Fv-1 capabilities

[Joel]

Hi all,

Long time lurker, looking to get more into digital effects and so on. Long time builder of many analogue pedals and experienced with microprocessor programing.

I've recently been fascinated by the sound of the Nuenaber Seraphim shimmer. I've heard a few examples of fv-1 shimmers, but to me they always sound less full and expansive with a more modulated/bending sound in the tails. Before I try and make a start on building/programing my own I'm curious if the FV-1 is capable of achieving something very close if not as close to the same as the seraphim. Or is a more complex DSP needed to achieve this? I've linked a video for reference, the shimmer starts around 6 mins.

Thanks!

[ElectricDruid]

The thing that strikes me most about that Neunaber Shimmer is the highpass shelving filter on the reverb that gives it that "rising/floating off into space" quality. I'm sure the FV-1 could pull off a bit of highpass in a reverb loop. I'm not a serious FV-1 programmer though.

Tom

[Digital Larry]

One thing to be careful about when using pitch shift with the FV-1 is controlling the high end which can get harsh.  Assuming the Neunaber uses the FV-1 I presume that he did some tone tweaking to get it sounding that nice, but it's perfectly reasonable.   Lots of FV-1 reverb patches include the "smoothing" but which is pretty much a chorus type thing inside the reverb loop that smears the sound out but can also sound chorus-y if you're not careful. 

Here's a pedal with some patches I did for a guy down in Brazil.  The middle one is a shimmer. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDGN5nVGr7E

[Joel]

Larry, that pedal of yours sounds fantastic. If I can achieve something similar to that I'll be very happy. It's interesting that you mention the "smoothing" causing a chorus effect because I suspect this is what I'm hearing regarding a bending of the shimmer. Perhaps there is a way to achieve a "smoothed" sound with minimal modulation, similar to what you've done with your patches.

I had noticed that the more commercial shimmers all apply a similar high pass to the reverb in order to make it sound more spacey. This is getting me excited for a bit of tinkering.

[Digital Larry]

Thanks for the comments about the sounds in the King pedal.  That was an interesting project to work on for a few reasons.  #1 I was trying to satisfy someone else's tastes #2 there was a bit of a language barrier, though his English was better than my Portuguese #3 doing sound design with someone thousands of miles away is REALLY difficult and one of the reasons I think I'm going to stop doing this sort of thing... it's more frustration than it turns out to be worth.  Although I'm glad I did it a few times just to have that sort of collaborative experience.

I don't think there's any standard definition of shimmer to begin with.  I've seen some shimmer patches which just had an octave pitch shift before going into the reverb.  Then there are others that include the pitch shift inside the reverb feedback loop and so you will get that "ascending to heaven" effect which I must say is pretty trippy but won't cut it at the blues jam.

One of the Spin shimmer code examples in circulation has a strange bug (in my opinion, anyway) that makes the pitch shifted sound much more subtle than it could be otherwise.  I looked at that one for a long time and although "it works" it still strikes me as "wrong".  Some people prefer it though!

I don't really claim to be an expert on digital reverbs though I have studied them a lot.  The supplied examples from Spin fall into several categories, however in general looking at the code it's hard to understand how all the magic numbers were arrived at.  It's also hard to hear the effects of changing a single parameter in a complex reverb.  It is a wide open field for experimentation if you have a LOT of time.  I wish I'd gotten involved in this stuff 5 years before I did, but oh well.