arachnaut
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All-pass Phaser Comb used by NAZZ - "Open My Eyes"
Todd Rundgren made his debut in the group Nazz and they had this classic song "Open My Eyes". There was a characteristic dirty allpass-phaser-comb effect in the song. If you've heard it you know it. I've been trying to accomplish this effect, but digital stuff is so precise and too clean. What was the unit used to make that effect originally? Does anyone know the magic needed to do this with more modern stuff. I've tried various stages of all-pass filters and comb units with different types of feedback. The basic effect is to sweep the all-pass frequency and/or comb frequency with an LFO - that gives you that take-off effect and it's easy and well-known. But I can't get that magic grit to happen. Some sort of saturator or noise seems to be added - or maybe a vocoder with a comb carrier.
post edited by arachnaut - 2014/04/29 14:01:52
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craigb
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Re: All-pass Phaser Comb used by NAZZ - "Open My Eyes"
2014/04/29 14:07:52
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Hmm... Can't help since I use my G-Force for this type of effect (a modified version of the patch "Lipstick") and that probably falls under the too precise and clean heading. 
Time for all of you to head over to Beyond My DAW!
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arachnaut
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Re: All-pass Phaser Comb used by NAZZ - "Open My Eyes"
2014/04/29 14:32:00
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I'm not a guitarist, I was looking for some basic VST-like suggestions, not external hardware. I'm getting fair results with this in Reaktor, but I need more tweaks:
post edited by arachnaut - 2014/04/29 15:03:45
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yorolpal
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Re: All-pass Phaser Comb used by NAZZ - "Open My Eyes"
2014/04/29 18:19:09
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Why not try a saturator or distortion plug along with your phaser?
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arachnaut
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Re: All-pass Phaser Comb used by NAZZ - "Open My Eyes"
2014/04/29 20:27:54
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Yes saturation would be my next step. A few LFOs here and there keep the patterns in the sound from becoming apparent. Once I get one stage sounding right, I can gang together as many as I like for greater depth and intensity. I was hoping some of the old guitarists here might know what the unit may have been and I could check on the original design. It was probably a few op amps in an all-pass circuit and maybe a diode bridge in the feedback path as a non-linear distorter. This album was made in the 60's - for those to whom it is unfamiliar (around 2:20 is the sound I'm looking for) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPuNg0QaduQ
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yorolpal
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Re: All-pass Phaser Comb used by NAZZ - "Open My Eyes"
2014/04/29 22:09:41
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Back then the only thing like that available at my little piddly assed music store was a "Phase 90" by MXR. Two other candidates...one earlier, one later... Earlier...UniVibe Later...MuTron BiPhase
post edited by yorolpal - 2014/04/29 22:13:46
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craigb
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Re: All-pass Phaser Comb used by NAZZ - "Open My Eyes"
2014/04/29 22:25:46
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Heh, I still have my Phase 90!
Rundgren uses a lot of effects (including a Clavenet through a phaser), but I'm thinking he may have used some kind of fuzz box (think Big Muff type) on that song. I don't know. I tend to just keep trying combinations until I get the effect I'm looking for (even if it's not exactly how the original artist made that sound).
Time for all of you to head over to Beyond My DAW!
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arachnaut
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Re: All-pass Phaser Comb used by NAZZ - "Open My Eyes"
2014/04/29 22:37:23
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There's a clone of that. The circuit is just an all-pass, a few stages, with feedback. No delay lines. http://buildyourownclone.com/phaseroyal.html I believe the noisy quality was probably due to the available electronics back then. I remember seeing designs like this in Popular Electronics during that time. A friend built one that had this sound, but I don't remember how he did it. I think it was just a simple op-amp circuit like the schematic in the clone. I think I'll look through my Guitar Rig presets - there's probably something that does this already. Thanks. I'm pretty sure now that no delays are needed unless this was a flange effect done in the studio on the reel-to-reel. Todd was always into the weird stuff, so maybe he did that. But the flange effect wouldn't be that noisy.
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arachnaut
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Re: All-pass Phaser Comb used by NAZZ - "Open My Eyes"
2014/04/29 22:41:57
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I'm not trying to reproduce that exact effect or anything about the song.
I'm trying to build a carrier signal for the new MeldaProduction MVocoder I just bought.
I thought something with raspy phasiness would work nicely and that song came to mind.
- Jim Hurley - SONAR Platinum - x64 - Windows 10 Pro ASUS P8P67 PRO Rev 3.0; Core i7-2600K@4.4GHz; 16 GB G.SKILL Ripjaws X; GeForce GT 740; Saffire Pro14 MixControl 3.7; Axiom 61 64-Bit audio, SR: 48kHz, ASIO 256 samples latency, Rec/Play I/O Buffers 512k, Total Round Trip Latency 13 ms, Pow-r 3 dither
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arachnaut
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Re: All-pass Phaser Comb used by NAZZ - "Open My Eyes"
2014/04/29 22:45:33
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By the way, I tried making a matrix of vocoders. The carrier of the vocoder was one separate vocoder and the modulator was a third vocoder. Had some success, but the sounds have to stay in sync pretty tightly. So much depends on the sound sources.
post edited by arachnaut - 2014/04/29 22:47:52
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arachnaut
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Re: All-pass Phaser Comb used by NAZZ - "Open My Eyes"
2014/04/30 00:22:35
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I settled for this: 
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auto_da_fe
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Re: All-pass Phaser Comb used by NAZZ - "Open My Eyes"
2014/04/30 08:11:57
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I saw Todd on a Live at Darryl's.
Sweet set up he has in Hawaii.
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drewfx1
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Re: All-pass Phaser Comb used by NAZZ - "Open My Eyes"
2014/04/30 12:06:27
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If it was the 60's, I believe the only thing available was the Univibe. The MXR and the Biphase are from the mid 70's
 In order, then, to discover the limit of deepest tones, it is necessary not only to produce very violent agitations in the air but to give these the form of simple pendular vibrations. - Hermann von Helmholtz, predicting the role of the electric bassist in 1877.
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arachnaut
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Re: All-pass Phaser Comb used by NAZZ - "Open My Eyes"
2014/04/30 14:08:06
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The Univibe is analyzed here: http://geofex.com/Article_Folders/univibe/univtech.htm Don't forget that the whole mix was sent through something, not just the guitars and instruments. That's why I thought it may have been a conventional tape flange studio technique - but that would not explain the noisey grit, would it? The UniVibe had those CdS photocells which controlled the phasing and they are pretty noisy, I believe. These things are often used in Photocell based optocouplers, feedback isolation, primitive voltage control, and even on compressors. They have a pretty long time constant on the rate of change and work on incandescents very well. This seems like it may have been what was used.
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