McMeat/Meatball suggested settings, FX loop usage etc.

[axg20202]

Hi all,

there have been a few McMeat threads lately and I'm in the process of boxing up my own build. I was doing some digging for settings for this beast, it being quite a tricky animal to tame, so I thought I'd post my findings. I haven't tested the details below yet, but I intend to!

All the below are basically taken directly from threads on various forums, so thanks to the originators and apologies for not naming them individually. I've numbered them to split them up, but they're in no particularly order.

1) "Tourist Guide to the Meatball" 2 sample settings taken from the manual:

Standard "auto-wah" setting
Clock Times:
Sens-Attack-Decay-Colour-Intens-Blend
4------7-------11------5--------5-------5
UP and Full ------------------ one down from HI and Low Pass

Pure Meatball
Sens-Attack-Decay-Colour-Intens-Blend
4------8--------3-------5--------5--------5
Down and Full --------------- one up from Low and Low Pass

Settings-wise, keep sens. low for a light touch. Blend, colour and intensity need to be high - above 2:00. The decay time hits a sweet spot around 1:30-3:00. Use hi or lo pass mode for the most impact. Up or down mode will both work, twist the filter presets to avoid an overly shrill or bassy tone though. Fast attack times cause the signal to self-oscillate and 'shimmer', slower ones are mellower and wah-like.

It has a selector switch to shorten the waveform in half for just that reason. Adjust attack and decay to lengthen the filters rise wile selecting High Pass, Low Pass or Band Pass filtering in four frequency ranges for sonic accent. Put an OD, Distortion or Fuzz in the Loop for dramatically enhanced frequency rumbles. Turn off the Trigger and Filter and blend the Loop sound to your hearts content

With the Trigger set to UP and a long Decay the Filter opens from High to Low. Set to DOWN the filter closes from Low to High. So holding a single note or chord follows the Decay time in a pulsing giant wah sweep. It jolts and bubbles with a fuzz in the Loop. Each stroke of a chord restarts the Trigger either UP or Down. In Down each chord bang keeps the Filter closed sounding giant bass rumblings. Two simple volume pedals can control Decay and Intensity. With foot control over Decay you can size the Wah sound on the fly. With control over Intensity you add Depth to the Triggering useful for tuning in a desired filter frequency. Turn off the Trigger, switch it to Low Pass and you can do frequency sweeps of any sound with a foot controller in Intensity. Use the MB Input for this as it is a little brighter sounding then the loop.

For basic "Auto Wah", the most boring of settings, crank the Sensitivity, Colour, Intesity and Blend knobs to MAX... and play with the Attack and Decay settings till you are happy with the way the sound comes in / out vs your playing

Always keep attack before decay. The filter Up and Down opens and closes to the sound in the loop. The filter does not change the pitch of your note. There are High, Low and Band Pass Filter settings as well as 4 frequency ranges from Lo to HI in approximate octave steps. Turn the Trigger Off and the pedal is a filter with the above settings and a Blend control. Any sound can be Filtered and Blended with it's original tone. You can make amazing tonal changes to anything in the loop with the trigger off.

The FX Loop of Meatball is PRE-Filtering.
If the Meatball is bypassed the Loop is too.
It is crucial that you use this loop, too- running efx in front of the unit doesnt work nearly as well. efx like distortion have a minimal dynamic range and wont trigger the filter properly- the built in efx loops solves this problem.
Any clean effect is OK before a meatball. Fuzz, Distortion and OD can be filtered from the Input or the Loop when turning off the Trigger. The Meatball into Fuzz, Distortion or OD is great fun.

The effect level can be set with the blend knob

There are several fixes to the problem of poorly matched signal level:

Make sure your guitar volume is up full (or down), although this may conflict with your plans for how you want to use your guitar volume to drive other things, or how you planned out volume levels over the course of a song/piece.

Use some kind of outboard/stompbox pre-amp with an adjustable output level. If you can't find a suitable one, most stompbox compressors with adjustable output level are able to sub for this (see below), as can EQ boxes.

Keeping the optimal signal level in mind, it is unwise to stick any device ahead of an ECF that is likely to alter the volume in a way that alters the envelope of each note or strum. For the ECF to sweep in sync with your picking, the initial attack of the note must be the strongest part of the signal.

and take your time, it took me years to learn to appreciate the Meatball


2)
Basic Setting:
Clock Times
Sens: 3:00
Attack:: 7-8:00
Decay: 11:00
Colour: 5:00
Intens: 1:00
Blend: Mark on Pedal
Filter: LowPass, one up from Low
Trigger: Up, Full
I have noticed when playing low volume the Meatball sounds great with Colour at 5:00 but at loud volumes I have to lower Colour to 12:00 to remove piercing highs.

Always keep Attack before Decay on a Meatball.

As you pick or strum soft to medium there is envelope effect. When you strum harder there is very little envelope effect. This way you can go from clean chords to auto wah leads. When there is a Dirt Pedal in the loop with you guitar volume full, notice how lowering your guitar volume removes the Envelope and you hear just Dirt pedal filtered.

To use the Meatball as a Wah Wah use a passive foot controller into Pedal2 input. Turn Trigger off and Down. Set Filter to LowPass, and one up from Low. Colour: 5:00 Max, Intens: 7:00 Min. Blend: 5:00 Max. Now the Foot Control will do Wah Wah. If you move the pedal very slowly with Dirt in the Loop you can do filter sweeps with this Wah setting.

Set MB Trigger Up and Blend to 5:00 Max. Now you input an external sound source like a CD, drum machine or synth sound into the Loop Return. You can trigger that Meatball-ed sound whenever you play a note or chord. Although there is some bleed through the external sound is louder when you trigger it. When I tried this with a guitar synth I was able to change pitch of the synth sound while I was triggering it with the Meatball.


3) Keep attack control setting below Decay. Trigger Down/Full, Filter low 1, Band
Pass, Colour 3 to 5 with a OD, Distortion or Fuzz pedal in the loop for
starters.
Then put a multi-efx in the loop.


4) It took me a long time to be able to get the sounds I wanted out of it. in my band I think I use this setting.

SEN almost max
ATTACK ~6
DECAY ~6
COLOUR and INTENS a shade under 3
BLEND max

set for LP second lowest filter freq. (i think)

add a fuzz in the loop and back off the intensity and colour. adjust attack and decay to taste. it can get real synthy here.

the thing to realize is that there are a loads of ways to control the peak of this filter. sens if backed off on can tame it a bit. the 1/2 sweep is very subtle but is good for controlling the ice pick factor. attack and decay if set wrong (or right depending on the results you want) can limit your peak. colour is basically the resonance control and intensity controls the depth of the sweep (both are vital in taming the highs). i usually max these and then back off of them when I find about the right sound.
anyways, give it time, the knobs are really sensitive. also turn off the envelope and just use it as a static filter with a fuzz in the loop, you can turn your fuzz into a variety of other fuzzes and get a good feel for the filter.

[lowstar]

thanx for doing that.


cheers,
lowstar