What is this effect for the guitar?

October 22, 2012 8:20 AM

What is this new guitar effects device or pedal that has become popular in the past few years?

I've been out of the loop on playing guitar for awhile. But I bumped into a friend this year and we got to talking about effects for guitar like the EBow (something that makes the guitar not sound so much like a guitar). He said, "well there's this other device that all the kids are using that does some wild effects and noise" and he sent me a YouTube video of what it was, but unfortunately I can't locate the email. Any ideas?

posted by critzer to media & arts (16 answers total)

Can you at least try to describe the sound you heard on the video?
posted by Thorzdad at 8:37 AM on October 22, 2012

If it sounds something like an EBow, it could be a compressor. That's not new, though, and not usually 'wild'. There's lots of guitar synths that make weird noises, but unless you can tell us something more specific it's hard to say what you heard.
posted by echo target at 8:44 AM on October 22, 2012

I think maybe it was like a KAOS pad type thing that ran guitar sounds through it and could be manipulated on the fly like that? I honestly can't nail down exactly what sounds it made other than to say it sort of turned guitar tone into a wall of sound that could then be tweaked with knobs, making the sound more chaotic, noisy, unpredictable. Sorry so vague :/
posted by critzer at 8:44 AM on October 22, 2012

Whammy pedal?
posted by bongo_x at 8:52 AM on October 22, 2012

Pod?
posted by MrMoonPie at 8:54 AM on October 22, 2012

Hmm, heard of those, but not those. Something newer, from my understanding.
posted by critzer at 9:06 AM on October 22, 2012

Something like this? I saw this video a while back--guitar with a touchscreen attached.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 9:09 AM on October 22, 2012

Try asking here. It's the most populated and coherent guitar forum on the Web. That link goes to the effects subsection. I think you're more likely to find useful information there than here.

That said, I can't think of anything offhand that would fit all your criteria—wild effects, knobs, "chaotic/noisy/unpredictable," introduced in the past few years, and become widely popular. I can think of a great many things that fit several of those, but not all.
posted by cribcage at 9:14 AM on October 22, 2012

Not at all new, but by chance was he talking about the Electro-Harmonix Memory Man?

It can behave fairly normally, or it can turn things into a pretty wacky mess.
posted by eyesontheroad at 9:24 AM on October 22, 2012

It's not the Strymon blueSky Reverberator in Shimmer mode, is it? That creates really cool "string" effects (see the "Plate Shimmer Demo" video on that page).

Or maybe you're thinking of something like Quintron's Drum Buddy?
posted by limeonaire at 9:25 AM on October 22, 2012

I bet he's thinking of the Hot-Hand wah filter, which lets people make stupid dub step sounds from the guitar by wagging their hand around.
http://www.sourceaudio.net/products/hothand/wah.php
posted by Benjy at 9:58 AM on October 22, 2012

Hmm, none of these so far...
posted by critzer at 10:53 AM on October 22, 2012

Not so much 'new' as 'popular', the DL-4 has become pretty much standard kit. It can make some pretty wacky sounds. I see *a lot* of shows, and this is pretty much always on the floor. Nels is a foot-pedal guy, you might recognize something here.
posted by j_curiouser at 11:42 AM on October 22, 2012

Limeonaire had an interesting idea with Strymon. I might have guessed the TimeLine rather than the BlueSky. The TimeLine was released last summer (2011) and there were a bunch of videos circulating to promote it. The "Ice" effect was especially popular on YouTube.

But at $450 retail I doubt all the kids are using TimeLines, although it has sold very well and shortly after the release date people were flipping them for profit on eBay. And while the TimeLine takes input from both MIDI and an expression pedal, it doesn't have anything like that Korg interface. The only thing that interface reminded me of is the ribbon controller on Roland's VG-99, but that's getting into serious money and effects that most guitarists haven't heard of, let alone own.

If you're just looking to brainstorm every effect that can make wacky sounds to rule them all out, make sure you look through ring modulators. Fairfield Circuitry's Randy's Revenge was pretty much universally hailed as the new king of the hill—or at least, equal to Moog's—when it was released a few years ago. The builder discontinued it temporarily and then reissued an improved design earlier this year, which created some buzz.
posted by cribcage at 12:09 PM on October 22, 2012 [1 favorite]

EHX POG?

Makes the guitar sound like an organ.
posted by teabag at 12:36 PM on October 22, 2012

It probably is an octave generator. Here's the HOG vs the Eventtide.

The HOG, Harmonic Octave Generator
posted by teabag at 12:38 PM on October 22, 2012