Re: whats the effect, kenneth? (OT)

[lance glover <baumhaus@earthlink.net>]

mark givens wrote:

> dear list: whats the best pedal for creating the shimmering sound of 
>"Whats the FREQUENCY KENneth "off of REM 's Monster lp.  As you can see 
>im buying a lot of fx.  I likeddidcated pedals instead of all in one 
>deals becaose i like knobs. I like my whammy though but one is enough . 
>Im looking at the Ibanez chorus flange modulator next($69 at 
>musiciansfriend.com. Any reviews?

as was previously noted, this is a tremelo effect. most likely (since i 
recall from the video of this song) it's the built-in circuit from a vox 
AC30 combo amp. my AC15 has a similar (if not identical) circuit and i can 
easily dial up that sound. the deal is, though, that the vox effect is 
quite a different beast from, say a fender blackface trem circuit 
(original or reissue)
in that the amplitude modulation in the vox circuit is so extreme that is 
virtually cuts the signal to zero in the deepest setting. what you get is 
that very on/off wobbly sound (which btw was used in combination with a 
noise gate by johnny marr to get his trademark stutter). i have a demeter 
tremulator pedal in addition to a de-cbs'ed super twin w/ a blackface trem 
circuit,
and neither of these trems do the stutter like the vox. i don't know 
what's out there in tremelo-modelling land these days, but i would think 
someone would have taken the time to digitally cop this classic effect by 
now.


lance g.