonable ball park. One area that Digital Dirt is certainly different to analogue is impedance influence. So I can model say a Woolley Mammoth digitally, but it might not react in the same way at different volumes because the digital dirt is effectively impedance isolated. This can be a blessing and a problem. It's great that digital dirt doesn't need a buffer and doesn't react negatively to different basses pickups / impedance / long pedal chain paths. However, some dirt's tonal personality is actually defined by that trait. Which is why (I think) the SA Aftershock has such a problem emulating the afore mentioned Zfex pedal.
I use a lot of Source Audio gear, no affiliation, I just like their gear. My current board went all digital / all midi early last year and I've been knocking on that particular door for about 4 years now. I use both the SA Spectrum and C4 as my primary filters. I tend to focus on my Spectrum as my prime filter choice.
I went deep diving through the Spectrum's manual to see if I could try something similar to what you are doing with your Moog LF-101 modifications. I noticed that a single voice can indeed be side chained. So while I'm not looking to mimic your sound (that's yours) it is causing me to research a whole new avenue and approach to how I want to trigger my filter and why.
As I've said many times before, Zachary, you are a massive influence and I find that you are often bringing something new to me...not just in the "what" but in the "how" and "why". We are truly blessed to have you as an influencer in our community.
As a general comment / reaction to your new board (congratulations, it's a stunning piece of work), love the filter side chain. Although you have avoided Midi control...something like a Morning Star MC6 can easily be plugged into your board's Midi input...just saying...that's an easy option down the road for you. It wouldn't interfere with your current experimentation in "real time table top live tweakery" (is that eve a word?).
I'm also wondering how long it will be before you use your centrally placed H9 to harmonise your earlier Hog2 and OC-2 harmonies
With all of the connection possibilities out there today it's easy to feel like a midi controller is a must. Resist as long as you can and keep doing what keeps you creative! It was years before I added midi to any pedalboard because of this very reason. Learn the pedals, learn the knobs with your bass in your hands, no computer screen. It takes you so much further to be able to just quickly dial up a sound you like. Once you have a bunch of fundamental settings, having a midi controller makes sense. If you start wanting more automation, a midi expression pedal makes sense.
Also, having the flexibility to have the controller and expression pedal as a separate thing that can be on the floor takes the whole interactive pedalboard to a whole new level!
Looking forward to part 2, especially to hear more about the LPF mods.
Here's a thread where they discuss other options for getting a sidechain or "envelope follower", if getting the Spectrum to do it doesn't work as planned. Funnily enough, the thread ends mentioning SA gear anyways...I was thinking about how I can achieve similar results with my existing gear. My Source Audio Ultrawave is more than capable of nailing the BEAD distortion, or certainly getting into a reasonable ball park. One area that Digital Dirt is certainly different to analogue is impedance influence. So I can model say a Woolley Mammoth digitally, but it might not react in the same way at different volumes because the digital dirt is effectively impedance isolated. This can be a blessing and a problem. It's great that digital dirt doesn't need a buffer and doesn't react negatively to different basses pickups / impedance / long pedal chain paths. However, some dirt's tonal personality is actually defined by that trait. Which is why (I think) the SA Aftershock has such a problem emulating the afore mentioned Zfex pedal.
I use a lot of Source Audio gear, no affiliation, I just like their gear. My current board went all digital / all midi early last year and I've been knocking on that particular door for about 4 years now. I use both the SA Spectrum and C4 as my primary filters. I tend to focus on my Spectrum as my prime filter choice.
I went deep diving through the Spectrum's manual to see if I could try something similar to what you are doing with your Moog LF-101 modifications. I noticed that a single voice can indeed be side chained. So while I'm not looking to mimic your sound (that's yours) it is causing me to research a whole new avenue and approach to how I want to trigger my filter and why.
As I've said many times before, Zachary, you are a massive influence and I find that you are often bringing something new to me...not just in the "what" but in the "how" and "why". We are truly blessed to have you as an influencer in our community.
As a general comment / reaction to your new board (congratulations, it's a stunning piece of work), love the filter side chain. Although you have avoided Midi control...something like a Morning Star MC6 can easily be plugged into your board's Midi input...just saying...that's an easy option down the road for you. It wouldn't interfere with your current experimentation in "real time table top live tweakery" (is that eve a word?).
I'm also wondering how long it will be before you use your centrally placed H9 to harmonise your earlier Hog2 and OC-2 harmonies
I worked out a rough patch on my Spectrum yesterday. I have a dry signal from my Hog 2 inputted into my Spectrum and is now controlling my side chain on my Spectrum. I've set envelope 1 to read input 2. Then I plugged in my side chain feed into input 2. However, it's at the same line level that the Hog 2 outputs, So I might run a patch on my Ultrawave to push out a hot clean signal to it's 2nd output and not use my Hog2's dry output at all. The process is working great, even without the extra buffer. I’ve never thought of doing this before. There are so many different envelope type options in the Spectrum / C4 it might not actually be necessary. I get a really nice response from "snappy". There's also a lot of Filter options too, not just the usual 2 or 4 pole Low-Pass. So there's a lot to trial, tinker and to think about. I haven’t posted any patches yet because nothing is ready or finished and I don't want to derail Zachary’s thread. Maybe when I'm ready to show something, I’ll take it over to the SA master thread.
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