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Studio tape-style flanging in a stompbox?

Started by lars, July 29, 2014, 05:33:41 PM

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lars

I've been pretty disappointed trying to find a flanger that actually sounds like vintage studio tape flanging. The Strymon Orbit sounds pretty close, but it's also pretty expensive and very complex on the inside. The Foxrox TZF is prohibitively expensive, if you can even find one for sale.
My curiosity is with the 1776 multiplex echo machine though. This has a manual feature for ramping the "tape speed" up and down on-the-fly. Could this be modified in order to create a convincing studio tape flange effect?

stecykmi

i think this is called "zero-through" flanging, it requires two separate delay lines to achieve. in short, your standard flanger involves the signal undergoing a very short delay that is added (or subtracted) with the original signal. the delayed signal will ALWAYS be behind the original signal (makes sense...), but for zero-through flanging, the "delayed" signal must vary from behind to _ahead_ of the original signal, which is only possible to do in real time by delaying the original signal somewhat.

kinda confusing, but the multiplex isn't capable of it because it's topography makes it impossible. I'm not sure the pt2399 is capable of delays short enough to create the flanging effect in the first place.

chosen_1

The Mr black tunnelworm is a pretty good tzf. Sells for about 180.

Leevibe

#3
There's a flanger in the TC tone print series that does it. I can't remember the name.

lars

#4
It would be interesting to try running two separate delay pedals into a stereo amp setup. One could be set for a very short pre-delay, like 15ms. Then run something like the multiplex echo into the other side and press the tape speed button. I wonder if you would get a flange sound as the speed ramps slower than 15ms and then back to zero?
*update 8/7/14* I tested out the idea of running two delay pedals in stereo, but I probably couldn't get the delay speeds short enough to create a flanging effect. As I adjusted the delay time between the two pedals, all I got was a somewhat warbled chorus sound, that detuned seasickness effect.