Harmonic Tremolos
- Thread starter Flying
- Start date
Yep, standard tremolo, not harmonic.
Very interesting to read more about the harmonic tremolo circuit used in the Fender amps in the early 1960s. In addition to keeping the volume at a more constant level because of the out of phase boosted treble and lower-frequency channels, it seems like there will be some phase cancellation in the non-boosted parts of each channel. Thanks to Mr. PCB for putting out a new design for this effect.
Betty Wont
Well-known member
I wouldn't call it standard in a choppy way. It doesn't have any optical components if that's what defines "harmonic" but it is certainly in the swirly vibey camp in the way the frequencies are modulated.
there are some cool non-standard modulated wave forms available with conventional tremolo designs using the tapflo IC from Electric Druid. see the Wavelord pedal at madbean for a good example. all of those wave forms would also work with a harmonic tremolo design. I think there is a vero layout for the Cardinal harmonic tremolo that uses the tapflo chip.
that should be fun.Since you mentioned waveforms I guess I should mention that a harmonic version of the Trembling Loon is coming.
Since we're talking about everything but the kitchen sink in features, how about envelope control on the trem rate and depth. I saw a cool trem, or possibly it was a phaser, that had it so you could choose what the envelope did. You could have the trem kick in only when playing hard, or the opposite where it only kicked in when playing soft. Or with the rate you could have it so when you hit hard and hold it the rate starts fast and then decays down, like changing speeds on a Leslie.
I think it would be interesting to have the output from each or the phased circuits feed into a mix control so you could vary the proportion of the bass or treble circuit feeding the output. Similar to the way the shape control can range from square/sine/triangle waveforms for the trembling loon.
