Electro-Harmonix Effectology, Vol.14: Envelope Filter Oddities
In this episode I explore finding new sounds using envelope filters. My goal was to find new sounds not associated with the normal auto-filter pedals.
“Canaries in a Q-tron”
Creating a feedback loop with Q-tron Plus I was able to produce realistic chirps of birds.
The “Signal Pad” pedal controlled the amount of signal that is fed back into the Q-Tron.
The rate of the chirps is controlled by adjusting the peak control on the Q-Tron. I looped several passes of bird sounds into the Stereo Memory Man in loop mode to produce the sound of many different birds.
The sound of water was produced by two phase shifters modulating the white noise from a Big Muff. The different phase sweeps in combination produced a sort of bubbling effect.
The EHX Orchestra was done using a POG2 and a Cathedral reverb pedal. The held chords under the flute sound were produced using the infinite mode of the Cathedral.
The bass was done using the POG’s -1 octave slider.
Below are the settings I used:
“Scratchy Old Record Effect”
To produce the sound of an old scratched up 78rpm record I started by using a Big Muff and a Stereo Memory Man in loop mode.
I looped the noise from a Big Muff turned up to maximum with nothing attached to the input. This created white noise for the background. I looped 15 seconds of this.
To create the scratches and pops I plugged and unplugged the Big Muff several times while overdubbing on top of the white noise loop. I then used the filter knob to thin out the sound, and the delay knob to raise the pitch a small amount.
The vintage-sounding guitar track was created using just a Riddle pedal. Plugging any cable into the exp. jack will stop the filter from following the guitar input, turning the pedal into a straight filter effect. Using the high pass mode with the addition of the on-board distortion produced the sound of a small dusty old tube amp.
The Riddle pedal will also produce a great tiny AM radio sound with slightly different settings.
Below are the settings I used for this clip:
“The Enigma Synth”
To transform an Enigma or Riddle pedal into a pulsating rhythmic synthesizer, I created a feedback loop and I inserted a Pulsar tremolo pedal within that loop.
The output of the Enigma was run into a small Muff overdrive. The small size Muff is a great overdrive for synthesizers as it adds bite without totally squashing the signal.
The final pedal in the chain is a Stereo Memory Man delay.
Below are the settings and wiring diagram for the “Enigma Synth”:
Never judge what an effect pedal will do by what you have heard it will do.
Experiment and you will find new sounds not yet discovered!
Thanks for listening,
Bill Ruppert
