Disquiet Junto 0685 Pick-Me-Up

The Disquiet Junto assignment this week is to "Treat a set of sounds like a game of pick up sticks."

I decided to use a collection of chords like the colours of the pick up sticks, then added a little intro for them being dropped into place, and repeated that for when they fall during the game and are packed up.

Rainger FX Minibar

Can't wait to experiment more with this little pedal

It looks novel, but I think a blend of lemon juice and soy sauce might have given me the best distortion that I’ve heard in my bedroom.
 

So, you're a music producer?

 


Klon clone

I got curious after looking at Klons and their copies

Bought this cheap imitation on Ebay and it does a good mid boost while filtering out some lower frequencies. 

Doesn’t reach the higher fuzz of the Boss DS1, but worked well before it to add that peaking feeling. 

Kinda missing the bass though, so probably better suited to adding volume for solos.

If I played solos on the guitar!

Actually, maybe I should try it on my basses?

Red or blue?


 

naviarhaiku579 – Mount Asama

After finishing an assignment, I started playing guitar and trying different effects.

Recently I've been enjoying Alexander pedals and this is a combination of Space Race and Radical Delay DX with a Coppersound Foxcatcher. 

Something about the decay of the distortion led me to think it was suitable for the haiku shared by Naviar this week:

One of the four great haiku masters, Yosa Buson studied both Japanese and Chinese poetry. He was also an accomplished painter, and most of his poems were accompanied by paintings, resulting in a more diverse and individual set of works than the one by his main historical influence, Basho.

The event Bosun refers to is the eruption of Mount Asama in 1783, which instantly killed over 1,000 people. The toxic ash traveled 100 miles to Edo, making farmland useless and causing many more people to starve.

He's probably thinking about synthesizers


 

Disquiet Junto 0684 Early Bird

The Disquiet Junto assignment this week is to "Record not so much an alarm as a guided wakening."

It prompted me to think back over previous Junto projects that involved waking, particularly "Morning Music" from 2016. 

(Another favourite involved an alarm, which was my 40th Junto ten years ago now.)

Lately my days involve needing to get going and I thought I'd make a track that's got some drive.

I used a video from 2016 showing the Mirrool Creek in flood, which seemed appropriate for emerging from sleep.

Fender Player Plus Meteora HH

Zero days since I last bought a guitar

The humbuckers have led me to grab a few distortion pedals off the shelf and the neck one sounds huge. 

I like the split pick-up option, although the volume levels jump around.

It's body good balance with the big green arse sitting comfortably on my knee. 

This Meteora design is destined to be another classic from Fender, I think.

Plug-in to the potential

Like a great man once said, "I have a dream..." 

Ever since I fell deeply in love with Chase Bliss Audio's collaboration with Goodhertz on the Lossy pedal, I have begun imagining other effects that might be taken out of the box and into a smaller box.

Here are some of those ideas based on taking the VSTs and AUs that I often use and whispering at a shooting star to put a wish into the universe and see if anything manifests.

While I've only got ten digits to keep track of these brainfarts, let's start a tally. 


10.

Let's begin where there's already been a lot of work undertaken and that is Universal Audio's massive undertaking to bring their audio-modelling expertise into the small enclosures of guitar pedals.

They already have brought a range of effects and amp emulations to market, but what about something as simple as their Verve Machines adding saturation in stereo?

I would use the fattening potential of these colours on a variety of instruments, particularly synthesisers and drum machines.

 

9. 

While UA have brought nice reverbs to their range, I am hoping that someone is throwing lots of money at Sean Costello.

His Valhalla-branded reverbs are so beautiful and, aside from Walrus Audio's Sloer pedal, I can't think of too many that bring some of that Shimmer-style lusciousness outside of a Lexicon.

 

8.

As bitcrushing is an area where I feel there's huge scope for development in guitar pedals, one name I push forward is Sonic Charge's Bitspeak. 

Sure, Permut8 might be an even more engaging option with MIDI or even the Synplant synth, but I really want to crush my bits with a Speak&Spell-esque interface.


7.

Since Sinevibes are already making effects for Korg's platform, maybe it isn't such a leap for them to expand more into hardware and their Reactive effect is one that's been great at really pushing an instrument or sample to become something else. 


6.

A delay that I think brings a new sound to a world populated with echoes is the Delay Cat by Red Timbre Audio.

Aside from their decision to use Comic Sans font, it is really exciting to play with "concatenation synthesis techniques" to arrive at surprising results. 


5.

Ohmforce's Frohmage isn't one that I use so much recently, but I feel it would add a lot of character and could have a very tasty design too.

There's a module for their Ohmicide distortion, which was always a lot nastier than I wanted and preferred Predatohm for delay, so the French developers are clearly already moving in the direction of packaging their tasty sounds.

4.

George Yohng's W1 Limiter is one of my favourites and gets slapped onto lots of my channels, so I feel it would be a very useful addition to the pedalboard.

Maybe it's too transparent for most people but I love being able to put it into a spot and never notice it again.

 

3.

Dada Life's Sausage Fattener is a design worthy of a pedal enclosure.

Or a T-shirt, I feel like that little angry phallic-like banger is ready for more fame.

He could be the first plug-in to spawn an animated series! 

Although, now that I think about it, a Delay Lama would also be a cool character to develop.

 

2.

Okay, seriously, I don't know where to begin with Airwindows.

There are just too many possibilities and, while I can't have them all, I think there's a gaping hole in the pedal market for more channel strip-style effects like the JHS Colour Box. 

 

1.

Here is one of my favourite effects of all time, the Ableton Live Beat Repeat.

I'm old enough to remember when this was the Coldcutter and it should be a no-brainer since the grandfathers of remixing have already kinda put their stealthy toes into the hardware market with the Zen Delay made by Erica Synths.

When you get a new pedal