Trails/Carryover For Distortion?

[DarthTangYang]

I have a question that I can't find an answer to anywhere. We all know there are delay and reverb pedals that come with a trail function, allowing the effect to continue and fade out after you've disengaged the pedal. However, I wonder whether or not there's a way to basically achieve the same when disengaging a distortion pedal. Let's say you play a song that has heavy distortion on its chorus but clean or a completely different effect on its verse. When you step on that distortion pedal (disengaging it) you get a hard break between the effect and your clean sound. Is there any way of allowing the distortion to trail and keep ringing for a while afterwards, allowing you to start playing the clean part while the trail from the distortion smoothly fades away in the background?

 

[Chistopher]

There are a lot of "bad" ways to do it that you can experiment with to get something similar to what you want.

Volume pedal -> distortion -> sustainer would help for a more natural transition from dirty to clean at the expense of dynamics. You would use the volume pedal the same way you would a gain control.

 

[Securb]

I am trying to get my head around what you are trying to do. Are you looking to dovetail the parts? As the heavy part fades out the clean part fades in? Or are you looking for the distortion to gradually fade as you are transitioning from one part of the song to another?

 

[Mincer]

I think it is called having 2 guitarists. You can sort of do this with a delay, though, and good timing. Being that it is difficult to play 2 parts at once to do a proper crossfade.

 

[eclecticsynergy]

I've got a Pro Multiwave distortion from Source Audio with an unusual configuration: Six presets, in two banks of three.
With an expression pedal, you can morph smoothly and completely between the two banks: 1 turns into 4, 2 into 5, and 3 into 6.
This includes all settings including the programmable 7-band EQ and various modes of OD or multispectral distortion.

Can sweep from semiclean (or just EQ'd) into high gain distortion, or simply from one flavor of OD to another.
It has separate dry and distorted volume controls, so one preset can be set up as entirely dry.
Cool possibilities there, and occasionally some pretty wild sounds halfway between highly disparate types of processing.

Morphing can also be done on some advanced rigs using an expression pedal to change from one set of gain/tone/volume settings to another.
I'm sure most of the modelers must be able to do this.

My old school Triaxis tube preamp can accept a MIDI expression pedal to sweep all the continuously-variable settings between two preset values.
I've never used that capability, but it could be programmed to do what the OP wants.
One limit is, you can't sweep from one preamp to a completely different circuit configuration: only the parameter settings themselves will morph.
To go from one preamp mode to a different one, you'd still need to use program change, not just MIDI pedal or other CC remote control.
That's because in Triaxis, some sections of the circuit rearrange themselves like building blocks for different preamps.
But there's a lot of range in some of those preamp circuits.
The Mk IIC+, Blackface, and Recto modes all can do both great cleans and drive tones.

 

[NegativeEase]

Best way to do this is build a crossfade pedal from a Volume Pedal but stacking a second pot opening a circuit while the other closes on the rotation -its an easy thing to mod.

 

[chadd]

EH Freeze pedal would allow you to do that if you're using a dirt pedal in front of it or possibly in the loop

 

[DarthTangYang]

EH Freeze pedal would allow you to do that if you're using a dirt pedal in front of it or possibly in the loop

The Freeze looks like a very interesting pedal. However, if I understand the function of it correctly I would have to step on its switch right after I've struk the last distorted chord (or single note) and keep my foot on it while I simultaneously disengage the distortion with my other foot in order to be able to continue playing the clean part that follows and keep my foot on the Freeze switch for a few seconds to get the distorted last chord/note to keep ringing out while playing the clean tone. And when I feel the distortion has done its job crossing over to the clean part of the song I let go of the freeze.

This would only work while sitting down. It's too hard to use both feet at the same time while also standing up. If I could simply program the freeze so that it holds the last distorted chord and slowly fades it away without me having to hold my foot on it. This would allow for me to disengage the distortion pedal and continue by playing the clean part of the song.

 

[Mincer]

Well, the Freeze doesn't really sound like someone holding out a chord. It samples such a small portion of the signal that it doesn't really sound a whole lot like guitar.

 

[beaubrummels]

It would require a delay or reverb that samples a portion of the last played sound through the distortion and plays that through the delay/reverb while you've switched over to clean, then somehow automatically calculate how fast to fade the distorted delay/reverb part out. I doubt there's a real practical way to make such a thing work. Requires too much mind-reading to automate.

 

[Mincer]

It might come down to coming up with a more creative way to make the transition.

 

[eclecticsynergy]

IMO a delay with trails is by far the most convenient practical option.

 

[DarthTangYang]

I managed to find three other sustainer pedals that might be able to pull it off. The TC Electronic Infinite Sample Sustainer, Electro Harmonix more complex and updated version of their Freeze called Superego as well as their Superego+. Then there's a company in Latvia called Gamechanger Audio that has made a sustainer pedal called Plus. Gamechanger's pedal looks really cool as it's designed just like a piano sustainer pedal. All these basically do the same thing but I haven't managed to find any demonstration videos of them going from heavy distortion to clean or a completely different effect. I suspect the distortion would sound like a really badly digital modelling of a distortion, so basically a distorted synthesizer.

 

[Mincer]

They work by sampling a small portion of the signal, and then looping it. I don't think any of those pedals will do what you want. You can try a elay pedal, with expression control of feedback and level...that is another way of approaching this. Or re-arrange the parts so they are easier to transition.

 

[Aceman]

We are basically talking about going from dirty to clean gradually, right?

 

[chadd]

We are basically talking about going from dirty to clean gradually, right?

Holding the dirt while he switches to clean and plays something clean over the dirt. Essentially two parts with two different sounds at the same time.



Honestly, triggering a sample with the clean part while you hold and fade the chord would be the easiest way. Especially if you want more/different effects on the clean part as well.

 

[Mincer]

Holding the dirt while he switches to clean and plays something clean over the dirt. Essentially two parts with two different sounds at the same time.



Honestly, triggering a sample with the clean part while you hold and fade the chord would be the easiest way. Especially if you want more/different effects on the clean part as well.

The issue becomes the tempo...triggering a sample and making sure it is in time with the drummer (who has to play super consistently) seems like a lot of work without a clicktrack the sampler can sync to.
I think just re-arranging the the seam between the 2 parts is the easiest (and most creative) way to approach this.

 

[Aceman]

Just use a delay with a hold. I don't think that's what he want.

 

[DarthTangYang]

We are basically talking about going from dirty to clean gradually, right?

Well, no. I would like to hit the last distorted chord/note and be able to let it ring out and fade away while I quickly switch to a clean tone and start playing while the distortion is still fading out in the background. So basically what you would do when having two guitars being overdubbed or simply having two guitars.

 

[Mincer]

I do this with a delay that has expression pedal control of the feedback and volume. The delay needs to have 'trails on' for this to work. Play the last note, turn delay off then slowly increase feedback. Works pretty well.