GisserD Posted July 2, 2018 Share Posted July 2, 2018 5 minutes ago, radiophonic said: 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. It's also worth mentioning that you will need some device that can send PC midi info to the hub. Somthing like a midi mouse. I use my boss es8, for this. But anything that outputs pc will work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radiophonic Posted July 2, 2018 Author Share Posted July 2, 2018 8 minutes ago, GisserD said: It's also worth mentioning that you will need some device that can send PC midi info to the hub. Somthing like a midi mouse. I use my boss es8, for this. But anything that outputs pc will work. 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GisserD Posted July 2, 2018 Share Posted July 2, 2018 51 minutes ago, radiophonic said: 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 was not aware you can use a phone... You know somthing I don't, please elaborate Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quatschmacher Posted July 2, 2018 Share Posted July 2, 2018 (edited) 55 minutes ago, radiophonic said: 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. If you just need two presets then you can set the hub to write the patches to the hardware preset buttons and just stomp between them. Edited July 2, 2018 by Quatschmacher Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quatschmacher Posted July 2, 2018 Share Posted July 2, 2018 (edited) Also, you can hook up to an iPad and use something like Knob Lab to control all the parameters easily. It’s even possible to map several parameters to one knob (with specific ranges for each) to vastly change sounds on the fly! Edited July 2, 2018 by Quatschmacher Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quatschmacher Posted July 2, 2018 Share Posted July 2, 2018 (edited) 1 hour ago, radiophonic said: Getting a sweep that doesn't dive into subs but still recovers in time for the next note takes a surprising amount of work. This is true, often backing off the input volume is key. Certainly for the patches I sent, you can leave them set like that and then adjust input volume until the desired effect is reached. Part of the problem with retriggering is that there are no separate controls for attack and release. The Enigma fares better at this and I’ve dug mine out, got some pretty nice results. 1 hour ago, radiophonic said: 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 You can get an external tap tempo switch cheaply if needed. Edited July 2, 2018 by Quatschmacher Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quatschmacher Posted July 2, 2018 Share Posted July 2, 2018 (edited) 45 minutes ago, GisserD said: I was not aware you can use a phone... You know somthing I don't, please elaborate I’m pretty sure I mentioned this to you: MIDI Pad 2 on iOS devices. £3. I have mine set up as below. Each button is a program change number and jumps straight to the stored patch. You can also set it up to send multiple CCs and a host of other stuff. On iPhone the formatting is too small for one page with 128 buttons. There are a couple of improvements I’ve suggested to the coders (such as the option to have the last-pressed button remain highlighted). Edited July 2, 2018 by Quatschmacher 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radiophonic Posted July 2, 2018 Author Share Posted July 2, 2018 56 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said: This is true, often backing off the input volume is key. Certainly for the patches I sent, you can leave them set like that and then adjust input volume until the desired effect is reached. Part of the problem with retriggering is that there are no separate controls for attack and release. The Enigma fares better at this and I’ve dug mine out, got some pretty nice results. You can get an external tap tempo switch cheaply if needed. 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! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quatschmacher Posted July 2, 2018 Share Posted July 2, 2018 4 minutes ago, radiophonic said: 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! The Enigma is great and does the Q-Tron stuff and more (both designed by Mike Beigel of Mu-Tron III fame). Actually it is possible to get LFO on the Enigma by using something like a Source Audio Reflex expression pedal or the Copilot Broadcast into the expression input! If you get a hub, you can set up the expression pedal to bring LFO in and out. It’s a little compromised as the LFO shares the dial with the envelope control but it’s possible to get some pretty cool sounds. Let me know when you get a hub and I’ll share some presets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quatschmacher Posted July 5, 2018 Share Posted July 5, 2018 @Jonathan Bee, see above for screenshots of Manta presets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GisserD Posted July 5, 2018 Share Posted July 5, 2018 On 02/07/2018 at 10:59, Quatschmacher said: Let me know when you get a hub and I’ll share some presets. I think its time we had a thread for sharing manta presets... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quatschmacher Posted July 5, 2018 Share Posted July 5, 2018 4 hours ago, GisserD said: I think its time we had a thread for sharing manta presets... Yup. Or Source Audio presets more generally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quatschmacher Posted July 5, 2018 Share Posted July 5, 2018 (edited) I’m just copying this in from a PM conversation I’ve just had: I just had a really long play with the Enigma, various octavers and the Mastotron. The Enigma is effing great for downsweeps as there’s large control over the attack speed and decay speed. The latter means you can get it to retrigger quickly. Even better is the fact that you can set the start and stop frequency of the sweep so you can easily stop it from diving right into the subs. Moreover - fat analogue warmth! Edited July 5, 2018 by Quatschmacher Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Bee Posted July 5, 2018 Share Posted July 5, 2018 Thanks @Quatschmacher ... I'll check those out. I've got a hub now but haven't had chance to give it a try yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quatschmacher Posted July 6, 2018 Share Posted July 6, 2018 I’ve set up a page for preset sharing: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radiophonic Posted July 19, 2018 Author Share Posted July 19, 2018 Not sure if this should be in the 'other' thread, but I just pulled the trigger on a Moog MF101 from the classifieds. The Manta is a huge win for flexibility, but maybe not the last word in fatness and my wife talked me into it. I already know that it'll be totally impractical, won't fit on my board, needs it's own PSU and needs a dedicated loop in the LS2, but actually all of that adds up to something that I can easily leave behind if I don't need it and easily refit when I do. Just disconnect two cables and set the LS2 to A <-> Bypass. I've also got some ideas about using the CV out to control sample rate and bit depth on the Scrutator via an envelope. I'be been really enjoying the flexibility of Manta and now I've got the hang of it, I can dial in a desired sound pretty quickly, provided I can remember which filter is which. I only seem to use 2 and 7 though. 2 seems the best for sweeps so far and 7 is excellent for formant type effects and if I map the expresssion pedal to either side of 0 on the depth, I can shift the articulation of the formant and get a wider variety of vowel sounds. In fact the major annoyance now is not being able to define the frequency ratio of the two filter peaks since control over this would give the complete vowel set. For 140 odd quid, though I'm not really complaining. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quatschmacher Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 Yeah, the Moog is super fat but no downsweep and limited envelope shape options (unless using CV) though I have a build idea which, if it works, will solve this, whereupon I’ll rebuy the Moog. By the way, I like the colouration that the Moog gives in bypass mode. For formants, check out the Future Impact for sale from the same seller. Also, Glou Glou’s new Pralines will do formants as it’s 4 parallel BP filters with individual frequency control. Glad you’re enjoying the Manta. Please share some patches on the dedicated thread when you are able to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GisserD Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 1 hour ago, radiophonic said: The Manta is a huge win for flexibility, but maybe not the last word in fatness and my wife talked me into it. Your wife persuaded you to buy a pedal?!?!? Hold on to that one mate!!! If my wife knew how much I spend on gear, she'd chop my hands off Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radiophonic Posted July 19, 2018 Author Share Posted July 19, 2018 I was actually pretty surprised at how good the formants were with only 2 peaks tbh. I've done quite a lot of research that involves speech analysis/manipulation (FFT stuff via PRAAT mostly) and I find voice synthesis pretty fascinating, particularly when you get into what can be omitted and still heard as speech (sine wave encoding, phase vocoding). I'm guessing that the Manta just uses whatever two peaks gives a close match to a few stable percepts and leave the brain to do the rest. I can't see any patterns in the textbook F values though. I'm not super bothered about the lack of down-sweep on the Moog since I still have the Manta and won't be selling it. I view the Moog as a big inflexible thing in it's own right. There's always the Enigma for the future, right? Filters eh? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radiophonic Posted July 19, 2018 Author Share Posted July 19, 2018 13 minutes ago, GisserD said: Your wife persuaded you to buy a pedal?!?!? Hold on to that one mate!!! If my wife knew how much I spend on gear, she'd chop my hands off I didn't say that she knew how much I spend on gear! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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