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my favourite hardware techniques and some thoughts
StoreTags: hardware, anorak, echo, distortion
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i've noticed that there are some patterns in how i use my machines - ones i've adopted because they either give me flexibility or because they support a certain lo-fi sound aesthetic that i like. i'll write about some of those - this stuff will doublessly be useless (even annoying) to a lot of you folks but i'm hoping it might also inspire some or make you try things you otherwise wouldn't. and i don't mean meth. :D
* the electro-harmonix ring-modulator (frequency analyzer) is permanently connected to the xbase09 snare drum output. ordinarily the snare is a bit samey all the time - you have the organ-style base sound and various amounts of filtered noise on top. with the ring modulator that can be turned into a hand clap, insect sex, metal percussion etc.. or just given a bit more edge. more generally, a ring modulator (a real one so that you can adjust it properly and it isn't too clean) seems to be a perfect tool for shaping drum synthesizer sounds.
* similarly i have a dbx mini-pre cheapo tube preamp connected to the jomox kick drum output, that way i can shape the bass drum, distort it, compress it slightly or just give it a bit more sizzle.
* distortion .. mmmm mmm ... my first stomp box was proco brat, the retarded punk brother of rat. because it sounded like shit on everything, it took me a couple of years to buy another one, a boss OS-2. that sounded much better than the brat and was the stompbox that ultimately made me realise that distortion/overdrive/fuzz is good for almost anything - you just have to figure out the right kind of box for the right track. i now have six or seven dist/od/fuzz pedals and they all are suited for different purposes ... i have no idea how they would sound on a guitar and have come to think that the crappiest guitar pedal might be just the thing for grunging up a cymbal track, for an instance.
* speaking of that, the role of effects with synths .. if i buy a synth that costs, say, 500 whatevers, it's really a small investment to buy a couple of effects boxes for use with it for an extra hundred. and those boxes really add a lot of depth to synths, drum machines etc.. since the sound was never "natural", there's no harm done in warping it some more, especially if it makes the sound better. that's the thing that many traditional instrumentalists seem to miss. no-one should be trying to preserve "the original, unadultrated juno sound" - that kind of approach makes a lot more sense with violins and orchestral guitars.
* i have to get myself a ms-50 .. or a proper modular. my ms-20 is constantly connected to an effects send so that i can turn any sound into a glitchy synth, filter it or just generally warp it beyond recognition. that's kind of the standard ms stuff. however, things turned a whole lot weirder as i realised that the re-301 chorus echo can receive control voltage from ms-20 that lets me control the tape speed with the lfo:s .. or with the pitch of the incoming audio. then i'd feed the echoed signal back to ms20 ... and back .. and back. that's the kind of thing i wouldn't dream of trying with the legacy ms (even if it didn't sound shit in comparison).
* evolver is maybe my favourite synth but i scarcely put external sounds through it - the ms-20 filter is just so much nicer for that kind of stuff. when i do, however, i tend to create/use a patch in which either the feedback pitch or the filter oscillation pitch is controlled by midi. that way i can superimpose melodies on the external audio - this approach is just the thing for percussion tracks.
* my favourite way of ending a tune is by turning on the sound-on-sound on the chorus echo at the same time as i press stop on the sequencer. i get a warped version of the last minute or so, on top of which i can play or just let it repeat and deteriorate for minutes while i play with feedback and manually warp it.
sorry for the fetishism and droning. have fun, make good tracks! | |
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06/16/06
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FailedSitcom
Interesting read, thanks for the insight.
06/16/06
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p4nd4
I agree, interesting read. I wouldn't mind hearing more about your mangling of sounds through various stomp boxes etc.
06/16/06
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crabster
Haven't thought about running snares through a ringmod. Must try!
My favourite trick is resmpling/retriggering. But that's more of a matter of arrangement rather than sound design I guess.
06/16/06
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tbeals79
i have a very modest setup.. but im finding that a chain of effects finalized with line6 delay modeler (for the 14sec phrase sampling) to my mixer's AUX has been ultracool. There Ill jam out anything, drum machines, guitar, voice, keys, vsts and lay down some atmosphere in the modeler. Also, dont dismiss any "shitty" pedals you have in your arsenal. I was feeling regretful for buying a metal zone pedal from my (this is embrassing) nu-metal teenage years, but it makes a fine addition to dirty up my drum machine. (yamaha rx21, love that thing, soooo cheese)
06/16/06
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interstitial
Very nice write-up. I've been using guitar pedals for years on my synths/drum machines. One of my favorite tracks from the 80's that I did had a wah pedal and rat distortion on the synth bass - funky fun that would fall into mass choas whenever I'd toss the distortion on.
Currently I have all of my effects and my modular as aux sends from the mixer and all return into their own channels so controlled feedback and routing to multiple effects (or effecting just the effected sound, etc...) is fairly easy to do. I don't think I've written more than a couple of tunes in the last 6 or 8 years that doesn't have a bit of controlled feedback in it...
06/16/06
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cbit
thanks for the insight polyfonken, i love this kind of post. I'll give it the thumb up of doom, id give it two if i could.
06/16/06
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mlbot
I thought "brat" was a typo, I've never seen one... heh heh heh.
So.... do you have two distortion pedals of the same exact model so you can get stereo drum distortion? I haven't gone that far yet, but I've been tempted many a time.
06/16/06
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Taxis
no-one should be trying to preserve "the original, unadultrated juno sound"
LOL
Recent blogs: UBC sex study
06/16/06
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SenorFrio
Great read! Thanks for the insight.
06/16/06
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Roshi
mlbot said: "So.... do you have two distortion pedals of the same exact model so you can get stereo drum distortion? I haven't gone that far yet, but I've been tempted many a time."
Sending the distorted track to two differently EQ'd tracks might scratch that itch.
Oh wait, you want to pan the drums differently. Never mind.
06/16/06
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jdg
totally thumbs up. 
06/16/06
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cbit
"electro-harmonix ring-modulator" i was thinking about experimenting with a hw ring mod.. i was looking at the frostwave blue ringer.. do you know how it compares to this electro-harmonix one?
06/16/06
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mlbot
the blue ringer accepts an external input as the mod source, whereas the E.H. Freq. Analyzer has a built-in Oscillator for that purpose.
I suppose it depends on how wild you want your ring mod to be.
06/17/06
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polyfonken
whoa nelly! thanks, everybody. i felt kind of dirty fawning about hardware stuff (since in the end the equipment doesn't matter at all, only the results*) but it seems that i can keep on doing it in the future, too :D
re: stereo
i don't have any duplicate effects so the only way to have a distortion (or tape/analog echo, phaser pedal, whatever) appear in stereo is to do two takes - one for the right and a second pass for the left channel. kind of a pain in the ass since you lose the WYHIWYG aspect that way.
the reason why it's still worth doing like that as opposed to just eq:ing the distorted signal is because distortion flattens out and accentuates (depending on the pedal&settings) the differences between channels - if you feed a true stereo signal through two pedals of with the same settings, the stereo image tends to sound really weird&wonderful - some small sounds on the left channel get amplified, some small ones on the right disappear into a haze of broken glass and suddenly it seems like you're caught in the middle of a big distorted mess as opposed to listening to a widened distorted track.
cbit: the shop in LA where i bought the EH frequency analyser also had a blue ringer .. that sounded really frakking great (on the casio organ i tried it on) but cost a lot more than the EH box and i liked the fine tuning on EH better. i didn't get to try it with two inputs, only with the internal osc but i'm sure you'd love the it to death.
* i've been thinking ... results are the thing that counts, right?
but doing stuff the unorthodox way just seems to be more inspiring and fun. one thing that i tried was putting a MD recorder (with a choir track) and a pair of cheapo battery powered laptop speakers on a turntable and stereo micing the turntable. kind of like a lo-fi leslie effect. i'm not sure if it was worth the trouble (i have a couple of effects boxes with proper leslie algorithms) but at least it was a fun experiment and whenever i listen to the track i can think back of the whole insane episode. the same thing applies to micing washing machines, writing your own plugins etc etc .. it's fun to play the scientist than to dial in preset A01!
06/17/06
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mulletballet
Hey, I *like* the original Juno sounds...
(I have a Juno 2) - but yeah, add effect, they're lots of fun... but without effects, they still have their "early 80's experimenting with this new electronic music thing" appeal.
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