Tape Flutter Effect

Benjamin Poilve · From: France

Hi,

I was listening to the Aquarium Drunkard Mixtape (https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2022/02/05/ad-presents-off-piste-a-mixtape/), and a sound caught my ear.

At around 63:10, there is a pedal steel riff, and what seems to be some sort of flutter effect. I listened to the original record (Fonograf – Adam), and it's not there. So it really seems like they recorded it on tape and digitized it.

I really like that sound on pedal steel, do you know any effect pedal that replicates it? It seems that the El Capistan could do it, but this is a very costly one, wondering if there is any alternatives.

Thanks !

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

A lot of delay pedals can do modulation. This one seeks to emulate some famous sounds of the past:

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Flashback2--tc-electronic-flashback-2-delay-and-looper-pedal

I've never gone deep enough with it to say if it will get you the sound you're looking for but it has numerous flavors of warble (think David Gilmour, for instance) and is a good sounding unit.
Yes, El Cap is great but I sold mine because I just wasn't using its deeper features.

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

The TC Electronics "Shaker" pedal is probably the cheapest you'll find to do that effect. But with practice, you can also do it the old-fashioned way - with your left hand and the bar. Winking

(The old-school Hawaiian steel guitar players were experts at this.)

Benjamin Poilve · From: France

Those TC Electronics pedal seems to have a lot of option, it indeed looks like it could achieve the sound I'm looking for. I'd say the "Shaker" is closer to the sound I'm looking for, a high frequency vibrato with fast raise (to fully achieve the effect I'd probably need to add some sort of compression/crunch).

But I'm intrigued by your comment on old-school Hawaiian players doing this by hand. Do you have any record/video to point to? Would that be a "roll the bar" vibrato? It seems that kind of high-frequency vibrato are not very used by players nowadays.

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

What the Hawaiian stylists did was very exaggerated, but the idea is the same. You'd need to increase the speed and do a barely perceptible hand vibrato, maybe with some phaser added. That said, I do think you're reading an awful lot into this simple effect, as it lasts only a few seconds on that recording.

Zoots Houston · From: Kingston, NY

I often try to mimic warble with my left hand.
Pitch fluctuation and vibrato is so natural on the instrument that it seems funny to use an effect for.
That being said… sometimes when I’m really going for that sound, I end up focusing more on the warble than my actual choice of notes.

Benjamin Poilve · From: France

Thanks for all the pointers !
I might still be a little green with my left hand, it might indeed be a better idea to practice that instead of supplementing with a pedal. I still have some trouble seeing how you can have such a high speed vibrato, but as most thing I'll just pratice until it clicks.

ajm · From: Los Angeles

If I understand the subject correctly, the MXR Carbon Copy was one of the first that I saw that had a "modulation" switch.
Now, several Electro Harmonix pedals do as well.

One more thing to try.
With your bar hand, try NOT damping the strings behind the bar.
It can give sort of a chorusing effect that may be what you're looking for.

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