radiophonic

I always thought that one was over-rated compared to the 5000 Spirits / Layers of the Onion. It's always the one that gets cited as 'the classic' though. I'd take Little Cloud over a Very Cellular Song any day. I play 5000 spirits fairly often for someone who is largely into electronic music. I was about 1 when it was released as well so definitely not my era.

A lot of of albums with signature production suffer this problem. If it sounds 'now' now, it'll sound 'then' later. Any 80s LP by a 70s artist is a good start, particularly deliberate attempts to update their sound (cough Bowie cough). To whit - I love Joni Mitchell's 70s LPs and I like Thomas Dolby too, but Dog Eat Dog makes my face hurt. Jethro Tull's Broadsword and the Beast sounds paper thin and slathered in cheap sounding digital reverb to my 2018 ears but at the time seemed like a step out of the 70s murk. That said, I listened to all three self titled House of Love LPs last week and the one that still grips is the really nasty toilet cubicle reverb drenched take of Shine On, so sometimes the performance can transcend the medium...

Full house. Path is LS2 Loop A>Okto Nojs>PS6>Pork Loin>Scrutator>Manta>VP>Flashback>Ditto 1>. El Cap and Ditto 2 are post LS2 so I can mess with the output of Ditto 1 through the sound-on-sound and then loop it. The expression pedal controls either the filter sweep or the sample rate on the Scrutator, depending on what I'm attempting. It's a bit cramped to be honest. I'll probably try moving the loopers and the El Cap onto a Nano+ and spread the gigging pedals out a bit. I'm fairly likely to sell the El Cap and replace it with a nice reverb (Afterneath maybe). It doesn't really get enough use and for all the Flashback's limitations as a tape sim, I still use it more often, and the toneprint option is my main delay sound. Everything else stays for now and I don’t want a bigger board.

The Enigma does look quite nice. It's more of an old skool filter - aimed more at the funk I guess. OTOH it doesn't have LFO (big plus of the Manta), so I'd be looking at a hard cutting trem to mimic the square wave. It's not something I could just play, since I need to go in and out of phase with the trigger. I'm going to keep plugging away with the Manta. It's definitely a pedal that needs to be fine tuned and I've already found some sounds that I hadn't expected. I'm going to need a bigger board at this rate or at least a rethink about priorities!

I'd probably just use my phone - I can't see me wanting more than two presets per gig, but I'd want to have multiple variants of the same patch available for fine tuning.

I've had a good play with this now. The big lesson is that the controls are very sensitive. Getting a sweep that doesn't dive into subs but still recovers in time for the next note takes a surprising amount of work. Part of the issue is a re rethink about the parameters. I'm used to a dedicated 'sensitivity' control and a simple range that goes from 0 - 100%. Splitting the range into Up/Down/Notch means that the adjustment becomes very fine. Presets are therefore essential I think. This is not like the basic filters I've used before, that's for sure. I tried the presets that @Quatschmacher screenshotted up-thread and that was pretty instructive. Neither sounded right initially, but minute tweaks to them yielded major results. I'm assuming minor differences in the input signal cause very large nonlinearities in the filtering. For starters, I've found that I need to back off the gated fuzz - I generally run it at 3 O'Clock into the harmoniser, but this is way too much for the filter. I'm still trying to get a convincing deep but slow sweep triggered by the LFO though. I can hear it in my head - and indeed on an album by a band I've been asked to try out for - it'd be cool to be able to show up and recreate the intro to their album since they rarely attempt this live and always compromise when they do. I'm sure it's doable though. The major negatives are that to really get the most out of this I think the hub is going to be essential. However, given that the basic pedal is less than 150 quid, it seems churlish to gripe. Nothing at that price point gives you presets and this at least gives you a couple. Those micro-buttons are a non-starter live though. You'd have to have your sound dialed in before stage time since there's no way you could get away with on the fly adjustment. The other thing I don't like is that the pedal is small for it's feature set. I think the tap tempo would be pretty useful on the LFO settings but the switches are just too close together for me to get an accurate tap - I guess this is one exception to the previous comment though, in that the rate control is easily tweaked. Overall: Very versatile if a little fiddly to dial in. Possibly not as fat and resonant sounding as some old-skool 'single function' filters either. I'd interested in hearing something like an an Enigma now and I'm beginning to see why some people on here have large filter collections. They seem to generate the same obsessive questing in bassists that drive pedals do for some guitar players.

@Quatschmacher Cheers for those. I've already realised that filter settings on their own are almost meaningless and the settings that feed them are crucial. The presets I've made sound pretty anemic but fed with the right dirt/octave down, they take off. If I crank them clean, the dirt just makes everything crazy. I'm totally out of board space now. I'll post a pic of my later today and you'll see my problem. Replacing the El Capistan with something more compact would make a difference but I don't really want to lose the Sound on Sound. OTOH I do fancy a Space Echo. One option would be to move the final delay and looper pedals onto my spare Nano+ board since these are only really used for solo meanderings - I could put the TU3 on the end as a killswitch for when all the self-oscillation gets out of hand and just keep all the band-centric pedals on the main board.

Its sorted. I did factory reset. It was on it's own line though - all my digital stuff bar the dittos are run like that. I had to rejig my board quite a bit due to the relatively low position of the switches, but on the upside I've managed to retain the Pork Loin and running that into the filter already sounds very promising. If I get a neuro, I'll need a new board unfortunately - this tetris game has a single solution and I'm already a bit concerned about how cramped it is. I don't think I could lose anything without sacrificing some quite specific sounds unless I move the volume pedal onto the floor - and after one particular gig where the stage was basically a thin tarp on grass and the volume pedal sunk into the ground every time I went to use it - I'd prefer to keep it mounted. @GisserD was right that it takes a while to get the sounds up - the Option Control is not the most intuitive - but a couple of hours last night got me two good basic presets - a fast quacky one that works the the Pork Loin and a slow Sine Wave LFO sweep that works with the Okto Nojs. I can already see that 2 presets is going to be annoying - I really need a decent phaser sound too, since I've had to bench my Phase 90 and those tiny option controls aren't going to be much fun under stage lights. First impressions are that the sounds are quite a bit more subtle than I'd expected. Most of the action so far is either the 2 and 4 pole or parallel single peak filters, which I seem to be the gnarliest. The only previous filter I've owned in an MXR BOD and I remember it being pretty aggressive. This may be inaccurate though. I've got rehearsals with two bands this weekend so its going to be fun hearing what this thing does at proper volume.

Well it's arrived. First impressions aren't exactly promising though. The top plate seemed to be partly detached from the unit. It popped back in ok but for something that's designed to be jumped on, I'm a bit nonplussed. A bigger issue i that I can't seem to get the footswitches to latch. The pedal engages when I hold them down but they rlease as soon as I take my foot off. I can't see anything in the manual about this.... Hopefully this isn't a dud.

I'm thinking of moving on my Strymon El Capistan. Great delay, bit I fancy a change of flavour. However there is one thing it does that I've not seen elsewhere - sound-on-sound - where the input signal is recorded, looped and progressively overwritten as layers of new input are added. Has anyone else done a pedal that offers this option? I'd miss it, but the El Cap is a lot of pedal for just that. Any ideas?

I'd echo what @Quatschmacher said about the Okto Nojs. It's the combo I use. Even the gated fuzz side on its own is very synthy - although the gating itself isn't adjustable - and I often run mine into a Boss PS6 and touch of tape delay rather than a filter, for epic Blade Runner synth sounds. Edit. the only thing I will add about the Nojs side of the pedal is that as I understand it, the square wave harmonic octave down will glitch out in the same way that a clean octave down does, so although you kind of get a dual oscillator, both suffer potential tracking failure (in fact it's possible that the tracking fails before the signal is split - not sure about that though). That's been my experience anyway. If you aren't familiar with analog octavers, they do take some getting used to and you do need to adapt how you play and often where on the neck you play particular notes. Dead spots can wreak havoc so you do need to compromise. IMO it's worth the effort though!

It is the first law of Basschat that gear I want will appear in the free ads, only when I have just spent all my cash on something else!

Ok, that sounds pretty cool. I'd be a bit nervous having my phone attached to the pedal at gigs, but for working up patches it sounds like a good idea.

So regarding the Hub option for this. I just a quick squint at the manual and it seems I'd also need a midi controller of some sort to get any real use out of it. Aside from connecting a regular expression pedal, what use is the Hub as an add on? Seems like it'd be really powerful if you have multiple SA pedals and a midi selector but as a standalone, not so much,

I've not tried it from the phone yet, but it loaded up OK on the desktop machine. Several new parameters visible on the Flashback and a far more user friendly interface. Finally, you can read back the settings from a loaded toneprint. There does seem to be a gitch though, in that when I disable the modulation it seems to kill the whole effect. I'll dig further later, but a general thumbs up so far.

No worries. I'm in inveterate tweaker!

I figured there would be a way technically, it's more getting the flavour right. The Pork Loin is an odd pedal - completely meh on it's own, but in a band it sits exactly right in the mix. It's like all those old 70s rock records when you hear the isolated bass and realise it wasn't clean after all.

I've just splurged on an SA Manta, so I'm completely skint again! In addition to the filtering, I'm hoping it will give me enough soft-clip dirt options to obviate the Pork Loin, because otherwise it won't fit on my board without major rethink. I do need two delays and two loopers, honestly. I'll have to make do without expression control for the time being, but given the breadth of filter options, I'll put up with that. I still have the Scrutator if I need a basic foot controlled sweep.

It's in the post. I'll live without expression control for now - I have a basic filter on the Malekko if I need it. Plenty of options to play with.

Unfortunately I'm stuck out on the Coventry ring road, so it's Cannon Park Tesco or bust. I'm practicing Sat and Sun, so it'd be nice to have a tweak about in advance. Picking up from another thread - I have a package on the way containing something Source Audio shaped that I suspect will be keeping me quite busy.... Fingers crossed.

I need to dig my copy of that out - It's in a crate in the cellar somewhere with the rest of my more dubious musical decisions. I do love the mash-up opener though - 'Heartbreaker Hotel'.

I need to get a camera kit at lunchtime (I assume supermarkets sell this kind of gubbins). It looks really promising. Hopefully it'll allow me be to save out the current toneprint settings because I've had the same one in my flashback for about a year and a half, since the machine I made it on died. It's my default delay sound - a sort of tweaked Echorec with all the knobs defaulted to12 '0 clock for ease on stage - and I can't risk losing it.

There's a YouTube demo by Scott Whitley of the Pitchcraft. I think it sounds OK but he just jams along with it, so tracking is pretty hard to assess - there's no long sustains attempted. If it's cheap, I'd certainly give it a whirl. Does anyone in the UK sell them? I didn't look very hard, but Google shopping returned zero hits.

I've not personally tried the Nether, but I've heard it demoed and it is worth noting that these pedal are TC in name only. They are re-badged Behringers, albeit with tougher enclosures/switches. You can probably find legacy demos of the old Behringer line. That's not to say they are necessarily bad but despite appearances, this isn't an OC2 clone in any meaningful way. Also, I believe that the switch engages on release, which is a bit odd. OTOH it's only £50!. Alas I don't think there are any free lunches where fat synthy analog octave down goodness is concerned. If it's a 'toe in the water' situation, it might be worth a punt, but if you are committed to 'that' sound, then either a real OC2 or something from MXR/Cog/Emma/3 Leaf etc will be needed.

Not the Dire Straits song and a bit of a ramble. Last month, both of my bands imploded. In the space of two days, I went from being borderline over-committed to band-less. It was sufficiently hard line that all of one band's YouTube videos were taken down, FB page disappeared (before I knew about the split), website off-line, the works. I promptly rewired my pedal board for ambient solo stuff and began the depressing journey through the joinmyband wanted ads 'Hi - we're a serious metal band...'. 'We play all sorts of music, rhythm and blues AND classic rock'. Etc. Not much for an ageing weirdo like me. Then the emails began. Turns out (well, this is my take anyway) that once a band has split, the more high-maintenance members of the ensemble no longer have an outlet for their complaints and actually, being a band is better than not being in a band. I made my return conditional on no 'acoustic gigs' and greater attention to detail - using rehearsal time effectively, not relying on what you already know. The drummer has shelled out for a kick pedal for his cajon and it sounds tremendous. One practice down and we retooled three songs in three hours. The whole thing is a massive upgrade and it really felt like the energy was back. Hopefully this is more than a post-script. Ditto, the epic shoegaze startup. Different situation - all personality issues - and as the new guy, I figured it was me who'd be out. Turns out I was wrong and the drummer has been cut loose. Bold move IMO, but the singer is solid gold so I'm pretty stoked to still on board. Then last night , I nipped out to see another band - local but I'm a total fan of their music and turn out every time they play - and got tapped up to join. I actually thought they were joking initially. A month ago I'd have bitten their hands off and I couldn't believe I was basically turning down a band I'd love to play for, but once again I am over-committed. Lessons learned - or at least underlined? Go to shows, if you like a band don't be cool, tell them so. You never know.