Effects Bay

The following is a guest post by Kevin Ian. If you are interested in guest posting, please contact me!

Hello Kind Readers!

Today I thought I would combine my effects reviews and Rethinking Guitar. I’m going to look at The Audible Disease Synth Bomb. According to the website (http://www.effectpedals.us/product/synth_bomb_sb-1):

“The *Audible Disease Synth Bomb SB-1* is a simple yet fun to use hand-held monophonic synthesizer that produces an almost boundless array of sounds! Just plug it in and you’re ready to start making some severe noise. The SB-1 incorporates four square-wave oscillators running in parallel. The frequency of each oscillator can be controlled by how much light is hitting each of the four photo-eyes… the more light that hits the photo-eye the higher the frequency of that oscillator. Cover the photo-eyes with your fingers for a virtually endless palate of sound! Oh, did we mention that this thing is loud? Well, it is!”

This thing is a monster. The photo-sensitive eyes are the most sensitive I have ever come across–a sure sign of quality work! It adapts itself to ANY light source, and if you happen to be in a dark club, the LED is bright enough to activate the eyes itself. Yes, I have turned off all my lights in the middle of the night to test this! While this is mainly a hand-held device, you can still mount this on your board and use it with your guitar rig. I found a way that added a new dimension to my sound.

I talked to Bob at Audible Disease and he was able to tailor the Synth Bomb to my needs: 9V adapter capability and a volume knob to help tone down the signal. Aside from those mods, the Snyth Bomb is basically the same as you would get from his site.

I decided to ABY with my guitar and the Synth Bomb. To handle the extra hot signal, I use my custom EGO BOOST from Grumpy Toad FX (I reviewed his Pork Barrel Chorus earlier).

The video I have included is a small example of me experimenting with the sound possible. Mind you, I’ve only had it for about a week, I will write more if I uncover anything else useful! I will also include a video of Bob using the Synth Bomb as he has his own noise project: Xome

One thing I noticed when I use AB at the same time, my guitar volume controls the volume of the Synth Bomb as well. It’s very interesting when I do volume swells, because you can hear a ghostly note behind the noise!

At the heart of Rethinking Guitar is the idea that there are so many tools readily available to guitarists–whether by hardware or technique. It all comes down to whether or not you use it–your imagination is the only guideline! …well, that and the size of your board!

Kevin Ian is a multi-instrumentalist and internet radio DJ. He is currently vocalist/guitarist for The Common Men.

Video with me and my modified Synth Bomb:

Performance by Xome which fully utilizes the Synth Bomb’s capabilities:

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The following is a guest post by Kevin Ian. If you are interested in guest posting, please contact me!

Hello Kind Readers!

It has been a while since I have written a “Rethinking Guitar,” but today I stumbled across an interesting topic with which to post: Feedback Loops.

Many of you have seen companies come up with their own version of a Feedback Loop. Fairfield Circuitry has one, Electro Harmonix has a version of it, Devi Ever, Death By Audio, Audible Disease, and Dwarfcraft Devices all have one, and there are DIY Feedback Loops as well.

A Feedback Loop is when you take an effect or chain of effects and feed them back upon each other. For distortion effects, it can be a tuned note or frequency that changes with the manipulation of the knobs or even your guitar’s volume. A delay can bring about swells and infinite repeats. Modulation and filter pedals are the more temperamental effects, some pedals do nothing while others are completely wild.

You tend to find these devices in the hands of noise artists, but a small percentage of artists in various genres of what we generally know as “pop” music are using them. I am one of those musicians who uses the feedback loop for many things in my band, The Common Men.

I thought it would be cool to demonstrate an interesting take on using feedback loops with your playing. I have a video of me going through various settings of my feedback loop while playing leads and riffs. You will notice how I can punctuate a note or make a phrase trail off into total sonic mayhem with just the flip of a switch.

Most feedback loops give you the option of how much feedback you can create. I keep the controls at minimum so my guitar signal still comes through when it is engaged.

Here’s a small breakdown of the video:

00:20 – 01:29 I’m mainly just using a Feb Distortion and Fab Flanger through the loop. The slow flanger really comes into play when I roll off my volume knob, thus creating a very melodic feedback.

01:45 – 04:00 I’m using the synth and octave down settings on my Digitech Synth Wah. Engaging the feedback loop causes the guitar signal to be choked when I have really strong octave down and octave up settings. When the guitar signal dies, it almost has a bit-crushing-like tone to it.

04:00 – end I’m using all of my effects at once, and using a stronger auto wah feature that sounds like a siren when I engage the feedback loop. The chirping sound you hear is actually the breakup of my Devi Ever LP.

At times I also engage my Boss Giga Delay and Various kinds of delays on my actual guitar rig. When all of the signals get crossed and bleed into each other, you get some pretty, lovely, and disgustingly beautiful sounds.

Have a look at my video and I hope you get inspired to experiment as well! Some Feedback Loops are under 100 dollars and are worth the effort if you want to take you guitar playing some place 99% of other guitarists are not!

Kevin Ian is a multi-instrumentalist, Internet Radio DJ, and part-time philosopher. He is currently the guitarist and vocalist for The Common Men, who can be found at www.thecommonmen.tk

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The following is a guest post by Kevin Ian Common. If you are interested in guest posting, please contact me!

Hello Kind Readers!

My last column discussed order of pedals in pedal boards. This short and sweet column tackles the on-going debate of “amp-like,” “true-bypass,” and “transparent.”

With the advent of the gear forums, I’ve noticed a very big mob mentality when it comes to gear discussions. Seems like people are more ready to write you off because you don’t subscribe to their idea of perfect tone. I go and I search for “best overdrive” or “best chorus” or “best delay” and I research all of these pedals to find that many of them are god-awfully expensive. You find that one person to mention Boss or Danelectro or even Arion and the pack goes for the kill. How crazy!

I find that enough people come up to me after a show and comment on how they like my tone or wonder how I get a certain sound. It always surprises them when they see my board and find such cheap pedals there. Also, I trust in that no matter what I play, it’s me, and people will be able to point out MY C chord in a sea of millions.

I understand that there are things I may not fully understand about pedals and how they work, but I feel that some of these buzz words are robbing budding and experienced guitarists of their essential journey of discovering tone. The debate and thought-process I hope to ignite revolves more around what sounds best for YOU. Remember, my opinion is only one of millions, but I am fortunate enough to share mine on such a public platform. Read on, you might discover something

Transparent-

After spending some time with what are considered “transparent pedals,” I have decided that the idea of not affecting my tone is not a factor in choosing my pedals. If I step on a pedal, I want it to do something. I bought my overdrive pedal to impart some kind of coloration on my tone. I am looking to alter it in some way, that’s why I buy pedals in the first place.
Of course this doesn’t mean go out and buy a twenty-dollar distortion and call it good. However, if that twenty-dollar pawn shop find works best for you, then why not keep it?

I once bought a certain overdrive pedal because my favorite band made my favorite album of theirs with THAT pedal exclusively. After finding it on eBay and winning it, I thought I had hit the jackpot! Turns out, while it worked with many aspects of my sound, it did not translate well to chords. And even worse, certain chords sounded downright terrible through the effect. As much as it hurt me, I had to let it go. I now have a distortion pedal that not only suits my needs, but allows me enough flexibility to achieve any tone I want for any situation. It may not be a three-hundred-dollar pedal, but it works for me.

I am a fan of brittle clean tones and distorted tones with a certain kind of bite. Needless to say, the phrases “thick and creamy” and “warm,” are ones I avoid when considering distortion or fuzz. I also tend to scoop my mids a little, so any pedal that adds mids to anything I generally stay away from.

True-bypass

Some of my mainstay pedals are cheap. This obviously means they are not true-bypass. I don’t care. I might switch them out with a true-bypass pedal in the future, but for now, I’m perfectly happy with them. There are still many companies whose pedals are not true-bypass, and some of them are the only manufacturers of certain sounds and pedals–why rob yourself of a possibly new sonic palette?

One of my favorite pedals on my board is a mini-pedal from an often over-looked pedal company. This tiny little pedal goes to certain extremes than pedals three or four times more expensive. That’s one of the beauties of cheap pedals–their ability to truly push the envelope sonically.

True, one of my favorite pedals on my board is two-hundred dollars. I won’t lie, some pedals I’m willing to spend an arm-and-a-leg for, but in that same respect, I got my favorite overdrive used for under one hundred dollars and my favorite modulation pedal was under thirty dollars.

I hope some of you have found my perspective interesting and slightly insightful. As you read this, I’m probably scouring eBay or Craigslist looking for pedals under 20 dollars to buy. I might buy 2-3 and experiment. Why not? I just might find another pedal that is essential to my own tone.

This column is not meant to tell you your decisions are wrong. However, when you talk about your pedal selection, do yourself a favor and buy pedals that help make yourself unique, not a popular person amongst a set of forums and gear-heads.

Thanks for reading!

- Kevin Ian Common

Kevin Ian Common is a multi-instrumentalist who has once used a pumpkin to help the guitar make music. You can find his band, The Common Men at www.myspace.com/thecommon. The Common Men are also on FaceBook and Twitter.

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