Guitar Pedals for Ambient/Experimental Music: Part 1 

Tremolo pedal: Adds tremolo Vibrato pedal: Adds vibrato Delay pedal: I T ' S M O R P H I N T I M E

That is so cool. The other day, I turned VLC player on my desktop PC and then kept hearing this strange ethereal feedback coming out of my speakers which kind of spooked me out. I then realised that I had left the webcam on and it's microphone was picking up the background sound from the PC's speakers via VLC and I worked out that using VLC's own sound adjustment levels I was able to crudely change the parameters of the feedback.

My favorite quote about pedals are that they are "Poor Man's Outboard Gear" and I really love them for that reason.

I was quite surprised in the end when you brought out the bass guitar and mentioned QOTSA, didn't know that you were a fan of the fuzz bass sound of stoner rock! Respect! Keep it up!

nice work. thank you for this channel , been enjoying it a lot since i found it recently. inspiring and relaxing at the same time....

WOWWW ! Absolutely killing me with the frequency analyzer demos !!! I immediately fell in love with filter mode ! 😍

you have made me rediscover my kalimba and my once forgotten stash of vintage lapel mics! thank you!! hooked them up this past weekend as well as my grandfather's old shortwave radio and messed around for a few hours... sounds horrible, but was fun!

I'm in love with that Digidelay! It sounds so nice when paired with a kalimba

I love using pedals with my synths and stuff - as much as I enjoy using vst fx for getting tracks into their final shape, recording with something tasty on the original signal usually helps to push the sound into deeper/weirder sonic territory. Which is always a good thing, obviously. I'm looking forward to the 2nd part. Keep up the excellent work.

That Frequency Analyzer is a beast! I do love the frequency shifter in my Field Kit FX. The first music I recorded back in the 90s was with a bass through a few pedals into a tape recorder. Think freestyle industrial noise. It was a lot of fun but everyone thought I was mad in the head when they heard it back.

Pedals have always been one of my favorite parts of playing electric guitar, and I'm very excited to work them into synth playing as I start experimenting with that. One of my favorites is the Ibanez Echo Shifter ES2 - it's an analog delay with very lo-fi repeats, meant to emulate a tape delay, and it's VERY playable. The delay time is anywhere from slapback fast to almost a second between repeats, it has built in modulation, and an oscillate switch that automatically makes it feed back on itself for infinite repeats and spaceship noises. I also quite dig the Small Clone chorus for adding a little extra space to a sound, and the Swollen Pickle fuzz is SUPER tweakable. I really want to mess with the EHX Frequency Analyzer and Electric Mistress though, especially given you can use both as manually sweepable filters

I've gigged with enough behringer pedals to know they won't break as long as you don't slam your foot on them like you're trying to smash a can or a gourd or something. A trick you can use the digitech that I use is really, really short loops. Sub second loops. You get these wild stutters. I usually throw a modulation pedal after it, but it's great for snatching stuttery stuff. Highly recommend.

17:36 bass+fuzz does that to you! :) Thank you for your videos and music, I'm so glad I found them!

Damn that Ring modulator is huge and beautiful.

I've been using that Digitech Delay for years and years, it wasn't that cheap when i got it new! Brilliant pedal.

Super useful video, I didn’t know how badly I needed ring mod in my life till I saw this, thank you!

I second the Ibanez Echo Shifter, my favourite ever echo. I passed over the EHX Frequency Analyser in favour of the Way Huge Ring Worm ........... wow what a ring mod that is!

I've had my behringer echo machine for 2 years, she's doing just fine and sounds great. No cracks

Dude, I am in love with your channel! It is a gold mine!

Excellent. Looking forward to part 2.

Excellent work as ever Hainbach, I use 2 banks of pedals (including one of my own designs), tape loops, 2 turntables (mainly for spoken word), my homebrewed drone synth and virtual dj (for my own edits and samples of classic ambient samples). I have recently bought a delay circuit board to box up, for a third feedback loop, I would love to buy a SE 20 but its out of my price range. Thanks to your video I have discovered the amazing Digitech Digital delay, that continuous delay loop effect is exactly what I'm after. I'm going to sell this new delay circuit on and buy one straight away, I am very grateful, keep up the good work, I can't wait till this evening to watch part 2.

What’s this?! An ambient/experimental list without Eventide Space Reverb or a Big sky? Really appreciate the video that isn’t just the same parroted gear. Also for a pretty solid budget delay I love the Donner Yellow Fall. $39 on amazon but does its job pretty damn well. Love your content.

those canadians NEED deep sub bass

thank you! looking forward to the video on your live pedal set up.

sitting poking around in frutyloops over a techno track and receive email from your new vidosik with AmbiCom, as always, great sound< respect!!!

yas! in agreement throughout. also tremolo is so underrated.

Your videos are always so inspiring. I find myself expanding on the ideas presented, jodding down notes on what to try next time I have the chance. Like now, I'm thinking about how an overdriven flute would sound through a ringmod and I'm so excited to get back home to compose! Thanks for making this video, as always. I'm super impressed how quick you did it too!

Inspiring! I have SO many toys that have been patiently waiting to be thrown into the mix of a creative new approach to my recording. I bought my Kalimba in 1976 before I went to spend a year in the Indian Ocean - actually on an island in the Indian Ocean. Cool stuff!

The Boss PS-2 is my favourite guitar pedal. I use it a lot for prepared guitar and no-input mixing stuff, I've yet to see another pitchshifter work in a microtonal way like this one does (besides possibly the Digitech Whammy, but I don't think it can go from one octave down to one octave up like the PS-2 can. It's delay not only gets thinner with each repeat, but it also gets nice and bitcrushy when it self oscillates too which I've never seen any other delay pedal do. Truly a unique beast.

Glad I watched this about piezo mic, already thinking of the uses.

I'm just getting into this kind of music making now, but I have a Electoharminix Stereo memory man w/ hazarai that i'll be using for extra looping/delay, etc. Really powerful pedal. Can't wait to get started.

Loved these sounds!

Lieber Hainbach! Als treuer Abonnent und Daumenheber wollte ich Dir schon lange mal für Deine kompetenten aber auch unterhaltsamen "Seminare" danken. Ich fühle mich dabei immer gute 40 Jahre jünger, als ich am Konservatorium Freiburg und am Experimentalstudio des SWF modulare Klangerzeugung lernen durfte. Der SWF hatte damals das erste Moog-Modularsystem (Ausbaustufe "Emerson") Deutschlands bestellt. Und wer brachte es vorbei? Prof. Bob persönlich mit einem 2-tägigen Hardcore-Seminar. Welch ein Erlebnis! Heute arbeite ich auch als Schriftsteller und möchte Dir deshalb als Dank ein kleines Gedicht von mir widmen: Ein Ton erklingt. Es ist ein Sägezahn. Steil steigt die Welle. Senkrecht fällt sie wieder ab. Ich frage mich, ob ich begriffen hab, dass dieser Ton (es ist ein Sägezahn) elektrisch ist von ein paar Volt erzeugt. Und dieser Ton, solang er tönen kann, sich schmunzelnd nur vor der Natur verbeugt /|... In diesem Sinne: Weiter so und nochmals 1000 Dank!

Love the kalimba! Great video!

hi I'm Hainbach.. good to have you bach

Man I cant thank you enough for your videos. I have been in a deep creative rute for sometime. I have been working "in the box" do YEARS, though I play several instruments. Im broke, and really though that a hardware synth was the way to go, but I had no money for it. Then I thought - hey - I have these old tape recorders I have been collecting - with some vauge nottion of hacking them at some point.... more pointedly LEARNING to hack them... as I only have the most basic of soldering skills. So I went online - looping for information about the tape looping... and I thats when I found your videos. I went immedatly, found the guitar pedals I had been refusing to let go of for.... 20 years... and then I found an old AMFM radio at the antique shop I work at - having the most fun making weird noises! I havent had this much fun since the 90s, when I got my first cracked copy of Acid Pro! Thank you!

Reminiscent of original Forbidden Planet film atmospheres : 06:48 very good indeed ✊😊

Yours, sir, is one of my favourite channel on youtube. Thank you for your work and research.

The vibrato is pretty sick, never owned the original VB-2 But from what I've heard and seen online it's pretty spot on. That digi delay has been blowing my mind lately too...i initially hated that series of pedals but there are a few worthy exceptions. The digi delay being one of them, specifically for these out there psychedelic experiments.

The weirdest inspiration. Love it!

Thank you for sharing ! Frequency Analyzer was really cool, I totally understood what you mean as electric ! I like to use the Mood drive, it really fits with everything it touches. I couldn't have the chance to try it on many instruments but I've tired it with a sub37 and it sounded like they meant for each other. And I suprised when you said Queens of The Stone Age, I didn't expect you to listen to them :D maybe you not but you sound that you definitely enjoy those sounds ! Cheers !!

Great sound composing

Great video. Based on this I just ordered the electro harmonix frequency analyzer. I do a lot of ring kid my grand piano and this may fit into that workflow. But I’m really eager to see what it sounds like with the lLyra -8 synth. Thanks for the inspiration.

Loved loved loved it. Subscribed!

playing the bass was great - would love to see some stuff around dictaphones and the pedal options there!

Really great stuff!

Awesome. really digging it

as always...amazing!

I must be doing something right because I did the same for my CS-01. It's a single oscillator beautifully simple synth that sounds fantastic when you add some FX pedals.

nice to see you have the TR8S. i love that thing so much. the assignable LFO makes it so i can get a creepy tape-like warble to my beats.

4:55 - 5:02 "Help! I've fallen to the center of the universe." . . . "It's dark down here."

Don't sleep on the Empress Echosystem! Dual effects engines running in serial or parallel, plus presets. I run mine into a Boomerang Looper and I love it.

so cool. very Quay Brothers-esque.

I just bought one of those Behringer vibrato pedals the other day. It honestly sounds fantastic for the price. I might try to rehouse it in an aluminum enclosure eventually.

Thank you very much!

"from dub to total destruction" the PiL story

love pedals:) going to buy a bigsky ne t year. i love reverb and delays... aaand putting a 303 into my boss bd2 is soo satisfying;)

Brilliant!

I love it!!

That’s Behringer vibrato pedal is great for simulating tape warble

This is beyond fantastic. Thank you so much. :-) :-) :-)

The EHX ring thing is the (newer) big brother of that ring mod and I believe it has a CV in.

thank you for an other great video ... maybe helps me to get simpler setup

man I enjoyed this one

SUPER COOL

Enjoyed your video no one ever showed me anything had to figure things out I have a Korg synth modulator A sampler with many.sounds ring modulator reverse play bake etc. A Roland two occilator synth many effects pan etc.

Have you ever ever tired turning back the tone knob on the bass itself, with fuzz jacked up? I love playing with the tone with the bass.

The frequency analyzer reminds me of the opening track to Geogaddi by Boards of Canada

I had that synth! Sold it, like a fool.

"The big muff however, is a bit more rough, and I like it..." Thought you were gonna say "rough"

Hi! I do enjoy the way you connect together such various generations of devices, and find out the best of their possibilities. These combinations of pedals are truly expressive: thanks a lot for sharing your discoveries! I am also very curious about the « Macumbista Soundbox ». Is there a link to find the schematics of the inner circuit? All the best!

IT NEVER BLINKS.

I love the content on the channel, simply excellent. I have a question about pedals and reamp boxes though. I've been running sound out of Ableton through my interface and into a number of pedals (Syntax Error & Wampler Tape Echo) and running back again into Ableton.. but I've read I need a reamp box to do this properly, although others say its not needed. Have you any experience with this particular application? I actually think it's degrading the sound a little and perhaps a reamp box is in fact needed?

Hi Hainbach, great video as always! I was wondering if you’d ever worked with the “no input mixer” technique, id love to hear what you could create!

Interesting! Thanks :)

I need to know what that sound box is or more detail on how to find something similar!

Do you think the new Frequency Analyzer from EHX is the same as the vintage unit? It sounds amazing.

I didn’t catch the name of the soundbox near the beginning - the speaker/spring/contact mic machine. What was it?

"With Booted Feet" - great song title...

Really cool man, thanks! guitar pedals are truely wonderful but little big tone shapers. Really enjoyed your Rocking side, we know you're an ambient wizard but who knew you were a rock god? Lol....love the fuzz bass....just for fun

is there a difference between the Electro Harmonix EH-5000 RING MODULATOR EHX and the newer ring modulator?

Sagenhaft auf was für du Ideen du mich bringst! Danke!

Can you do a video on mixing and routing?

You didn't use the Boss PS-2 and that's precisely what I was waiting for, just to take the opportunity to ask you about your opinion on early digital pedals... But I'm doing it anyway! I'm thinking on getting one of those (I just got a RV-2 and I thought it would be the perfect companion), but there's something that holds me back. Looking at its specs (or the specs of any other digital effect from that era) makes me think not only if it's worth investing more money in something that's been vastly improved, but also if their sound quality is somehow acceptable in terms of sample rates and bit depths.

just picked up the Digidelay and a Joyo time magic together for 110 (au) ...around 85 USD ....very excited to have a play ... Thank you for the video.

I'm curious on your take on the murf, i have always been unsure about committing to purchasing one. I have never seen it as something that i would use.

🤘

Вы очень похожи на Егора Летова (культовый русский рок-исполнитель). Очень приятно вас смотреть.

What camera do you use for filming these videos?

I’ve had the regular Moog Murf since it’s release, it’s still a mystery to me...

Evil bass sound!, 🤣👌

warum blinzeltst du eigentlich nie? ^^ das ist nen geiler channel hier mit super videos! thank u for sharing :)

I was wondering if you feedback looped. I have been experimenting running pedals in parallel recently, I like it a lot. I have never seen a CS01, I have a CS5 and love it.

Wow I really liked what you did with the drum machine. Can you do more stuff on exploring lo-fi drum machine tones? I have the same drum machine and I am looking for ways to improve the tone.

Really impressive and cool! Inspiring even! I am going to keep it simple for myself currently, but would you mind if I sample some of these sounds? Have you ever made any sample packs for OP 1 or OP Z? ps .... I had English closed captioning on from a previous video, and it is pretty funny what that think you are saying. You communicated eloquently. Thank you for posting!

Hey, mal wieder sehr schöne Sounds! Sag mal, hat das Digitech einen Ping-Pong Mode, bzw. ist das in den Presets im Stereomudos voreingestellt?

Hail big muff

Where to buy thump-piano with built in mic?

Great video and pedal combo showcase. I connected drum machine to infinite jets, the sound was so weird that i left it working for 1 hour on repeat. Still want to figure out how to tune fm synth to make it sound interesting with this pedal. Do you have any weird pedals in your shortlist that you want to try ?