Self-Oscillating Delays in H9000?

[Ed Driscoll]

About a year before I bought my H9000, I bought Dunlop’s pedal-sized remake of the Echoplex. In his Sweetwater video promoting it, the well-caffeinated Dunlop rep, at about the 4:30 mark, talks about “landing the mothership,” and setting the pedal into self-oscillation, a favorite live trick of Jimmy Page with Led Zeppelin using his original, tape-based Echoplex. I haven’t explored all of the delays in the H9000 yet, so to speed the learning process up, is there any way to recreate this effect in the big silver box?

 

[tbskoglund]

As a starting point, a few algorithms from the TimeFactor can easily achieve this effect (MultiTap, Mod Delay, Tape Echo, Vintage Delay) but you can probably find some more algorithms from the H8000 that can do this as well.

[Ed Driscoll]

Great, thanks!

[tmoravan]

well, yes and no.  You can get full feedback, but adjusting the delay time from the front panel ends up producing digital glitches rather than the smoother shifting effect at full feedback.  The old AMS MX, Prime Time, PCM 42, tc 2290, and Publison DHM 89-B2 all do it fine.  More modern tc D-Two can do it, but it requires either an external MIDI controller or lots of turning of the front panel knob.

 

What you need in the H9000 is an algorithm that smoothly modulates the delay time from either an external MIDI source or from the front panel knob.

 

Now it may be that the H9000 sounds less glitchy with something providing finer granularity, but I’ve been sitting here trying different algorithms with high feedback and adjusting the delay time by hand and comparing it to my more vintage delay units.

 

The H9000 does great analog/tape type delays – they sound great;  it just doesn’t cover that particular kind of  high feedback/change the delay time sound.

If I’m wrong and there is a patch that can do it smoothly, please point it out.

[tbskoglund]

Can you be more specific with which algorithms sound glitchy when adjusting the delay time at high feedback levels? The algorithms I mentioned (MultiTap, Mod Delay, Tape Echo, Vintage Delay) allow for smooth pitch control when adjusting the delay time using either the front panel or Emote. Some older algorithms from the H8000 may not have this feature, but the TimeFactor algorithms can do this well from my experience.

[tmoravan]

On Vintage Delay I had to set either the Depth on the Param 2 page to 0 or the Rate on the Param 2 page to 0 to avoid a nasty harshness.

First recording is Vintage Delay – feedback 100%, delay 1 = 1000ms, delay 2 off, hicut full open low cut at minimum.  As note feeds back, delay time adjusted down to 0.

Summary is – at 100% feedback (and the other mentioned adjustments), the H9000 does do smooth delay changes.  No idea what that modulation is doing to the audio though.  I cannot get the H9000 to overload though.  Other digital delays I have (D5000, D-Two) also seem to limit this experience.

Second is the Publison DHM; note the feedback goes past overload.  🙂

 

 

 

[tbskoglund]

From your description it sounds like you’re using the 654 Vintage Delay algorithm from the H8000. This one loads with the modulation rate at the highest setting, which is why you’re getting the frequency modulation type sound. Turning the rate down to something between 1-10 Hz will give a better modulated delay sound. This will be fixed in a future update. If you use the 9102 Vintage Delay algorithm from the TimeFactor, the algorithm sounds better at its default values.

 

[tmoravan]

Ok – I’ll give that one a try later today.

BTW – I tried attaching a WAV file, an MP3 and even a ZIP and none of them seemed to be accepted.

What’s the rules for attachment types and sizes?

thanks

 

Back when I first got the H8000FW I remember being so impressed with the sound of the effected delays that I had no problems selling my Space Echos and Echoplexes (solid state).  That’s why I was initially surprised when I went to the H9000 and jumped to the 500 section and started walking through the delays there.

[tmoravan]

tbskoglund wrote:

From your description it sounds like you’re using the 654 Vintage Delay algorithm from the H8000. This one loads with the modulation rate at the highest setting, which is why you’re getting the frequency modulation type sound. Turning the rate down to something between 1-10 Hz will give a better modulated delay sound. This will be fixed in a future update. If you use the 9102 Vintage Delay algorithm from the TimeFactor, the algorithm sounds better at its default values.

Yes, the Vintage Delay and Tape Echo from the H9 collection does operate more like a classic unit with the smooth time change and feedback going over 100%.

I guess I was surprised to not find any down low that sound like that.  Are there any that give you that nice delay/feedback that also has a filter in the feedback loop?

 

BUT – back to the OP’s question — yes the 9102 and 9103 programs are a great starting point for that sound.

[Puppeteer]

I’ve built one with tone control in the feedback loop, and have just made one with a parametric band in the feedback loop.  I have a few changes to make but will post it up soon.

My one with the tone control is available here – https://godlike.com.au/index.php?id=420

I’ll post the one with the parametric EQ and clipping protection soon.

[Puppeteer]

I’ve got the algorithm finished.  I’m just writing a little manual for it and will upload to the link above.

In the meantime, here’s a little video of it in action, and how to set it up in Ableton.

 

[Puppeteer]

The algorithms are up now.  I’ll build some presets and chains for it over the next week or so.

[Author]

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