# What effect is this?



## gearjunkie (Sep 14, 2009)

Hey guys, I don't use many effects besides delay, chorus, and wah. So I'm no effects expert. There's an old Duran Duran tune (I know I know but its a guilty pleasure!!!) called "Come Undone" and the intro guitar sounds like water. Does anyone know what this effect is? I'm thinking its a flanger. (possibly a chorus or phase?) But I have no idea what it is or how to set it up like that. Also sounds like a delay with it.
Here's a link to the sound:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICnlyNUt_0o


----------



## montreal (Mar 25, 2008)

that's easy...
it's the original boss chorus ensemble in the vibrato setting with the depth full up and the speed probably half-way....


----------



## Overt1 (Aug 31, 2009)

sounds like a phaser with delay to me.


----------



## jimihendrix (Jun 27, 2009)

check out this vid demo here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx5OAbbVV9E


----------



## Guest (Oct 24, 2009)

Oh man. Are people referring to The Wedding Album as "Old Music" now? Dang! I don't feel like 1993 was that long ago...I'm old, aren't I?

I've been doing some very deep analysis on this song owing to the fact I'm working on a Duran Duran Tribute project right now. There's more to it that a heavy handed chorus. There's an evelope-controlled filter happening on that, you can hear it on the pick attacks. I've been having an email exchange with Katy (http://www.askkaty.com/) and she's trying to get me the engineer who worked on that track. Warren Cuccurullo is a monster player and liked his monster racks as well.

I'm not near my rig, but later today I'll post my Axe-Fx patch and general signal chain for that track if you like. We just rehearsed it last week with all the keyboard parts and it sounds HUGE.


----------



## seanmj (May 9, 2009)

gearjunkie said:


> Hey guys, I don't use many effects besides delay, chorus, and wah. So I'm no effects expert. There's an old Duran Duran tune (I know I know but its a guilty pleasure!!!)
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICnlyNUt_0o


Not a guilty pleasure at all. There was some serious songwriting/performance ability in that band. I still love all those tunes.... and have actually been doing some instrumental cover versions of their stuff. I wish we could have more pop bands like them around that actually know how to sing and play and don't rely on autotune and sequences.

Once when I was doing a corporate gig.... I handed each musician a stack of charts... and one of them was a Duran Duran song. The guys I had playing with me all commented on how good a tune it was!

Sean Meredith-Jones
http://www.seanmeredithjones.com


----------



## Guest (Oct 24, 2009)

seanmj said:


> I wish we could have more pop bands like them around that actually know how to sing and play and don't rely on autotune and sequences.


Amen to that. Duran Duran has always let the mistakes fall where they may. And there have been more than a few blunders along the way. It's as real as any other music, made by guys who play their own instruments. A rarity in the pop world today...


----------



## Guest (Oct 24, 2009)

gearjunkie, I based my patch for this off Andy Taylor's sound for this song on the Live in London DVD. It's a little less soupy than The Wedding Album version and sits better in the mix, live.

The signal chain is amp -> cab then out of the cab, split three ways in parallel to:

Parallel line 1: reverb, 100% wet, lots of low cut
Parallel line 2: ADA flanger patch (Taylor used the ADA flanger pretty heavily throughout his years with DD)
Parallel line 3: wah patch set to trigger using the envelope

P1 and P2 lines merge into a delay patch which mixes in parallel with the P3 line at the output. It's a mono patch, I'm still not playing stereo live. So it's all panned down the middle.

Clip: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/870088/ddtribute/comeundone.mp3


----------



## gearjunkie (Sep 14, 2009)

Bloody Hell Man! iaresee I think you pretty much nailed it. Like you say "Not quite as soupy" but you can hear it lower in the mix. I suspected a flanger and delay all along. Do you recall off hand what the delay time was?


----------



## Guest (Oct 25, 2009)

gearjunkie said:


> Bloody Hell Man! iaresee I think you pretty much nailed it. Like you say "Not quite as soupy" but you can hear it lower in the mix. I suspected a flanger and delay all along. Do you recall off hand what the delay time was?


You bet:

Mono delay
Time: 526 ms
Feedback: 9.8% (about 1 repeat)

Thanks man!


----------



## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

One suggestion to consider. If you place two modulation pedals in series with one set for a very slow sweep, and the second set for a slightly faster sweep, you get the effect of the sweep of the second shifting the range where it occurs. And listening to the original track, I think that may be what's happening. You get the sound of a flanger sweeping, but where it's sweeping seems to keep changing.

Just a thought.

On the other hand, you mentioned the A/DA Flanger. You will note that that particular flanger has a control voltage input for external sweep. So, set the A/DA for moderate sweep depth and insert a slow LFO into the external CV input, and there you go.


----------



## Guest (Oct 27, 2009)

mhammer said:


> On the other hand, you mentioned the A/DA Flanger. You will note that that particular flanger has a control voltage input for external sweep. So, set the A/DA for moderate sweep depth and insert a slow LFO into the external CV input, and there you go.


Mark, that's exactly how the effect block is set up in my unit!  With an LFO controlling the sweep. And a second LFO that varies the depth a little bit too actually. But that was more for my own taste than anything else.

Wish I could claim full responsibility for cloning it in the Axe-Fx, but it was done in conjunction with another user on the Fractal forum.


----------

