Weird Science: The 10 Strangest Vintage Effects of All Time

Started by Elantric, April 07, 2016, 01:44:33 PM

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Elantric

http://www.guitarworld.com/weird-science-10-strangest-vintage-effects-all-time
Weird Science: The 10 Strangest Vintage Effects of All Time
Posted 11/20/2015 by Guitar World Staff

Weird Science: The 10 Strangest Vintage Effects of All Time
It's probably not a coincidence that effects such as wah pedals and fuzz boxes started appearing en masse about the same time that recreational drugs like marijuana and LSD became popular with rock musicians.

Indeed, it would take the mind of an incredibly stoned individual—someone deprived of exposure to the sun's rays, fed a diet of lukewarm Mountain Dew and stale frozen pizza and kept awake for days by snorting lines of Instant Maxwell House—to even conceive of the idea for some of the music industry's many audio oddities.

In salute to effect innovators like Electro-Harmonix's Mike Matthews and Zachary Vex of Z.Vex (both of whom might be as straight and unpolluted as an Iowa highway, for all we know), we present to you our selections for the strangest and most wonderful guitar effects ever unleashed upon the unsuspecting public.

Plugging into one of the following effects is like discovering an ancient Mayan city of gold on the tip of your fingernail while your cat pontificates, in Lebanese, about Proust. Or whacking yourself in the head really hard with a sledgehammer.

To find out more about these pedals (and hear more audio examples), check out Discofreq's FX Site or Tonefrenzy.com. If you'd like to take a crack at building your own, visit DIYstompboxes.com.

Note that, since it's unusual to come across two or three of these effects, let alone all 10, we do not have consistent photos or videos of the effects presented below. Luckily, there's this thing called YouTube.com. We tried to find the most to-the-point and least-annoying video for each effect. (We admit we really love the video for Number 5, the Maestro Rover!)

Enjoy!

01. Ludwig Phase II synthesizer
What could possibly be weirder than a guitar synthesizer pedal made in the early Seventies by a drum company? Like many so-called guitar synthesizers from this era, the Ludwig Phase II is not a synth but actually several effects, including fuzz, voltage-controlled filters and gating, combined in a box that unfolds to reveal a rocker pedal, several oversized mushroom-shaped footswitches and a control panel placed at a height only Verne Troyer would find comfortable.

With a little patient tweaking, the Phase II can produce the sound of anything from alien conversations to spaceship landings—the kind of weirdness that's made it a favorite of Sonic Youth (Washing Machine), Primus' Larry Lalonde (Pork Soda) and Pearl Jam's Mike McCready (Binaural).


02. Ampeg Scrambler
Ampeg is best known for its big 'n' beefy bass amps, but the company also attempted to exploit the pedal market in a few rare instances. Ampeg's first effort, the Scrambler, bewildered even acid casualties upon its introduction in 1969, but today's bizarro stomp box aficionados consider it the Holy Grail. Although these pedals are rarer than Paris Hilton's brain cells, they were built to withstand nuclear war, so units that turn up are usually in fine working condition. Its two controls (texture and balance) generate a mutated rainbow of fuzz tones ranging from metallic ring modulation with buzzing octave-up overtones to the flatulence of a 400-pound chili cook-off judge.


03. DeArmond Tremolo Control
Tremolo effects aren't particularly strange, but this early Fifties contraption, the first mass-produced external effect device for the electric guitar, earns distinction for its primitive design and clunky aesthetics. (And it was manufactured in Toledo, Ohio—isn't that weird?) Instead of employing components like transistors, resistors and diodes to generate its on/off effect, the Tremolo Control used a motor to rock a glass tube filled with mercury (the original heavy metal) back and forth across an electrical contact to open and close the circuit. Unfortunately, mercury deteriorates over time, but Windex makes a safe alternative (and it provides "clean" tone). This effect is a favorite of Billy Gibbons, Ry Cooder and Duane Eddy.


04. EMS Synthi Hi-Fli
Another so-called guitar synthesizer from the Seventies, the EMS Synthi Hi-Fli was mounted on a waist-high stand and looked like a prop from Dr. Who (EMS actually made the synths used to create sound effects for the show). Originally (and appropriately) called the Sound Freak, the Hi-Fli was essentially an early multi-effect unit that combined fuzz, octave shift, ring modulation, phasing and resonant filters to generate synthlike tones. David Gilmour used a Synthi Hi-Fli on The Dark Side of the Moon, and other fans include Steve Hackett (when he was with Genesis) and the Chemical Brothers.


05. Maestro Rover
Someone must have spiked the water coolers at Maestro with Blue Sunshine—how else to explain sonic oddities like Maestro's Bass Brassmaster, Filter Sample and Hold, Ring Modulator and the world's first fuzz box? The Maestro Rover is a rotating speaker unit that not only looks like a UFO but sounds like one, too, as the speaker can rotate at exceptionally high speeds to create watery, warbling Doppler effects. A built-in crossover routes low frequencies to a guitar amp while it directs treble frequencies to the Rover's rather low-powered internal amp, which isn't loud enough to irk even a Ladies' Auxiliary tea party. That's why David Gilmour's Rover is, uh, house trained.


06. Electro-Harmonix Frequency Analyzer/Maestro Ring Modulator
You know those bizarre, dissonant metallic boinks on ZZ Top's "Cheap Sunglasses" and the closing theme of South Park? That's the sound of a ring modulator. Electro-Harmonix and Maestro unleashed this atonal beast of an effect on unsuspecting musicians during the early Seventies, and guitarists have been struggling to tame them ever since. By moving the controls while you play (the EHX Hotfoot makes a handy "third hand"), you can imitate the sounds of extraterrestrial radio transmissions, drunken calypso steel drummers and screaming robot elephants. Who hasn't wanted their guitar to sound like that?


07. ADA Flanger
One of the finest pedal flangers ever made, the ADA Flanger generates a wide variety of impressive effects, from jetlike whooshes to shimmering chorus. But spend a little extra time tweaking the controls and some truly bizarre sounds emerge, such as ring modulator–like percussive metal overtones and ghostly moans. Its best (i.e., weirdest) effect is a sort of "auto whammy" that is coaxed out of the pedal by turning the enhance control all the way up. Engage the effect and your guitar's pitch will rise and fall dramatically and uncontrollably, even if you aren't playing anything at all. How cool is that?


08. Roland Funny Cat
Perhaps the most appropriately named pedal of all time, the Roland Funny Cat sounds like a feline that has huffed a spray can of Rust-Oleum and downed a bottle of Jäger—and is being whipped. Kind of a fuzz/envelope-follower combination, the Funny Cat spews and mews unpredictably, with the effect often becoming more pronounced the softer, or the higher up the neck, you play. Considering how hard it was to get killer buds (an essential part of good pedal design) in Japan during the early Seventies, the Roland engineer who designed this probably smoked a lot of catnip instead.


09. Oberheim Voltage Controlled Filter/Maestro Filter Sample and Hold
These pedals are identical in every way except for their paint jobs. Controls consist of knobs for range (depth) and sample-and-hold speed, and a switch that engages either the sample-and-hold random-filter effect or an envelope follower, for autowah effects. Even with this limited feature set, the pedals can generate a surprisingly vast palette of strange but wonderful tones, ranging from juicy, drippy envelope-follower funk to guttural auto-arpeggiator stutters. Frank Zappa used one on "Ship Ahoy," "Black Napkins" and several other songs, so if it's weird enough for the man who wrote "Poofter's Froth Wyoming Plans Ahead," it's certainly weird enough for you.


10. Electro-Harmonix Talking Pedal
While honorable mention must be made to the Heil Talk Box (which provides guitarists with a tube that they stick in their mouths to duplicate the sound of a stomach being pumped and other barfy delights), the Electro-Harmonix Talking Pedal enables your guitar to speak through purely electronic means. Actually, it only produces "A-E-I-O-U" vowel sounds, but it does give a guitar an uncanny vocal-like tonality that is reminiscent of Yoda speaking Cantonese.


Elantric

More weird here
The History of Guitar Synthesizers: Four Revolutions, No Clear Winner
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=11351.msg82642#msg82642

1970 Hammond-Innovex Condor


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_synthesizer

vanceg

Probably shouldn't have sold that ADA flanger.... but what they love about it is what annoyed me.
I REALLY should have kept the EH Frequency Analyzer.
The Ampeg Scrambler I owned I gave away to a guitarist who is now massively famous...wasn't at that point though... I don't think owning the scrambler helped his career...but you never know.

Keep the quirky gear!  That's the lesson....


Elantric

Quote from: Elantric on April 07, 2016, 02:00:07 PM
More weird here
The History of Guitar Synthesizers: Four Revolutions, No Clear Winner
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=11351.msg82642#msg82642

1970 Hammond-Innovex Condor


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_synthesizer



The Condor Prototype
Ultra Rare1967 Bigsby Condor Prototype. One of only Only 3
guitarz.blogspot.com:














^ HEX PIEZO BRIDGE ^



^ 37 pin Centronics Multipin connector to main synth unit. ^












There's a lot that can be said about this 1967 Bigsby Condor Prototype. But, like the seller, I really don't know where to start. He has this information though, which is a bit more than I could muster up:

"1967 Bigsby Condor Prototype Experimental Guitar, only 3 made, was to be called the Condor, one was given to Barney Kessel, the other was given to Howard Roberts, this one sat in Milwaukee since then, Paul Bigsby may have worked on this-no way to know, the pots are 1967, Paul died in 1968, Hammond was contacted for the electronics, and the work was contracted out to Gibbs Electronics in Milton Wisconsin, Natural finish, Rosewood fretboard, the guitar weighs 11 lbs. - 0.9 oz., biggest volute & headstock on Earth !!, huge neck profile, the guitar has been sitting for almost 50 years, it has not been tested, everything is in very good condition, don't miss this once in a lifetime chance to get an extremely cool & unique collectors item, has the original fancy heavy duty hard case."




The first thing I noticed was the way the strings break at the bridge at a sideways angle. I've never seen another guitar do that. I wonder how effective it is.

Currently listed at $3295 U.S.
https://reverb.com/item/2995374-bigsby-condor-prototype-experimental-guitar-only-3-made-1967-natural

R.W. Haller



Elantric


QuoteThe first thing I noticed was the way the strings break at the bridge at a sideways angle. I've never seen another guitar do that. I wonder how effective it is.


Actually its an early hexaphonic piezo bridge design relied upon side loading on the threaded height bridge pieces for each string. Under each of these is a piezo sensor  - one per string. They probably experienced high mechanical adjacent string crosstalk, hence the over designed 2nd generation Condor Magnetic hex pickup below   



carlb

Coo-o-oul! (Three or four syllables implied.) That tree-gall growth on the bottom of the headstock looks like it's about to break-open with a wasp or something.

Got to see a guy in Jamaica play a Guitorgan way back when. Thing weighed a ton. Guessing he would have killed for a B-9 pedal, heh!

Closest other thing I've run across for guitar weirdness are a few examples of the italian axes from the sixties with the blender buttons doing who-knows-what.

I have a Titano amp with an odd vibrato circuit - an early tube-drive phase-shifter. The marketing badge for that on the amp has what looks like pipe-organ pipes and the phrase "Tone Chamber" or other silliness. Funky old beast ...

Always wondered why Fender went out of his way to make a trem circuit more complicated (i.e. "trem-roach"). Must have changed the oscillating-bias wiggle waveform shape or such ....
ES Les Paul, internal Roland GK
Boss SY-1000, Valeton Coral Amp pedal
Morningstar MC8 & MC6
QSC CP8 powered speaker

Elantric

QuoteAlways wondered why Fender went out of his way to make a trem circuit more complicated (i.e. "trem-roach"). Must have changed the oscillating-bias wiggle waveform shape or such ....

Well I can attest that the brown face 1963 Fender Concert Amp Tube Tremolo circuit with its signal amplitude and pitch modulation ability can almost get you into univibe land.

Its very different than the neon bulb+photocell designs of 1965 Fender Twin reverb



Its a major design feature for many of the $2,800 MilkMan Creamer boutique amps
https://milkmansound.com/collections/amplifiers/products/20w




Go to the 9:40 minute mark in video above


In developing a strategy for porting the 60's made Baldwin "Chora-Tone Projector" to solid-state I came up with a practical way of emulating the Fender pitch-shifting Vibrato effect found in Brownface tube amps ... not only that, but the circuit allows for the High-Pass and Low-Pass signals to be added (alternately) in or out of phase against each other // resulting in phasing effects, and not ... the High-Pass channel can also be cut off to only allow the Low-Pass to pass thru // leading to nice chopping effects ... eventual mods to the circuit will include valiable "corner" frequencies on bith channels ... currently, both channels have a common -3db roll-offpoint at around 340Hz ...
http://forum.metropoulos.net/viewtopic.php?t=45063&start=105


ronkmd

We had a couple of these and an ARP Omni in our high school synth class in the late 70's.

Elantric

Quote from: ronkmd on October 10, 2017, 08:38:05 AM
We had a couple of these and an ARP Omni in our high school synth class in the late 70's.

Excellent education resources!

chrish

Quote from: Elantric on October 10, 2017, 08:57:35 AM
Excellent education resources!
yes I was thinking that too. Combine that with the fact that you told a story where your High School had Electronics education where you built a fuzz pedal, I'm thinking my high school was lame.

Elantric

My High School in Port Clinton Ohio was a very good school ( in between Toledo and Cleveland, and still farm based economy in 1969  )- they even had  advanced "Auto shop"  classes where students dismantled and rebuilt heavy duty farm equipment.

In english class we had to dissect the meaning of The Who's "Tommy"
and learned Critical Thinking
https://www.lynda.com/Business-Skills-tutorials/Critical-Thinking/424116-2.html
QuoteCritical thinking is the ability to think reflectively and independently in order to make thoughtful decisions. By focusing on root-cause issues, critical thinking helps you avoid future problems that can result from your actions. In this course, leadership trainer and expert Mike Figliuolo outlines a series of techniques to help you develop your critical thinking skills. He reveals how to define the problem you're trying to solve and then provides a number of critical thinking tools, such as blowing up the business, asking the 5 whys, asking the 7 so whats, using the 80/20 rule, and more. He also provides guidance on how to develop this skill across your whole team.
Topics include:
Breaking big problems into small ones
Defining the problem statement
Asking focusing questions
Finding root causes
Using critical thinking tools
Teaching others to think critically

and in Electronics class I learned to use an oscilloscope, signal generator, and built a crystal radio, and my Heathkit fuzz box, and a few PAIA kits - I remember building a  transconductance amp based leslie speaker sim box   

http://www.paia.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAiA_Electronics
http://www.paia.com/obituary.html
same curriculum should be used today IMHO
http://www.paia.com/educators/

http://web.media.mit.edu/~joep/papers/EarlySynthesizerReport.pdf