The hiss is definitely the shallow water. Went through same process I was like “damn I got the one which hisses like crazy” and then listened to other ones and was like ahhhhh it’s just the lil homie hissing and hanging out and having a good time
Fairfield’s stuff is amazing. Their Meet Maude analog delay has a similar random modulation that allows varying levels of instability. Haven’t tried any of their pedals I haven’t absolutely loved.
Facts. I use 2 shallow water and 2 meet maude as stereo pair. Wonderful pedals. Meet maude sadly does not have a dip switch for line level so she gets quite noisy
When you brought the point up about relinquishing control over modulation to the Shallow Water, that kinda blew my mind. That's been my process for years. I buy pedals or gear that add character and makes it more simple for me to write the music i want to create. I've beaten myself up for this process because I felt like a bit of a fraud for not programming in modulation myself. Thanks for putting things in to perspective for me my dude!
Pretty sure the noise is the preamp getting overloaded. There's a pad located on the inside of the pedal to change the input gain to change the amount of noise and how the filter is being hit aswell.
I think the noise may be the bucket brigade chip’s natural character. this pedal allows you to tame it with the low pass gate knob, which can also be tuned with an internal trim pot
@@judahdadone9410 this is correct. I have this pedal and if the low-pass gate is fully open it has noise. Gain staging will not change it. It has a wonderful sound that is worth the noise. Generally I find I leave the low pass gate partially closed and then just make my source material brighter which should reduce the noise in the end
Yes, on the Habit! Between yourself and Noir, the slight curiosity about incorporating pedals into my workflow is becoming an obsession. I still have this Waza Craft that I haven't touched... Nice track!
Always love your videos, dude. I've watched hours of 'em but I've never commented. I've had the Shallow Water for a while now, using it with synths and guitars, and until now I had only run it into a delay. For some reason, I had never considered running a delay into it. This is brilliant, I tried it out this evening and was blown away. Cheers!
14:10 that's a golden nugget here. "when I can give away a bit of that control, I can make music faster..." totally. Shallow Water does the job, and it's complex enough to be super pleasing. the joy of analog circuits! good overview.
Ricky, that radio sound is coming from the bucket brigade chip, I believe. There is an internal trim pot to adjust the set point for the low pass gate, if my memory serves, which would give u some control over how much of the higher frequencies in the bucket brigade are coming thru. Bucket brigades are always noisy in the mid/high frequencies but I believe most BBD circuits filter out that noise, which is why analog delays are so dark
This is practically an always-on pedal for me. FFC uses FETs in most of their pedals, so yes, it can be pushed for excellent drive-like tones. As for stereo, I run mine into a Boss DD-7 delay for either super-short, almost nothing stereo delays, to some serious ping-pong sounds. I’ve had mind for a year, and I can’t stop using it either-it’s a keeper for sure. And so, thanks for this great video.
I asked Fairfield about the same "artifacts" mentioned at 2:20 . On guitar they sound like blurbs or blorps. They said it's purposeful, moving it left will lessen it.
These are made up here in Canada! Every jam I run through this pedal sounds like it came from some other studio in some other time. I'll keep it always.
I probably would've gotten it already if it was stereo, so I bought the WalrusAudio Julianna instead. But Ricky, how does the Shallow Water compare to the Eventide Tricerachorus? You used to love that, didn't you?
Fairfield rules! Love this box, happy you’re trying it out. If you really want stereo, you could always buy another…or if you don’t, and you’ve got tracks recorded already, doing a send with the Left then the Right works. Way fussier, and only good in the studio but the results can be worth it. Also, worth mentioning, the boost/grittiness of it can be turned off via an internal switch. It sounds really good but if you want to do your crunch somewhere else, can be a good feature.
@@digitallucbeats if you’re referring to turning off the Jfet, check the manual. If you’re referring getting stereo, you’d setup an fx send situation with your interface, send your right channel to the box, and record the output in real time. Then repeat with the left channel. I would not call it practical for most things but can sound great on a finished recording that you’re trying to sweeten.
Owner of OG Generation Loss here, tellin you that you won't regret it. I'm using it as a filter, lo-fi, faux vibrato stuff, very good pedal indeed. Got it for 250$, used
You could probably record each side of a sample through the box separately to keep the stereo sound. Not too much work with Ableton's Utility L/R device
I miss my zvex instant lofi pedal. Similar vibe to this but also had a compressor that just made drums sound incredible. Also the mix halfway, with that compressor, made for an amazingly grungy chorus, especially on guitar
@@RickyTinez i have two also.. the slight variation is warble on each side gives a CRAZY wide stereo effect, just don't tell everyone... secret weapon. oops
For stereo, you're supposed to use this on one side and Warped Vinyl Mk2 (not the newer Hifi version) on the other side. There are other valid substitutions. Then you re-stereo-ize both of THOSE outputs, using 2 mono to stereo chorus/delay/reverb/etc pedals. And then recombine them in a mixer or DAW back to a single stereo track.
i have one of these. it's subtle for the most part but very effective if you want to make it back to the 80's. i'm actually going to pick up a meet maude next. the sketch cassette plug-in will take you there as well with the added compression and hiss.
I'd love a video on the Habit. I got one a few weeks ago and love it to death, and it seems like every Habit demo I see has a very different approach to it. I'd love to see your take.
New fan! Its nice seeing demos of smaller companies. I guess maybe you could say non mainstream. besides all that babble I love how you lite your videos. Being a photographer it’s nice to see someone use depth of field and shadows to create something nice to look at. I’m babbling again.
Fairfield Circuitry based in Winnipeg Canada. I bought two Shallow Waters to run them in stereo. I also got a Randy's Revenge pedal from Fairfield Circuitry - it's a ring modulator. Thanks for the video Ricky T.
do you still have zoia? You could definitely make a patch that emulates this thing but stereo! edit: could also record audio and midi simultaneously for 1 channel and then playback the midi to record audio for the second channel
K-Field Modulator is the KFM! I literally just went to check their site for prices while watching this and its there under the name Shallow Water :) Beautiful lo-fi, and your explanation of how it works describes how to recreate with other tools. I still want one tho :)
Love the channel man. Been mooching your knowledge for a couple years now. You should share your love for the Nymphes in a video. I'd love to see how you use it in your style.
Yes please for the Habit video! I'm loving mine paired with Nightsky and Zoia it can make some amazing ambient stuff. I'm keep to see how you use it though :)
I don’t really see how the Dreadbox Nymphes is pricy? It is literally the cheapest analogue poly with at least six voices. Having said that, I am not interested in it because of the lack of a screen, it sucks to memorize presets without names. The Shallow Water pedal sounds great though! :)
There are a lot of great pedals out there for keys. I recently have been using an old Line 6 Pod xt... it has a lot of great delay, drive, reverb and mod effects and sounds less clean than the new stuff... plus I run into it as mono and come out stereo...
In the software world, I like SketchCassette and Denise Bad Tape for some texture that's in this ballpark. The overdrive does sound really nice on drum machine. Reminds me of those extremely overdriven crunchy house tracks I love, like Baltra's "Summer of '98" I think it reminds me of the overdrive on the Moog CP3 style input mixer on my Manhattan Analog Discrete SVVCF module (and their CP3 mixer module, and the Detroit Modular DiY one). Divkid puts some 808 style drum machine channels into the Manhattan CP3 about 5 mins into his video. Maybe more compression, more bass boost, less gnarly upper mid overtones than the shallow water. But I often use the SVVF CP3 drive hard at end of end of a wavetable oscillator chain (e352 cloud terrarium) to fill out the bass.
I have the long life which I love but always liked the sound of this one , they make really interesting pedals P.s. the kfm stands for k-field modulation , the number is the serial number!!!
Hey Ricky 👋🏻 lurve your work mate! 🙌🏻 There have been many vids that inspired me to buy gear. Especially the BlackBox! If you’re looking to do a in-depth look at YT vid … here’s a suggestion - Please make one about the Novation Launch Control XL and how to map it to the 1010Music BlackBox properly and in detail. Got the LCXL from seeing SURCO aka Eric’s live setup. There are limited explanations defining the XL MkI and MkII, the power consumption issues the BlackBox has when piggybacking the XL, proper mapping detail of each channel and program change or how to change the 8 channel set from 1-8 to the 9-16. This would be fantastic to hear and see. Cheers from Australia 😉 🇦🇺 🍻
Talking about pedals... I'd actually love seeing you reviewing / demonstrating the Chase Bliss Habit! Would love to hear your 5 cents on it :) I'm also wondering whether you will try the Polyend Play? No pressure though ;) I love and watch all your videos. Just curious about your opinion on / workflow with these devices.
Do you think pedals add a lot to a synth setup if the DAW is already a central piece of the workflow? I can't help to think that IF you want something done to the signal chain, you might as well do it "in daw". Pardon my ignorance , I'm new :)
So cool seeing you use this pedal! It’s been a favorite of mine for a while. I have a video on my channel using it on an aux send in Ableton for jamming with my synths and drum machine you should check out!
I hope you get an OTO Boum one day. This Fairfield box does some magic for sure, but I think you'd like the Boum a lottttt.I love dirty and compressed sounding shit though, so don't mind me if that'a not your thing, haha.
i actually have a Boum! i love it, but sucks when i need to revisit a session a month or so later and i don't remember where the settings were during that session :/
I actually made one of these using a pcb pedalpcb. I love it so much, was a semi difficult build but it was worth it Edit: Btw that crackle/hiss kind of sound is just part of the circuit. you can close the filter a little bit and it will trim out some of it, you'll lose a little high end but that's just kinda how this pedal do. fwiw, it bugged me when just messing around but I've never had it be noticable in a track
@@masterofreality230 just a heads up, it's not a particularly cheap diy build. Pretty sure I spent at least 100 making mine. I'm sure you could get stuff cheaper if you shop around. But it's got a lot of components. But this was during heavy pandemic and the chips needed were almost completely gone from the Internet. Not sure what the situation is now
@@leftovernoise Alright, thanks for the heads up, I just rounded up the parts for a 29 pedals Euna, with PCB and enclosure, I will be in about I think 60-70/$ US. I might be off a bit, Tayda shipping is a bit high. I kind of like messing around with electronics though. I might get this thing called an Audotorium test platform before I do any more complicated builds, it lets you test builds before you put it in an enclosure. I would like to make things look nice and customize things eventually, its not just a money thing.
Ha ! Usually, you make a video, then I buy the thing. For once, I got this pedal a while ago. I use it a lot, it just brings feels and magic to anything.
yeah man you seem to have a bunch of cool gear.. i'd like to see how you're using the stuff, what you like what you dont.. old stuff new stuff.. anyway have a good weeekend
Hey Ricky, be interested to hear what you have to say about the upcoming MPC standalone update next month. Along with the lo-fi tape/record player effects.
No. I don't want to see another video on Habit ; ) I would however like to know if your Nord is still worth buying new, or if there are other comparable (hybrid?) digital pianos out there that are equally good or better at the same price. I've seen, among others, Hania Rani using Nord so I guess it's still got a good reputation. I don't have many pedals and as I guess most, usually use a reverb and a delay pedal with my eurorack. But I always use SW to breath life into dull and lifeless synth sounds. I find it goes very well with Strymon El Capistan or Demedash T-120, and when ambient making the music borderline Canadian..
Can you explain at some point how you connect your bluetooth headphones to your studio setup? Like do you have a bluetooth transmitter hooked up to the headphone out of your interface? And if so, which one do you use? Thanks!
A stereo chorus+reverb (not sure which way round) fed into a stereo delay would take very little mix amount to make this wide as hell. It sounds great already tho, dont get me wrong. My suggestion about chorus/reverb/delay is due to owning a Neon Egg Planetarium 2 pedal, that thing gives the most insane width to anything, instantly, subtle or wacky. Recommended purchase btw! :)
Yeah the Neon Egg is great! Well worth exploring and the compressor add the end to really thicken up the FX of then get them ducking against things is nice.
