Floyd's Echoes Whale Cries (Seagull Effect) Need some help -videos here-

[Kevin Mitchell]

Hello everyone. This morning I've stumbled upon Steve McElroy of Australian Floyd's rig rundown and I've noticed an effect I'd definitely like to have fun with. I believe it's called "ORCA" Unit/Line Driver made by Pete Cornish. It's used for those whale cry sounds half way through Floyd's Echoes. I can't seem to find a whole lot of information on this little monster -other than Steve has 1 and David has 3 of 4 made- so I'm hoping some of you wonderful tec-savvy fellas could fill in some blanks. I believe Steve is probably playing around with a volume pan and the tone knob of his strat (if that's how it's setup - I remember looking into Gilmour's electronics for his guitars and was left scratching my head but that could be later guitars after the Meddle album - Like the red strat)

Image;


Example at 7m21s - Sound example at 8m26s

Any workalikes out there? Let's talk about this unit and how it's being used in pair with controls & other effects if anyone has information or even opinions.

[Mike Burgundy]

I'm pretty sure the whale sounds you're referring to are an effect caused by *plugging a wah in reverse* - so switch in and output.
If you then manipulate your tone pot the lot will oscillate and give you that sound.
This doesn't work with any way, needs to be unbufferd, crybaby style I think.
Cornish does a LOT of rehousing - my guess is this is basically a gutted old crybaby, in reverse.

[Kevin Mitchell]

That's very interesting. Wouldn't have thought of that myself. Although I've just tried switching the in and out of my Crybaby 535Q and couldn't get anything through.

I'd definitely like to throw together an ORCA work-alike for my board. So I hope others have more to say about this interesting effect. I haven't experimented with oscillation yet so this should be fun.

[Kevin Mitchell]

Ahh this explains quite a bit. You were totally right Mike Burgundy. Thanks!

Gilmourish Page

[Kevin Mitchell]

So I used what I had on hand - bread boarded a Mccoy wah using a spare TM022 transformer (600 ohm secondary) and now have some oscillation! Upon this I have noticed that something in the circuit may be backwards... More experimenting needed. The high end of the oscillation starts on a low setting and it gets deeper and more loud the closer it is to 10. I can't seem to get that "laughing"/choppy sound out of it.

In the video on the Gilmourish page I have shared prior to this post explains how to manipulate the effect but I don't seem to be getting the same response. I'll try to post a video clip shortly.

[Kevin Mitchell]

Here's a clip of my progress. Playing with the bread boarded mccoy and the Line 6 DL4 digital delay.

[R.G.]

One of the guys at the office in my day job does whale songs with a distortion, a volume pedal, reverb and the whammy bar.

[Kevin Mitchell]

One of the guys at the office in my day job does whale songs with a distortion, a volume pedal, reverb and the whammy bar.

I feel I wouldn't like your coworker so much lol. "whale songs" Haha! Does your coworker's whale songs come close to my oscillating magic?

I've just posted a video before your comment - any clue why it's reacting the opposite way from how it should be? I'll mess with the circuit tomorrow (thinking maybe I wired the transformer backwards but idk if that matters). Much experimenting needed.

[Kevin Mitchell]

I've tried switching some connections around and I still can't seem to get it to oscillate the right way. The tone control on low still holds the higher oscillation and I can't dial it in to the laughing/choppy sound. I've found about a half dozen video clips of people doing this and their's seem to work the opposite way(correct way) and successfully getting the choppy oscillation from lower settings.

Here's a video someone posted on youtube. About 40 seconds in you'll know what I mean by laughing/choppy on low setting.

Any ideas?

I have this bread boarded (minus the red buffer) and using a tm022 (data sheet) secondary half transformer as an inductor and .015 caps instead of .01. Also the transistors are 2n3904 NPN

[Mike Burgundy]

Haven't played around with this unfortunately. All I can think of is make sure the wah is 100% ok. Manipulating the wah treadle (or pot), pickup selection, volume setting and tone are all very interactive I should think... It is a very, very cool trick (found by a roadies mistake)

[DougH]

When I did it, it was changing the volume control that varied the pitch. Different pickups sound different, etc. Your first vid is pretty close.

[Kevin Mitchell]

When I did it, it was changing the volume control that varied the pitch. Different pickups sound different, etc. Your first vid is pretty close.

The volume on the strat kills the effect when turned lower than 9. The tone and wah pot effect the pitch. My problem is that the lower the tone control, the higher the pitch which is opposite of all the examples I've seen - where the lower the tone is the lower the pitch and it also becomes choppy which is what I'm after.

At first I thought I could have wired something wrong when I changed the pickups a while back but even on a les paul it reacts the same (incorrect) way.

Tested with these two pickups with pleasant results but still no cigar.
Fender '69 single coil (4th position, middle and bridge)
Gibson '57 Humbucker - coil tapped (3rd position, bridge)