i recently got my second covid-19 shot, and took the time when i was super achey, a bit loopy, mildly feverish, and couldn't focus doing work, to fulfill a "three pedal challenge" to my instagram followers.
i'll admit it - i kind of cheated. i used my new browne protein on the hit/reverse track that you only really hear at the end. but i only added this track after being content with the end product. i wanted to add the sense of impending doom at the behest of mortality that comes with feeling sickly into the already weird, plunky musical idea.
i also took this opportunity to break out a guitar i haven't played in some time - my 90's fender telecaster plus. my dad bought me this guitar when i was a teen (when i was into literally any guitar except a telecaster). it was his favorite guitar, so there's definitely some sentimental attachment. but, i have a love/hate relationship with it. it plays great, but i prefer a flatter fretboard radius. it's noiseless due to lace sensor pickups (which is great for my studio), but it just doesn't have the spank i really want out of a telecaster. it has a scratchy output jack too. maybe i'll give it some upgrades when i have a less noisy home studio.
signal:
fender telecaster plus
electro-harmonix hum debugger (not counting this - tracks are too noisy without)
browne amplification protein (i'm a cheater) - little box effects whiteout/snowblind variant
cooper fx arcades - ambient endeavors card
strymon iridium (not counting this - it functions as my amp)
strymon el capistan
strymon flint
additional:
emerson custom 12x18 purpleheart board
sinasoid cables and ebs cables (stereo splits for the strymons)
disaster area midibox 4
ribn app
post-processing (purposefully using nothing but essential clean-up effects):
izotope rx7 spectral denoise
waves factory trackspacer, spectre
softube drawmer s73
klevgrand luxe
tdr kotelnikov
how it's made:
the drone track was the arcades (timest algorithm), fed into the sound-on-sound looper of the el cap, with the occasional note being added to the buffer. flint had both the harmonic trem and 70's verb engaged.
the rhythm part focuses on the el cap's multi mode with a plunky, muted pattern and a pedal tone to make it sound just a little disconcerting. there's also some #4's in there too, which are always fun. 60's verb dialed in on the flint, fitting for this part.
the high lead part used the arcades with the ribn app controlling both the clock (set quantized to octaves) and the tone. it was a little boring on its own, and this gave it some interesting character. more reverb from the flint (either 70's or 80's).
i'm planning on spending more time with the browne protein in the future, and will probably be the highlight of my next video, so, consider the reverse hit a preview. this was a chord hit into the green channel of the protein, arcades (WASH algorithm) nearly dimed out, el cap nearly at max repeats, and the flint's 80's reverb with a maxed decay. i then reversed it in post to create the hit. it goes for nearly the entire duration of the tune, but it isn't really audible until the end. i think it adds a sense of impending doom, appropriate for the mood i was going for in this tune.
