What is this effect?

iaresee

iaresee

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At the very outset of this clip Trey has...something...on. Maybe a pitch shift blended with this original signal (via his Whammy pedal)? A divider type pedal that's doing a 5th or something? I'm not sure why I'm having such a hard time deciphering it, but he's been using it more and more during jams on this summer tour and being the nut case I am for all things Trey and Phish, not being able to figure it out is driving me nuts.

Anyone want to end my insanity and give me your take on what's happening here?

It's very short in the this clip, but prominent, and if you listen to the whole thing you'll hear his sound change back to unaffected guitar for comparison's sake.

 
BillyZeppa said:
Mu-Tron?
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Mu-Tron makes effects, they aren't an effect per se. Trey's been using a Mu-Tron III envelope filter since the FTW tour but that sounds nothing like this. It sounds like...well..an envelope filter AFAIK. Does that sound like envelope-based filtering to you? Maybe it is? My ears are starting to deceive me listening to it for too long...

I had considered it might be a Mu-Tron Octave Divider with the ring oscillator switch on, but I'm not so sure. The clips I've heard of that effect don't quite sound like that clip above.
 
If you're talking about the effect that he switches off at about 6 seconds in, it sounds like a whammy pedal set to an octave up and blended with the original signal. It doesn't sound like he's playing octaves to me, just single notes. That higher octave seems to have some of that digitech whammy "character" to it, at least to my ear.
 
npx said:
If you're talking about the effect that he switches off at about 6 seconds in, it sounds like a whammy pedal set to an octave up and blended with the original signal. It doesn't sound like he's playing octaves to me, just single notes. That higher octave seems to have some of that digitech whammy "character" to it, at least to my ear.
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Yup. That's what I'm talking about. And yea, I was wondering if it was Whammy pedal with a blend; it indeed feels "DigiTech" in its character. I'll have to try a blended octave shift on the AFII...
 
A pitch shift with a bit of delay in it or a pitch shift with an expression pedal to in and out? Given how it seems to take a moment to rise out of the initially played note it's not straight up Whammy.

What song is this? I don't recognize it. Or is it an extended groove?

I may have lost a good friend over Trey about 20 years back. He thought that Trey was "sloppy". I was surprised at his assessment. He was surprised that I didn't agree with him (he was my college roommate and taught me how to play). Didn't hear from him much after that day. To this day I wonder if it was or wasn't about our opposite stance on Trey Anastasio.
 
USMC_Trev said:
What song is this? I don't recognize it. Or is it an extended groove?
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From the 2014/07/26 Columbia, MD show -- it's the transition from an outro jam on Steam in to The Mango Song. It's fantastic. That whole two night run in Columbia is amazing.

Riff is The Mango Song's main riff:



I may have lost a good friend over Trey about 20 years back. He thought that Trey was "sloppy". I was surprised at his assessment. He was surprised that I didn't agree with him (he was my college roommate and taught me how to play). Didn't hear from him much after that day. To this day I wonder if it was or wasn't about our opposite stance on Trey Anastasio.
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Weird. I don't hate on people who don't get Phish. It's not for everyone. That's cool. But I can't imagine not talking to someone because they liked Phish (or another band) -- it's just music, right?
 
Rex said:
I think it's a synth. With a keyboard in front of it.
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Definitely a guitar. And no hex pickup magic in play here.

Going to go play with the blended octave effect now to see if it gets me there...
 
iaresee said:
... I had considered it might be a Mu-Tron Octave Divider with the ring oscillator switch on, but I'm not so sure. The clips I've heard of that effect don't quite sound like that clip above.
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Me too and I have one of these ... but its currently busted ... not sure I want to invest in the repair just yet. Especially with all the goodness under the hood with the AXE FX effects! :D
 
If it helps, I watched him playing it and it's not octaves from his fingers; it's an effect. He also dropped this effect this week in the Bend, OR shows in other places. Also watched those, and they're single note runs from him.

Honestly, if you can play that riff in octaves at that tempo with that kind of feel you're my octave-playing hero. That's like beyond Wes M. level octave playing!

Been too busy with kids to get near gear this morning but I'll try a blended octave pitch as soon as I can...I thought vacation was supposed to be about relaxing? All I'm doing in wrangling the minions!
 
iaresee said:
Weird. I don't hate on people who don't get Phish. It's not for everyone. That's cool. But I can't imagine not talking to someone because they liked Phish (or another band) -- it's just music, right?
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He was going in a different direction. I don't think he even plays anymore. It was just a hobby for him and his musical interests in retrospect seem narrowly fixated on 70's hard rock and there wasn't a lot of room for other stuff I guess.
 
So! Those of you who posited octave up, blended with original signal: spot on! Definitely what's going on, with the warble probably coming from the tracking quirks on the Whammy pedal he's using.

Now to figure out how to make this all work with my current patch...
 
Hey Ian, ya that is a cool effect. Heard that in Bend..A little off topic but how would you get the filter/envelope filter to do a reverse sweep? Like that dancing in the streets Jerry Mu-Tron? I noticed trey is now using it on certain jams. Not the normal Jerry Mu-tron envelop but its reversed, kinda hard to explain. thanks
 
jazzgtrl4 said:
Hey Ian, ya that is a cool effect. Heard that in Bend..A little off topic but how would you get the filter/envelope filter to do a reverse sweep? Like that dancing in the streets Jerry Mu-Tron? I noticed trey is now using it on certain jams. Not the normal Jerry Mu-tron envelop but its reversed, kinda hard to explain. thanks
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Yea, I know what you mean. Where the filter starts open and then closes as you play harder. That's the Mu-Tron III with the drive or range (I can't remember which one controls the direction of the filter sweep off hand) set to up (if it's the drive) or high (if it's the range).

Best way to do this on the AFII is use an envelope controller attached to a filter block's frequency parameter (with the filter type setup to be high pass) and then invert the curve of the envelope controller like so:

Screen%20Shot%202015-07-27%20at%205.55.59%20PM.png


So the filter starts as a limit high pass and then pass more of the frequency range as you play harder. You can also attach it to the Q and play around with Q and frequency interactions to how hard/soft you play. Lots of space to explore there.

You can also try the same reverse envelope trick with a wah block to see if you like the way that sounds over the filter block.
 
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