Flanger Management
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Technique : Sonar Notes
Take Sonar back to the ’60s with this vintage-style tape-flanging effect!
My frame of reference for flanging is sitting in New York’s Record Plant, using the same tape-flanging setup that Jimi Hendrix used for Electric Ladyland (his sessions were booked in the slot before ours, and Vanilla Fudge had the slot after us. Ah, those were the days!). So that’s the sound I always want to attain with flanging.
Several factors made tape flanging unique. First, there was always the thrill of potentially blowing up a tape capstan motor. But sonically, it was a combination of tape itself, the willingness to experiment with feedback paths within the console and, perhaps most importantly, the fact that with two tapes playing against each other, and one using variable speed, one tape machine could actually go forward in time compared to the other: a phenomenon called ‘thru-zero flanging’.
Sonar’s Sonitus:fx Modulator has a ‘Tape’ button that provides delays through zero, so why doesn’t it sound like real tape flanging? The remaining tape-flanging characteristic that few processors emulate (I’ve only seen it in Virsyn’s tape flanger) is the inertia of tape machines. Tape flanging was not the province of a precise LFO, but rather a sort of sloppy process where tape would speed up or slow down past the zero point. Although adjusting a tape’s varispeed control essentially adjusted the frequency of a sine-wave oscillator (which was amplified to line voltage levels, and then went on to feed the capstan motor), the change wasn’t immediately audible, because the motor couldn’t react instantaneously.
As you’ve probably figured out, I wouldn’t be going through all this history if I didn’t have a solution for creating a highly accurate tape-flanging sound with Sonar. So switch on your lava lamp, light some incense and travel back with me to the psychedelic ’60s and the world of groovy tape-flanging...
Spools Out
In case your memory needs refreshing, flanging occurs by mixing together a signal with varying delay and a dry signal, in equal proportion. Begin by inserting an instance of the Sonitus:fx Modulator in the track you want to flange. This track will serve the function of the variable-speed recorder. Then clone the track (including effects) to create a secondary track.
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Mon 21 May 2012
Sound On Sound : Est. 1985