Noticing

/363 - Old Tricks

I quickly recorded this yesterday afternoon for a few people on the Offset Guitars Forum. I had posted a picture of my pedalboard awhile ago and got a few requests for info on my setup with the 2x Freeze pedals running in a feedback loop. I had the idea before the super ego came out -- that adding an internal feedback loop to a Freeze would let you stack sounds. That may be true but I killed 2 units (both resurrected by EHX for a nominal fee) trying to do the smd soldering required to try it out. Using a feedback looper was the next best thing. You need to play with the amount of feedback and freeze volume to avoid runaway oscillation, but it does stack sounds. It also adds some interesting overtones as it's also recapturing the original frozen sound so there is phase and tuning modulation. I love it.

Signal is jazzmaster > pedalboard (only using freezes) > THR10 > mixer > iPhone. No added reverb or anything -- all sounds are just guitar and the Freezes. It's touchy, as feedback loopers always are. You can hear the oscillation building every time I stomp after turning up the feedback knob, but I like drones so it works for me. Crank it too high and it’s just immediate over the top howling/squealing. Not sure what's going on with the panning in the audio, but that's not an effect of the pedals. Interface weirdness I guess. I’ve posted about this before, but the video helps understand what’s happening I think.

/038 - Clearing the Bench

A very long time ago I built my first pedal from scratch. It’s a feedback looper based on a few schematics that are floating around, and I had almost all the parts I needed to build it. Hence, it has lived for many years inside an ugly, old plastic case. I was absolutely hopeless at wiring so I decided to embrace it, leaving the wires extra long and using all the colors I had since the case was see through. Last summer I etched a new enclosure based on the cover of Rival Consoles’ Odyssey by the wonderful supermundane. Long story short I didn’t make the switch until today, and in order to make sure I keep my feedback magic — I left the crazy wiring.