Vocal Effects?

[selfdestroyer]

I am wanting to make a stompbox for some live vocal effects. Its for a lofi project I am working on with a few friends. I'm going for a vocal sound like Black Angles, Dusted, Thee Oh Sees ect.. More of a slightly over-driven slap-back delay or tape delay with oscillation and  spring reverb. I was wanting this to be as small as possible, within reason. Here is what I'm thinking of so far... PT2399 delay into a Rubadub with a short brick into a tube overdrive. A lot of people mention to put an overdrive after the reverb for this effect (like the Rat after the reverb in the Raveonettes guitarist) I am open to any suggestions here.

Since it will be used just for vocals, should I put a preamp in it for the mic and an XLR or just 1/4" inputs and worry about it on the mixer. I have no experience with this and since I am going for that "lofi" but legible sound I thought this would be a good learning experience.

I can almost get the sound I want with my Space Echo RE-201 but I do not want travel with it at all. So thats why I was thinking of a Multiplex/Jr for a tape echo sound.

Cody

[GermanCdn]

Sounds like a cool idea, I think the selection of effects is right, might change the circuit selection a bit.

While I love the Rub a Dub, I might consider putting in a reverb with a little more control, like Rej's Tenebrion.

MPJR would be a good choice for the delay.

Don't know how well the OD is going to work unless you boost the signal up in front of it, so you might wanna throw something like a Fatpants up front or maybe a Comp and use the level as a boost.  You mentioned Tube OD, I am currently in love with Thomas' Valvetizer, and you could probably use it as a clean effect as well.  I don't know if it will work for the trashy lo-fi sound; for that you're probably best with a true distortion circuit.

[jimilee]

I'm wondering if you couldn't build a delay with a momentary 3pdt stomp instead of a latching stomp so you could hit the delay on certain parts and then just release it. Been thinking about this for  a while now.

[selfdestroyer]

Thanks both of you for the reassurance and ideas. I agree with you on needing more control on the reverb. I listened to a few albums on the way home from work and I noticed most of the time the reverb is vary dark and little to no high end. I have an extra Tenebrion laying around that I will build with a short brick just to see how well it does. I have just finished a Tenebrion with a long brick and it is great for large space or really big reverb stuff but not the real "springy" sound I'm after. Maybe the short brick will change that some.

I was also thinking of using a split and blend in there so I can blend in the dry vocals. Will help with getting to lost in effects.

I like the idea of having a "slam" switch to put it into oscillation or even a momentary like Jimi suggested.

I have populated but unboxed Fatpants 2013, Tenebrion & I have one Multiplex Jr PCB left that I can populate to test with.

Any other ideas.

[selfdestroyer]

I took a few pedals out tonight to test a few things and got some really cool results. Here is what I tired.

Mic - Xotic EP Booster - Multiplex Jr - Tenebrion - MXR Distortion + - Amp

The the booster on half way and the distortion + gain at 9 o clock I was able to add the grit sound on the vocals and on the whole effect. I was unable to get loud since it was at 11:30 pm and I live in an apartment but it definitely sounded good when hoopin and halering at low volumes lol.

A wet/dry mix would be essential to get more clarity of the voice/words so its not so soupy but having the ability to make it soupy would be nice. It was fun to adjust the feedback on the reverb and delay to get oscillation so a slam switch will be fun. I do think the Multiplex might be a bit overkill since I can not see myself using the modulation at all. Any other delay layouts I should try?

Any other suggestions?

Here is an example of what I'm going for.

[DutchMF]

The singer from my band uses some standard guitar pedals between his mic and the mixing board, with some pretty good results. He has an old Ibanez Flanger, a new and cheap Behringer delay, Seymour Duncan Tweak Fuzz and an old 70's Fender thing (I think JMK did a version of this) that he uses on both vocals and Blues Harp. There doesn't seem to be any impedance problems, just mic(s) into pedals into mixing board.

Paul

[selfdestroyer]

The singer from my band uses some standard guitar pedals between his mic and the mixing board, with some pretty good results. He has an old Ibanez Flanger, a new and cheap Behringer delay, Seymour Duncan Tweak Fuzz and an old 70's Fender thing (I think JMK did a version of this) that he uses on both vocals and Blues Harp. There doesn't seem to be any impedance problems, just mic(s) into pedals into mixing board.

Paul

I was just watching a concert of theirs last night on YouTube and saw he had a pedal board with a bunch of pedals but it was too dark to see. I'm not really wanting to copy these guys as I am trying to just get a similar effect and will add my twist to it.

I have been thinking about it here at work some and think I am going to try this:

In - Booster (fatpants) - blend - delay (still working on this, I like the Mplex jr but not sure I need all the controls) - reverb (Space Chasm or Tenebrion) - overdrive (distortion +) - out

I like the sound of the EP Booster on the mic and thought the blend into the modulation effects and the MXR D+ has a nice low gain grit sound that I was after and its a small build. I'm going to paper this all out tonight.

I am going to populate a few boards this weekend and play with the effect order some more.

[Cortexturizer]

What do you mean you don't need modulation on the voice?? Khm...khm...pink...khm...floyd...khm...

Could give you some awesome results, though I agree it could be more a thing ov a backing vocals choir.