Tremelos?

[theroan]

I'm looking for a good tremelo pedal for bass and guitar, any ideas?

 

[bongomania]

So far my favorites are the Link Removed and the [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]. Amusingly, the Tubular one has no tube in it, but the Flip one does. Both of them are great for bass, with full low end. Both of them excell at fat, vintage, throbbing tones. Both of them have a little extra noise, and neither of them does the super-choppy square wave trem very well.

There are other trems with lower noise and more trem options, but none that I've found with the same fatness of tone and musical throb.

 

[lookjojoisplaid]

Depends on what kind of tremolo you want based on what type of music you are gonna play. If you are trying to emulate and old fender amp or just a more traditional tremolo id defintly go with the two above.

But if you want some thing really crazy that you can make allot of noisae on and still want the traditional vibe there are only 2 pedals i know of the Gig-FX Chopper pedal <http://www.gig-fx.com/> and the boss PN-2 which you will have to find on ebay. Just a warnign for you the Boss PN-2 is not true Bypass and it make a little noise and its nearly impossible to convert it to ture bypass and keep it in the original case.

 

[SFjonstarr]

I used to have the Guyatone and can vouch for it's satisfying pronounced throbiness with the emphasis switch engaged. Exellent value for the money as well. I think that's the one Justin from Tool has been using recently. I just don't use much Tremelo so it didn't make much sense for me to hold on to it. The Chopper has a built in expression pedal to change speeds while you're playing if that's your thing. My friend I sold the Guyatone to recently picked up a Red Witch Tremelo he really likes for different sounds, but I didn't get a chance to try it out. The Red Witch Phasor was really nice though, so I can imagine that the Tremelo would be of similar high quality. Guyatone just realeased a new optical tremelo that looks very impressive but is quite expensive. Many cool features on that one if you check out their website. There is a link on the fist page of TalkBass if you scroll down the ads. I'm personally holding off on picking up a Tremelo to get the Moog Ring Mod pedal, which does very good tremelos when you put the speed setting in the lower position. The combination of tremelos and crazy ring mod sounds make it a better value for me personally, although I won't be able to do them both at the same time.

 

[hillbillyfunk]

I have the Voodoo Lab Tremolo and it sounds great. Very warm sounding and it doesn't cut off any of your bass...actually it boosts and warms it up a tad. I only use it now and then though...and its lost its place in my pedal board because of it. It does sound great when playing quiet/folky/jazzy stuff....but if you are playing with a loud band, it will just make your bass disappear in the mix -- unless everyone else is quiet...then it sounds sick to drop a huge E and let it 'rotate' for a while.

 

[Magical_Max]

As both lookjojoisplaid and SFjonstarr said the Gig FX chopper has an expression pedal on it which sets it out from other tremolo's. I've got one but haven't yet found a way to use the variable tremolo speed rates in a song, but I shall keep trying.
Does some crazy stuff when this thing is run in stereo. I like it alot, but found it to be abit of a one trick pony to start with.
If your interested theres a sample of it Link Removed.
I've also got a Behringer UT-100, which I use for more subtle tremoloing. Again I hard trouble finding this useful for anything other than one thing, but in the last few weeks have found the joy in this and the Chopper pedal.

 

[theroan]

All this stuff is really helpful, to add though, I would be using it for ambient music, so swells and stuff like that. I've also heard the boss is great but the hum sucks. I was wondering though, if I have a compressor/gate, could I eliminate that?

 

[Nyarlathotep]

Was thinking about getting a trem at one point, but decided on delay. I should just be able to set up a longish delay, and syncopate a note, to get a tremelo effect. I've as yet to be able to try that out yet...

 

[brooklynbassed]

Texas Tremodillo! - Diaz Musical Products
Yes, I am an endorser, but it is because (IMO) it's the best one out there. It can even sound like a Leslie. Ever tried a real Leslie with your bass anyone?

Link Removed

 

[bongomania]

All this stuff is really helpful, to add though, I would be using it for ambient music, so swells and stuff like that.

In that case I'd like to +1 my own recommendations, they're perfect for ambient music.

I've also heard the boss is great but the hum sucks. I was wondering though, if I have a compressor/gate, could I eliminate that?

Unfortunately no. You may have luck using certain noise filters like the ISP Decimator, but a comp won't help at all, and most gates will mess up your ambient flow.

 

[Prahainspring]

...neither of them does the super-choppy square wave trem very well.

What are some tremolo pedals that do that? I'm really into unsubtle pedals but I'd rather have the flexibility of going from moderate to extreme in one pedal.

 

[Swimming Bird]

I use an Electro-Harmonix Pulsar and highly recommend it. It can give you any trem sound you can imagine -- slight, subtle swooshes to helicopter sounds. It has a square/triangle wave toggle which is really helpful for getting exactly what you want.

 

[bongomania]

The Fulltone Supa-Trem does both smooth and square-wave trems, and does both of them pretty well.

 

[Sean S]

Never REALLY tried one (5 min. in the music shop), but what about the Marshall Vibra-Trem?

 

[dunic]

I registered at this board the other day to ask the same question. I've been doing some research and think im gonna go for the electroharmonix, its 'only' 80bucks and has nice functions but maybe most important, according to a bassplayermag review its true bypass