Best Trem to get this sound?

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Unicorn Warrior
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Best Trem to get this sound?

Post by Unicorn Warrior » Thu Oct 06, 2022 3:59 pm

Can anyone suggest a trem to get me in this neighborhood?
It’s the interesting rhythmic one used by MBV in this song:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VpoOjoiYcWY"



I have a flint currently. I haven’t tried too hard, but I don’t think I’ve heard it do this territory.

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Nico
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Re: Best Trem to get this sound?

Post by Nico » Thu Oct 06, 2022 4:21 pm

Sounds like a triangle or pulse. On the cheap, I'd go EHX Pulsar or Eddy.... but there's so many that gets that choppy squarish wave...

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Re: Best Trem to get this sound?

Post by garyfanclub » Thu Oct 06, 2022 5:48 pm

Flint on Bias mode with fast speed and high intensity doesn't get choppy?

I'd give that a whirl, I dumped my other trem pedals for a Flint and never looked back. Everything you need and nothing you don't (unless you're a tap tempo guy).

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Re: Best Trem to get this sound?

Post by marqueemoon » Thu Oct 06, 2022 8:22 pm

Based on how tightly it's synched to the drums I'm going to guess this is a plugin.

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Re: Best Trem to get this sound?

Post by sal paradise » Thu Oct 06, 2022 10:19 pm

Love that tune. TU-2 is always worth a mention, although as mentioned earlier that’s synched tightly. Not sure you’d easily get that much definition with so much speed/depth
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Re: Best Trem to get this sound?

Post by fuzzjunkie » Mon Oct 10, 2022 8:39 am

marqueemoon wrote:
Thu Oct 06, 2022 8:22 pm
Based on how tightly it's synched to the drums I'm going to guess this is a plugin.
One of Robin Guthrie’s studio treatments before there were plugins was to sync a noise gate to the drum track and use it to chop up guitar tracks. I think Portishead did that and Medicine as well? I wouldn’t be surprised if Kevin knows that trick.

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Re: Best Trem to get this sound?

Post by Unicorn Warrior » Mon Oct 10, 2022 9:04 am

fuzzjunkie wrote:
Mon Oct 10, 2022 8:39 am
marqueemoon wrote:
Thu Oct 06, 2022 8:22 pm
Based on how tightly it's synched to the drums I'm going to guess this is a plugin.
One of Robin Guthrie’s studio treatments before there were plugins was to sync a noise gate to the drum track and use it to chop up guitar tracks. I think Portishead did that and Medicine as well? I wouldn’t be surprised if Kevin knows that trick.
Very cool idea. But, How does that process work?

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Re: Best Trem to get this sound?

Post by JSett » Mon Oct 10, 2022 10:35 am

Unicorn Warrior wrote:
Mon Oct 10, 2022 9:04 am
fuzzjunkie wrote:
Mon Oct 10, 2022 8:39 am
marqueemoon wrote:
Thu Oct 06, 2022 8:22 pm
Based on how tightly it's synched to the drums I'm going to guess this is a plugin.
One of Robin Guthrie’s studio treatments before there were plugins was to sync a noise gate to the drum track and use it to chop up guitar tracks. I think Portishead did that and Medicine as well? I wouldn’t be surprised if Kevin knows that trick.
Very cool idea. But, How does that process work?
You use it like a sidechain compressor whereas the hot signal from one track (say, the snare) triggers a gate to switch on and you route the guitar through that so that every time the snare hits the guitar signal is cut by the gate. You can then shape the tremolo effect with the attack and release times of the gate.
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Re: Best Trem to get this sound?

Post by Embenny » Mon Oct 10, 2022 10:39 am

Aren't there a lot of tremolo pedals and rack units that have tap tempo and/or MIDI control?

Most bands that rely on time-based guitar effects just have the drummer play to a click track and sync the effects via MIDI control when playing live.
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Re: Best Trem to get this sound?

Post by øøøøøøø » Mon Oct 10, 2022 11:30 am

The sound is somewhat like a Vox Repeat Percussion (which is a reverse sawtooth) but as observed above, it's sync'd to tempo, hinting that some kind of MIDI synchronization is at work

You can get a similar effect any number of ways--the easiest is a plug-in ITB that's sync'd to session tempo (but this is impractical for live performance).

You could also make use of anything that has an LFO with selectable functions (sine, triangle, reverse saw, saw, square, pulse, etc) and something for it to control (filter or VCA).

I've achieved a very similar effect, for instance, plugging a guitar into the external input of a Minimoog, taping a key down, turning all oscillators off, and using OSC 3 as an LFO to control filter modulation.

The relevant knowledge is that it's a wave function that's not sine or triangle--most likely saw or reverse saw. With that information, you can decide how best you want to accomplish that

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Re: Best Trem to get this sound?

Post by marqueemoon » Mon Oct 10, 2022 12:51 pm

Nice! Yeah, the waveform sounds asymmetrical to me too. It’s a cool sound for sure.

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Re: Best Trem to get this sound?

Post by JSett » Mon Oct 10, 2022 8:47 pm

The waveform is very similar to the Colorsound Tremolo, which is a reverse saw wave.
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Re: Best Trem to get this sound?

Post by Zork » Tue Oct 11, 2022 1:17 am

I think with the EHX Super Pulsar you should be able to recreate any tremolo sound ever: https://youtu.be/30D8_X9folQ

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