Drive & Dirt + Modulation = Gross Or Great?

I once heard Petrucci talk about adding chorus to distortion to “open it up” and I’ve always liked that concept. Though it got overused by the early ‘90s and everyone got burned out on it!

There was some great use of mod + dirt/fuzz in the ‘90s too! I loved stuff like Kurt Cobains use of the Polychorus and all the craziness of Tom Morello. While not technically modulation, I loved the pitch warble of the monophonic Whammy that Jonny Greenwood used as a sort of modulation effect.
 
I LOVE me some dirty modulations. The catch is that I prefer them through the front of the amp. The convention seems to be that you should place modulation after drive but a number of the tones we chase (some of which are listed in the post that starts this thread) were stomboxes through distorted Marshalls or whatever.

EVH - MXR 117 flanger and phase 90 both typically through the front of his amp. His later career fx rack stuff sounded like plastic.

Adam Jones - Boss BF2 flanger into the front of multiple amps.

The 80s rack chorus tones sucked outside the Roland/Boss stuff.
 
I LOVE me some dirty modulations. The catch is that I prefer them through the front of the amp. The convention seems to be that you should place modulation after drive but a number of the tones we chase (some of which are listed in the post that starts this thread) were stomboxes through distorted Marshalls or whatever.

EVH - MXR 117 flanger and phase 90 both typically through the front of his amp. His later career fx rack stuff sounded like plastic.

Adam Jones - Boss BF2 flanger into the front of multiple amps.

The 80s rack chorus tones sucked outside the Roland/Boss stuff.

100%

I almost always prefer running modulation effects in front of the amp/distortion rather than in the loop or after the amp
 
100%

I almost always prefer running modulation effects in front of the amp/distortion rather than in the loop or after the amp
There’s a big enough contextual shift between how they sound out front vs in a loop that I really consider “pre” amp chorus/flanger/phaser and “post” amp c/f/p as totally different fx.

There are times where I do like the loop version, but yeah, for the tones I use and love most those fx are out front creating texture.
 
Phase is just the sound of the 70s to me, and I think it imprinted on my brain growing up hearing my dad's records around the house all the time (Peter Frampton, Amazing Rhythm Aces, Johnny Winter).
I LOVE me a good lumpy phaser into a breaking up tube amp. At volume it breathes and feels alive - like it’s part of the instrument. It gets even more pronounced with something like the dejavibe.
 
Back
Top