Creedence Clearwater R. tremolo sound

[Kinki fuzz]

I love that thing, don't what gear they used... fender amp with built in trem probably. Right?

If you where to get somewhere close with pedals, what trem would you use and where in the chain?

(I believe normal people don't have this kind of thoughts... )

[drezdn]

I could be wrong about this, but to me, the Cardinal Tremolo from 1776 can get the Fender trem sound.

[bcalla]

I could be wrong about this, but to me, the Cardinal Tremolo from 1776 can get the Fender trem sound.

I haven't built mine yet, but that's why I bought it.   

[billstein]

Finishing mine up tonight. The description from the build doc sounds like it is what you're looking for.

The Cardinal Tremolo is a transistor and vactrol implementation of the
Harmonic Tremolo. It resembles the harmonic tremolo from Fender's
1960-1963 amps; the Super, Pro, Twin, Showman, and Concert models.

[T_MBaker]

The Double Flush can get a nice swampy Born on the Bayou sound.

[midwayfair]

Born on the Bayou is an old Kustom, not a Fender. Kustoms have both a vibrato and tremolo sound, and they're blendable on some models. Here's a schematic of a Kustom 150 that shows the "special effects" section:
http://music-electronics-forum.com/attachments/4805d1237499358-k150-.jpg

Fogerty probably used a Kustom "Tuck and Roll", which hass the kind of tremolo shown in the above schematic, and it's op-amp based. The T&R does NOT have the blendable vibrato. And nothing in the recording leads me to believe that he used an amp with blendable vibrato - I hear zero phasing nor do I hear a double time effect that you would get from having the vibe blended in. So any op-amp based LFO tremolo should work, including the Double Flush, Cardinal, Shoot the Moon/Tremulus Lune, and probably a dozen others. Basically you're just looking for the set of features you want.

Well, what if you want blendable vibe? In that case, you could replace C5 in the Cardinal with a pot (as a variable resistor) + cap in series to blend in the upper frequency band and use an on/off/on for the mode switch. I can't speak to the values that would work best in this situation, but I'd start with 50K and 1nF.

[DutchMF]

+1 on the Kustoms! I've had the pleasure of seeing John Fogerty's stage rig up close last year, loads of amps, but no Tremolo pedal! It's all in his amps, so try to get your hands on one of those for the real vibe....

Paul

[midwayfair]

but no Tremolo pedal!

He's used a Demeter live in the past.

I heartily and respectfully disagree that anything about the Kustom's tremolo will be all in the amp. It's post preamp, pre-power amp, and entirely in the audio path, so none of the peculiarities of bias modulated tremolo in a Fender. It's also an op amp LFO, so you don't have to worry about faking the sine or square waves of Fender blackface or brownface amps.

[DutchMF]

I couldn't see any pedals on stage, but I'm not sure what happened backstage, his tech might be switching stuff I didn't see, so I should have been a bit more clear..... I've read more reports on John letting someone else switch his amps/FX for him, so who knows!

Paul

[midwayfair]

I couldn't see any pedals on stage, but I'm not sure what happened backstage, his tech might be switching stuff I didn't see, so I should have been a bit more clear..... I've read more reports on John letting someone else switch his amps/FX for him, so who knows!

Paul

In general, he prefers to play plugged straight in and isn't a pedal guy. I would imagine that it was an unusual case for him to use a tremolo pedal. I just meant he has been rumored to use one in the past.

[pryde]

I have not built Jon's cardinal trem...YET

But in the meantime I still think the EA trem is the nicest sounding trem circuit going. Very round and deep tremolo. Whip up this vero and decide for yourself:

[snz728]

Anyone build a diaz tremodillo/swamp thang? It's supposed to be like a brown face.  I was going to make one this summer.

[midwayfair]

Anyone build a diaz tremodillo/swamp thang? It's supposed to be like a brown face.  I was going to make one this summer.

I breadboarded it. Does that count?

The Tremodillo is very touchy, and you really end up with just one setting that sounds good. It lopes (i.e., it has an asymmetric waveform), and not completely regularly, which somehow people got into their heads is what brownface tremolos do. It isn't in any of the ones I've heard ... brownfaces do tend to have a slight irregularity in DEPTH, but I've never heard one go off its axis and sound like a ramp wave.

The Swamp Thang is a little more stable and can be used at more than a couple settings reliably.

I don't want to make it sound like they aren't necessarily worth building, since I haven't met a modulation pedal I didn't like. I'm just not sure they're worth building over a more versatile design like the Tremulus Lune (even if you made the asymmetry a trim pot).

[Kinki fuzz]

And how about the EQD Hummingbird?, it's based on the Vox repeat percussion and I was very impressed with the sound samples, I was thinking on building one...

The Cardinal is in my workbench now, but will still take several weeks to be finished... I have to order parts for this and other projects from 2 or 3 suppliers!!.  The double flush, maybe in the near future, I like that it has a balance control to mix dry/wet signal.

Currently I have a EHX pulsar (clone!), not very good sounding but with a nice and heavy chopping, great with fuzz for psych stuff. Also a EA trem, which is and beautiful sounding, with a soft transition between ups and downs, maybe too soft, too... beautiful. I like both, but don't get the vibe I'm after with them, I want something in between, beautiful sound + character.

And of course, I keep in mind that the most important gear here are John Fogerty's fingers. No DIY clone for that!!