Chains of Chains...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
One of the things that makes Jeremy a fun collaborator is his militant insistence on running virtually every sound through his seemingly bottomless arsenal of analog effects. If it can alter a sound and doesn’t have AES/EBU I/O, he owns at least one example, if not a pair. Stereo, doncha know…
The only way in which he and I really differ in this regard is in the means with which we apply effects, not the quantity, although quantity has a quality all its own, of course. He likes to print his analog effects, while I’m more of a “let’s insert an H8000 or Lexicon 300, or some of my ten million plug-ins while it’s coming off the tape” kind of guy. (Point of order: RT60 instrumentation is 100% “real,” and our recording medium is analog tape, but when we’re mixing, we’re alowed to use plug-ins and digital effects.) One of our early arguments was based around the fact that I’m not a fan of phasers, while he most definitely is. I won that one, only barely, and I think he still slips in the occasional pass with the SPH-323 when my attention is elsewhere. Fair enough. As long as we don’t end up sounding like ELO, I can live with it.
But those differences aside, we do see eye to eye on this: every sound is more better with a heaping shovelful of effects on it. Obviously, my opinion in how those effects should be applied is heavily biased, as is his, but we agree that nothing should survive to the final mixdown unscathed by compression, modulation, delay, filtering, and reverb. We tracked a 303 for a song yesterday, and were quite pleased with ourselves when we decided to only compress it.
Me: “Man, it’s really in your face when it’s dry and loud like that.”
Jeremy: “Oh, hell yeah!”
Me: “I think a little Dimension D might make it really pop…”
I think the only reason the 303 sounded so present was that everything else in the song was burbling away in a stew of analog delay and spring reverb.
Anyhow, my Secret Effects Weapon is, of course, the H8000. It isn’t such a secret, really, but by virtue of the fact that Eventide has only made 600 or so of them, I’m one of only 600 or so people in the world to have one, which makes it the next best thing to secret in this day and age. But I’m of the over-arching opinion that, since electronic instruments are all essentially identical, the occasional circuit-bent Furby notwithstanding, effects make the sound. What’s your Secret Effects Weapon? Do you leave everything chained all the time? Or do you “design” each sound individually? Is “too much effects” like “too much Chopin?” That is to say, a physical impossibility?
10 comments
Too much of anything is probably not good ie cacophony, something best avoided but a little of a lot of fxs should not be ruled out either.
I often use 2-3 reverbs and 2-3 delays for each track designed to compliment each other. I think h8000 replica should be the next audio damage plug in.?
My Secret Effects Weapon would have to be the EHX Worm pedal. Its noisy, and crappy, but in a nice kind of... analogue way. The vibrato and tremelo give anything an old school BOC character that I like.
Effects are more the primary instrument for me than the sound sources, so I fall squarely in the too much Chopin camp.
I don't really have a secret weapon effect, I generally cycle through effects in a flavour of the month sort of way. One effect box I've gotten way more mileage out of than I expected is the Boss PS-5 pitch shifter. I picked it up last year on a lark one day, use it all the time with little drone boxes.
I always have an effects chain wired up, currently I have the Audioweevil running into PS-5>Catalinbread Semaphore> Malekko 600D.
My favorite pedal is the Moogerfooger Murf. Everything from basic tremolo to over the top gurgling. Sounds great with a shortwave radio running in and a delay on the end. Second favorite's probably my Casper Electronic's Echo Bender. That f*cker can skronk.
I didn't know that only 600 H8000s were made.
I might pick one up sometime in the next year I hope (depends on how much scholarship money I get after this upcoming school year whether I get to keep my work income or not)
the deluxe memory man, AC corded version.
For a while I put FuzzPlus 2 on everything. It sounds great on drums and makes some cool ducking effects.
When I was younger, I was really into effects. Unfortunately I couldn't afford any. The ones I had, I used on everything:
Yamaha SPX-90
Roland GP-8
The SPX-90 had some nice grainy 12-bit reverbs but could also do pitch shifting, delay, chorus, etc. Very digital, but I used it on everything.
The GP-8 is basically the guts of 8 Boss pedals in a rack unit - analog wah/filter, compressor, Turbo Overdrive, distortion, phaser, EQ and digital chorus and delay. Again, not the best-sounding thing overall, but I used this on everything - guitar, sure, but also bass, keys, and vocals all the time.
I am just now replacing it in my guitar rig with those Eventide pedals.
These days I prefer to be more subtle with effects - I want to hear the sound tinted slightly with an effect. The exception would be reverb, but until Eos I haven't really been happy with VST reverbs.
Shin-ei Fuzz Wah, Ace Tone Wah Master, Ibanez CP-9, Ibanez AD-80, Lovetone Meatballs, Boss FT-2 Dynamic Filter, Locobox AD-10, Maxon AF201 Auto Filter, Locobox Spaceship Flanger all for live use on electric bass.
Even more in the studio.
Permanently in my keyboard rig are a Pearl AD08 Analog Delay, an Ibanez AD99 Analog Delay and a tc electronic Nova Reverb. The Boss Dimension C pedal makes an occasional visit.
The two pieces of equipment I can't record or mix without are my Orban Parasound Dual Reverberation Model 111B stereo spring reverb and an Ibanez Multimode Analog Delay AD202.
I'm very happy to say there's more... but leave that for another day.
I'm trying to learn to print my effects. Usually I'll have them dedicated to a track for the duration of my work on it, which is almost the same. But not quite. Commit!
PCM96 Surround serial number 32, Wedge Prototype #5, and an Eventide DSP4000 that I'm just starting to scratch the surface on. I also gotta start running stuff through the modular, it's embarrassing that I don't do that more.
What's a good resource for learning the Eventide? Yeah I have the manual, no I'm not looking to bury myself in vSig for the next six months. Anything between those two?
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