How to use a Flanger article

[BarneyBrown]

This is a great article on how to use Flangers, including some specific examples of how to dial in particular sounds. I found it really useful as a way to better understand the Modfactor settings:

http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2012/Sep/Get_More_Out_of_Your_Flanger.aspx

[brock]

That was a clear & concise article on flanging.  It would have been a great reference to link in one of my recent forum replies.  For some reason, your actual link was cut off in my browser (but complete as I'm replying here).  For a quick click: Get More Out of Your Flanger, or the digital magazine edition (zoomable on the diagrams).

[BarneyBrown]

Fantastic, I'm glad you found it useful. Thanks for re-posting the link.

Since reading the article I've particularly enjoyed dialing the depth down to around 30 and then using the x-nob (delay offset) to give me more control over the pitch/eq of the effect. I tended to have the depth quite high and did not know why the delay offset was having little effect, until now.

I really would have appreciated more information such as this with the manual. I've been shifting through some of the manuals from older bits of hardware to try and figure out what each effect is doing. In a way though I guess it's kind of fun – I see each algorithm as a puzzle and I'm always learning more and more theory which lets me use them in a more-informed way.

I'm currently trying to figure-out the 'ringmod' – getting some interesting effects using the S-mod and D-mod on that one!!! As for Chorus, I go straight to Harmodulator/Micropitch/H910 on the Pitchfactor for that….

[brock]

Quote:

I've been shifting through some of the manuals from older bits of hardware to try and figure out what each effect is doing. In a way though I guess it's kind of fun – I see each algorithm as a puzzle and I'm always learning more and more theory which lets me use them in a more-informed way.

Quote:

As for Chorus, I go straight to Harmodulator/Micropitch/H910 on the Pitchfactor for that…

Good approach to take.  You might find this link as interesting as I did, then.  It took a bit of searching, but the Clockworks Legacy User Guide is loaded with information on the original 'Eventide' Phaser, Flanger, Omnipressor, plus H910 & H949 harmonizers.

Although intended as a companion for the plug-ins, I found it to be an invaluable source for the Stompbox line, too.  The feature sets of the 'Factor pedals are much deeper, but this manual gives you an idea of how the 'classics' were constructed (and later emulated in the Stompbox algorithms).

For example:  Use the H949-1 algorithm for smaller pitch ratios, and H949-2 for more extreme pitch shifts.  The tradeoff?  H949-2 is glitch-free but adds degrees of coloration.  Use H949-1 for more clarity & intentional glitching on wide shifts.  Or dial in the exact delay combinations found in the original  'switched delay' design.

[BarneyBrown]

That's a really good find, thank you and a really interesting observation regarding the difference between the H949-1 and H949-2 algorithms. I'm away from my pedals for a week so can't try it out at the moment, so frustrating….

Theoretically I now understand the ringmob options as well, helped in large part to the fantastic description of ring modulation found in this manual  here.

After reading this I do have a request for the ringmod mode. I think it would be very interesting and useful to add a 'learn' button so the ringmod frequencies track the notes being played – similar to the 'learn' function' found in the Pitchfactor. I believe EHX's Ring Thing contains such a function. Hold down the button and the frequencies track the playing so the output is always harmonically related to your guitar and sounds really quite musical as a result. Without a learn button I suppose I could manually alter the frequency using midi or an expression pedal.

[brock]

Quote:

… the ringmod mode. I think it would be very interesting and useful to add a 'learn' button so the ringmod frequencies track the notes being played – similar to the 'learn' function' found in the Pitchfactor. I believe EHX's Ring Thing contains such a function. Hold down the button and the frequencies track the playing so the output is always harmonically related to your guitar and sounds really quite musical as a result.

I have a Ring Thing on my pedalboard.  The 'Tune' function is indeed a very cool feature (and rare in a ring modulator).  I don't know that the ModFactor would have the pitch detection capabilities, like the PitchFactor does.  In fact, the Ring Thing combines ring mod, SSB, and pitch shifting.  Having 'Learn' in the MF ring mod (or Learn over true ring modulation in the PF) is a good idea for a feature request.

You can't presently generate the sum & difference frequencies from a carrier oscillator in the PitchFactor.  Rather than AM (amplitude modulation), though, you can get some rudimentary Frequency Modulation sounds from the PF.  And you'll want to use the non-Diatonic modes, like HarModulator, H910/949, PitchFlex, & Crystals.  The LFO frequency goes fast enough in the Harmodulator to give it some sideband characteristics.

But you can move or position one pitch shifter against the other in a non-harmonic way to generate some of those classic 'clangorous' or 'gong' tones, even if it isn't achieved by true ring modulation.  I have a preset page up in my files that illustrates the basic idea:  50:1 OctaPanGlider_TB.  At either end of the pedal travel, it's octaves.  But in between …

Since I posted that preset, I've adapted the same idea to the H910/949 algo.  With the choice of harmonizer 'models' and the much finer pitch resolution [NORMAL mode], it comes a lot closer to the inharmonic frequencies of ring modulation.  And you can 'tune' the generator frequencies.

[SteveBowman]

The link to the Clockork Legacy Users Guide in this thread, posted in 2012, is a dead end. But I found it with a Google search. It’s here:

http://www.barryrudolph.com/recall/manuals/eventidelegacy.pdf 

While I’m at it, here’s the Moog Ring Modulator guide:

http://www.moogmusic.com/sites/default/files/mf-102.pdf 

Good stuff! Maybe we should start a new thread with only links to such deep explainers. The ‘Factor manuals are notoriously cryptic when it comes to explaining what’s really going on at a wave-form level.

Steve

ThinAirX 

 

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