- Joined
- Jan 6, 2018
- Messages
- 853
- Reaction score
- 1,139
- Real Name
- Steve Gregory
This pedal does pretty much all modulation types: chorus, flanger, and phaser, and gives you several flavors of each type to choose from. You can only save two presets, but I only use two mod pedals anyway. It seemed to me that if I could get a decent chorus programmed to one footswitch, and a decent phaser on the other, I could swap out two pedals for one, freeing up space for another goodie.
The phaser was the quickest for me to dial in. I've been very loyal to the humble Boss PH-3 for years now, really enjoying its 10-stage setting. But I quickly found a 12-stage phaser setting on the Orbital that puts the Boss to shame, at least in my living room. We'll see how it fares in the mix next week at rehearsal.
The chorus was trickier to dial in. To be blunt, this thing does not have a good chorus hiding in it, at least that I could find. All the chorus settings I tried sounded harsh and unmusical when A/B'd with my MXR Chorus (and I am not in love with the MXR by any means). I was about to give up when I ventured over into flanger land. I'm not 100% convinced just yet, but I'm thinking I might like the "zero thru" flanger setting on this baby better than I like my MXR chorus for the bass lines I normally use chorus on. So there's hope. Again, the mix will be the final judge, but I'm hopeful I can make this thing work for me.
One neat feature that this pedal has is a "mod source" selector knob. This lets you choose between sine and square waves LFOs, or modulation can even be based on the envelope, something like the Pigtronix Envelope Phaser. I found a setting under the "classic" mode (an alleged cross between chorus and flanger) that could easily stand in for an envelope filter in a pinch.
@ectoflanger currently has a tremolo thread going, and I promised him a report on this unit's tremolo capabilities. I'm not blown away, to be honest. It doesn't have a tremolo setting per se, but a tremolo parameter. So generally you get your tremolo paired with another effect. The instructions manual does show a setting for a straight tremolo sound, but it's pretty subtle. I was hoping for a wider range of volume fluctuation. It would be cool if it could go from completely silent to full volume, but it doesn't come close to that. I was really hoping one could use the envelope modulation in conjunction with the tremolo to make a Boss Slow Gear type of effect, but alas, it was not to be.
Again, these are just first impressions from my living room. I'll post again as my opinions evolve. A pedal this complex is bound to give up its secrets slowly.
The phaser was the quickest for me to dial in. I've been very loyal to the humble Boss PH-3 for years now, really enjoying its 10-stage setting. But I quickly found a 12-stage phaser setting on the Orbital that puts the Boss to shame, at least in my living room. We'll see how it fares in the mix next week at rehearsal.
The chorus was trickier to dial in. To be blunt, this thing does not have a good chorus hiding in it, at least that I could find. All the chorus settings I tried sounded harsh and unmusical when A/B'd with my MXR Chorus (and I am not in love with the MXR by any means). I was about to give up when I ventured over into flanger land. I'm not 100% convinced just yet, but I'm thinking I might like the "zero thru" flanger setting on this baby better than I like my MXR chorus for the bass lines I normally use chorus on. So there's hope. Again, the mix will be the final judge, but I'm hopeful I can make this thing work for me.
One neat feature that this pedal has is a "mod source" selector knob. This lets you choose between sine and square waves LFOs, or modulation can even be based on the envelope, something like the Pigtronix Envelope Phaser. I found a setting under the "classic" mode (an alleged cross between chorus and flanger) that could easily stand in for an envelope filter in a pinch.
@ectoflanger currently has a tremolo thread going, and I promised him a report on this unit's tremolo capabilities. I'm not blown away, to be honest. It doesn't have a tremolo setting per se, but a tremolo parameter. So generally you get your tremolo paired with another effect. The instructions manual does show a setting for a straight tremolo sound, but it's pretty subtle. I was hoping for a wider range of volume fluctuation. It would be cool if it could go from completely silent to full volume, but it doesn't come close to that. I was really hoping one could use the envelope modulation in conjunction with the tremolo to make a Boss Slow Gear type of effect, but alas, it was not to be.
Again, these are just first impressions from my living room. I'll post again as my opinions evolve. A pedal this complex is bound to give up its secrets slowly.