Envelope filters

[bassbora]

  On 15/08/2024 at 10:02, Bagman said:

Boss AW-2 

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No wonder I could not figure out pedal was being referred to in the interview haha

[LukeFRC]

I made my mutron clone. It's ok 🤣

[Quatschmacher]

  On 15/08/2024 at 10:50, LukeFRC said:

I made my mutron clone. It's ok 🤣

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Just OK?

[ped]

You should call it the Nutrom

[LukeFRC]

  On 15/08/2024 at 11:10, Quatschmacher said:

Just OK?

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It's a Aion Lumitron clone that I've modded with the "Moog" style filter switch you see around (which does something to the tone) and a decay control.
I've got a bug I need to find where there's a noise getting into the the audio signal in up mode... 

 

Playing it a bit over lunch it does some nice stuff, I actually got some quite cool things in HP using a long delay to be like a slow attack thing... LP is cool... feeding octave and fuzzy od into it brings smiles to your face as expected... there's a certain warmth to the sound and it sounds like part of the basses sounds...

 

When I started trying analogue octave pedals there was a massive difference (for me) between what I could get on the SA C4 (and HX, and Zoom) and analogue pedals - the analogue was just warmer and more usable musically... again that's just me, but there was something in the attack of the note on the C4 that kept bugging me. 
The difference between the filters on the C4, this mutron clone and the few others I've tried is no where near as large 

[LukeFRC]

[Quatschmacher]

  On 15/08/2024 at 14:10, LukeFRC said:

It's a Aion Lumitron clone that I've modded with the "Moog" style filter switch you see around (which does something to the tone) and a decay control.
I've got a bug I need to find where there's a noise getting into the the audio signal in up mode... 

 

Playing it a bit over lunch it does some nice stuff, I actually got some quite cool things in HP using a long delay to be like a slow attack thing... LP is cool... feeding octave and fuzzy od into it brings smiles to your face as expected... there's a certain warmth to the sound and it sounds like part of the basses sounds...

 

When I started trying analogue octave pedals there was a massive difference (for me) between what I could get on the SA C4 (and HX, and Zoom) and analogue pedals - the analogue was just warmer and more usable musically... again that's just me, but there was something in the attack of the note on the C4 that kept bugging me. 
The difference between the filters on the C4, this mutron clone and the few others I've tried is no where near as large 

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Totally agree on the analogue octave thing, it’s like a springiness.

 

If you think the C4 filters are good, check out Artifakt.

 

Would love to hear a clip of your filter. 

Edited August 15, 2024 by Quatschmacher

[LukeFRC]

  On 15/08/2024 at 15:09, Quatschmacher said:

Totally agree on the analogue octave thing, it’s like a springiness.

 

If you think the C4 filters are good, check out Artifakt.

 

Would love to hear a clip of your filter. 

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I’m guessing the artifice you get to control the distortion with the envelope too to make it feel closer? 

[LukeFRC]

Ok… its growing on me

[Higgie]

  On 15/08/2024 at 09:58, bassbora said:

I still have the Bass Player mag which features Flea (Feb 92) and in the interview he says he used Mu-Tron for Sir Psycho Sexy.  It was running out of battery and he did the track.  Then they changed the battery but it did not sound the same so they kept the first take.

 

Interestingly he says he is using Boss filter live because he cant get the Mu-Tron to work right onstage.  I always wanted a envelope follower (it was called that in the interview and not a filter) because of Flea talking about it.  It never said which one and in the signal diagram used it just says Boss Envelope Follower and I always wanted to know what that was.  Does anyone have a clue?  Anyway I bought my first pedal in 94.  Looked at all the Boss pedals but none said Envelope Follower and I had seen two or three players in BP articles using OC2 so I just got that.  I had no idea what to do with it so I barely plucked it in.  Those were the days before the internet where you had no one to ask questions and you just had to guess lol

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I think it was the Boss FT-2 he had. I owned one previously and it’s a pretty underrated filter. Really musical sounding and unobtrusive.

Edited August 16, 2024 by Higgie

[tayste_2000]

  On 15/08/2024 at 09:58, bassbora said:

I still have the Bass Player mag which features Flea (Feb 92) and in the interview he says he used Mu-Tron for Sir Psycho Sexy.  It was running out of battery and he did the track.  Then they changed the battery but it did not sound the same so they kept the first take.

 

Interestingly he says he is using Boss filter live because he cant get the Mu-Tron to work right onstage.  I always wanted a envelope follower (it was called that in the interview and not a filter) because of Flea talking about it.  It never said which one and in the signal diagram used it just says Boss Envelope Follower and I always wanted to know what that was.  Does anyone have a clue?  Anyway I bought my first pedal in 94.  Looked at all the Boss pedals but none said Envelope Follower and I had seen two or three players in BP articles using OC2 so I just got that.  I had no idea what to do with it so I barely plucked it in.  Those were the days before the internet where you had no one to ask questions and you just had to guess lol

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In this interview

 

 

He’s using the Dod FX25 which I think is around the time you’re referring to.

 

15m 47s he talks about it

Edited August 16, 2024 by tayste_2000

[bassbora]

I am sure Flea used all the gear back in the day.  I am no Flea expert just remembered reading it in BP at the time.  

 

Interestingly enough I remembered I had other issues and found them, Feb 96 (the One hot minute album) his tech gives a run down on the whole rig and the pedals he is using. @Higgie and @Bagman you were actually both correct.  The tech says he is using AW2 and FT2 and ODB3 but also MXR Micro Amp followed by an dbx 160x compressor.

 

Either there was no interview for Californication or it was in the only 3 missing issues for me from this period but he is again in Aug 2002 for the By the way album.  He says he used no fx on record but is using Boss ODB1 , MXR Micro amp but is now using Q-Tron live.

 

I clearly had lost interest in fx pedals at that time since I already had the answer to my question.

 

Sorry for the derail.

[ped]

  On 15/08/2024 at 09:58, bassbora said:

Interestingly he says he is using Boss filter live because he cant get the Mu-Tron to work right onstage

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I wonder if that's due to the lack of a true bypass. I certainly found the tone suck quite pronounced with some instruments (probably least of all with a stingray, interestingly). 

[charlietuna]

  On 13/08/2024 at 20:11, LukeFRC said:

Calling any current or former Mutron owners … ( @ped, @Quatschmacher et al) 

im building one of Aions pcb based on a mutron 3 

Im going to add a decay knob, the layout would be a lot simpler without the lp/bp/hp switch … for bass low pass is a given, but how useful is band and high pass? 

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If you use static mode and can dial down far enough then a high pass filter can be used to take out the mud. They have dedicated pedals for that so I’m not suggesting to use a Mutron 3 for that BUT it may be able to serve a secondary use in that function. Adding resonance at the cutoff point gets you into part of cab sim territory. I figured this out with the Meatball clone I have. I could use that thing on ANY board even if an envelope filter sound wasn’t required. 

[ped]

  On 17/08/2024 at 07:58, charlietuna said:

If you use static mode and can dial down far enough then a high pass filter can be used to take out the mud. They have dedicated pedals for that so I’m not suggesting to use a Mutron 3 for that BUT it may be able to serve a secondary use in that function. Adding resonance at the cutoff point gets you into part of cab sim territory. I figured this out with the Meatball clone I have. I could use that thing on ANY board even if an envelope filter sound wasn’t required. 

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The Mutron doesn’t have static mode. However you’ve just reminded me about the Notch Filter mode on the Haz Mutron. Never really figured that out. At extreme settings it sounds slightly like a phased signal but does anyone know what it actually does?

[Quatschmacher]

  On 17/08/2024 at 08:22, ped said:

The Mutron doesn’t have static mode. However you’ve just reminded me about the Notch Filter mode on the Haz Mutron. Never really figured that out. At extreme settings it sounds slightly like a phased signal but does anyone know what it actually does?

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Notch filter is a band-reject filter: it cuts frequencies around the cutoff. It’s the opposite of a bandpass filter which only passes frequencies in a band around the cutoff.
 

A phaser is a notch filter. Phase 45 is a single notch. Phase 90 is two notches offset, which gives 4 distinct frequency regions, hence called a 4-stage phaser.

 

So MuTron notch is an envelope-controlled 2-stage phaser in effect.

Edited August 17, 2024 by Quatschmacher

[ped]

  On 17/08/2024 at 08:34, Quatschmacher said:

Notch filter is a band-reject filter: it cuts frequencies around the cutoff. It’s the opposite of a bandpass filter which only passes frequencies in a band around the cutoff.
 

A phaser is a notch filter. Phase 45 is a single notch. Phase 90 is two notches offset, which gives 4 distinct frequency regions, hence called a 4-stage phaser.

 

So MuTron notch is an envelope-controlled 2-stage phaser in effect.

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Thanks, makes sense - although I don’t recall it reacting to dynamics. Perhaps the frequencies around the notch are out of range with bass because I can barely hear it with the controls at both extremes. Not sure why it was added, and I don’t ever hear of anyone using it!

 

I’ll go and have a play in a bit. 

[Quatschmacher]

  On 17/08/2024 at 09:23, ped said:

Thanks, makes sense - although I don’t recall it reacting to dynamics. Perhaps the frequencies around the notch are out of range with bass because I can barely hear it with the controls at both extremes. Not sure why it was added, and I don’t ever hear of anyone using it!

 

I’ll go and have a play in a bit. 

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Try it with resonance all the way down as that will make the band as wide as possible. It’ll be quite subtle anyway.

[charlietuna]

  On 17/08/2024 at 08:22, ped said:

The Mutron doesn’t have static mode. However you’ve just reminded me about the Notch Filter mode on the Haz Mutron. Never really figured that out. At extreme settings it sounds slightly like a phased signal but does anyone know what it actually does?

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I was thinking if peak is at zero than maybe it wouldn’t open so it would in effect be a static filter. I don’t have one so I’m not sure how the frequency cutoff works. 

[ped]

  On 17/08/2024 at 10:47, charlietuna said:

I was thinking if peak is at zero than maybe it wouldn’t open so it would in effect be a static filter. I don’t have one so I’m not sure how the frequency cutoff works. 

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Ah right yes I see what you mean. I'll have a play later. I have yet to experiment with the static or 1/2 trigger on the meatball, too.

[Quatschmacher]

  On 17/08/2024 at 10:47, charlietuna said:

I was thinking if peak is at zero than maybe it wouldn’t open so it would in effect be a static filter. I don’t have one so I’m not sure how the frequency cutoff works. 

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  On 17/08/2024 at 10:54, ped said:

 

Ah right yes I see what you mean. I'll have a play later. I have yet to experiment with the static or 1/2 trigger on the meatball, too.

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If sensitivity (gain) is lowered on the MuTron then it’ll be static but there’s no control over cutoff frequency aside from the high/low range switch. “Peak” is the resonance control so just boosts frequencies around the cutoff. 

Edited August 17, 2024 by Quatschmacher

[ped]

  On 17/08/2024 at 11:58, Quatschmacher said:

 

If sensitivity (gain) is lowered on the MuTron then it’ll be static but there’s no control over cutoff frequency aside from the high/low range switch. “Peak” is the resonance control so just boosts frequencies around the cutoff. 

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On the original turning the gain right down will also reduce the volume to zero

[charlietuna]

  On 17/08/2024 at 10:54, ped said:

 

Ah right yes I see what you mean. I'll have a play later. I have yet to experiment with the static or 1/2 trigger on the meatball, too.

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Static on the Meatball is great, and I’m finding the 1/2 mode to be awesome as well IN AN Octave/Fuzz chain. It’s such a versatile pedal. 

[ped]

  On 17/08/2024 at 13:12, charlietuna said:

Static on the Meatball is great, and I’m finding the 1/2 mode to be awesome as well IN AN Octave/Fuzz chain. It’s such a versatile pedal. 

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Yes, just found a great FX25 type filter sound using half trigger and some clean mix.

 

 

[charlietuna]

And if you want to play with frequencies, it seems the Intensity and Hi/Lo knob work in conjunction with one another. Meaning as you go from Lo to Hi the Intensity knob Maxed on a lower frequency click equals the Intensity at Minimum on the next higher click. This comes in handy when trying to dial in an optimal Static filter frequency and helped me realize a continuous frequency range rather than 4 separate ones. I didn’t graph this out but that’s what my ear hears. 

 

And compared to some other filters, my Meatball clone can take a lot stronger incoming signal. Don’t be afraid to feed it more volume, you may get more range out of the Sensitivity knob. I rarely have mine maxed.