"Warm" tremolos

[PenPen]

I have a request come to me to try designing a custom tremolo. Along with a slew of other features, it was asked to be "warm" sounding, so I am searching for a warm trem circuit to begin learning how some of these things are made. From some quick searches I found that the EA Trem is considered to fit that description, so I'm starting with dissecting that. Anyone have any other suggestions of other designs worth taking a peek at?

[sfr]

What exactly makes a trem sound "warm"?  To me, a "warm" trem is playing softly on the neck p'up . . .

But I really really like my Trem-face clone (using R.G.s schemo at Geofex) now that I fixed it up to account for the lack of unity gain.

[RaceDriver205]

You want "warm" then you want sine-wave tremolo.

[Jack]

The schaller tremolo, is ALWAYS described as warm, from it's teeny input z

[Torchy]

I cant recommend the Tremulus Lune highly enough.

Ive built the EA (both versions), the Schaller, Anderton's, and a Supatrem clone. For sound and flexibility the Lune wins hands down and ith the Tonepad boards (thanks FP !) its also dead easy to build.

[cakeworks]

I was just checking out the tremulus lune on tonepad... what does that LED/LDR do, also what does adjusting the trimpot do?

[Branimir]

led/ldr is the part of the LFO (low freq. oscillator), and the trim pot is to adjust the output volume (some replace it with a 100k or a 25k potentiometer for off board volume control).

Tremulus is a great effect, check out my sound samples:

guitar-tremulus-soundcard
http://www.insipidtaste.com/bla/tremolea1.mp3
http://www.insipidtaste.com/bla/tremolea2.mp3
http://www.insipidtaste.com/bla/tremolea3.mp3
http://www.insipidtaste.com/bla/tremulus.mp3

all clips mono, about 400kb to 600kb, so download won't take long.

Cheers!

ps: i built the tonepad layout without the ramp up mod

[oldrocker]

The Pulsar as is isn't warm per say but its circuit is a simpler design that might be easier to tweek.

[PenPen]

Thanks for the suggestions. No, I personally am not certain what "warm" sounds like, but I assumed it to be something with a full frequency spectrum (no cutting out the lows) and a smooth LFO.

I'm going to check out the Lune. Thanks for the sounds clips. Only thing that has me looking more at the EA, I don't see any LDR in there, it is all transistor LFO? If so that may be slightly easier to work with and modify. I need to disect the circuit design, I believe I'm going to need two separate LFO circuits to do the features requested. And a transistor LFO will be easier to put together and test since I have all of those parts on hand.

[R.G.]

I sometimes find it amusing that the same people who deride pedals for "tone sucking" also enthusiastically support "warm" overdrives and "brown tone".

"Warmth" and "treble reduction" are synonymous.

[gez]

You want "warm" then you want sine-wave tremolo.

I'd go along with that.  By warm, the person probably means that 'classic' sound found in amps such as Fender. 

[PenPen]

I sometimes find it amusing that the same people who deride pedals for "tone sucking" also enthusiastically support "warm" overdrives and "brown tone".

"Warmth" and "treble reduction" are synonymous.

That is sort of what I was thinking. I'm going to be trimming out a bit of the highs for this pedal, of course I can't actually tell them I'm doing that, just saying it is "warm". Besides, one of the requested features is to give it a low-fi "record wobble" effect, so I'll be cutting those out for that feature as well.

[The Tone God]

You could build a Bullitt to get your "warmth".

Andrew

[Branimir]

One thing that keeps me amazed when I look at the schem of tremulus is that it's got very few parts and sounds great with lots of controls over the speedm depth, spacing and all, I tried the EA tremolo and it doesn't go as extreme as tremulus...

I have no clue about "warmth", guitar/amp has much more influence on that in this case, at least i think so.

[oldrocker]

The Kay Tremolo is not as good as the other trems but I made one and it sounds alright if I use some distortion effects along with it.  I'm thinking about the Tremulus since I hear so much about it.  I really like the Pulsar though and I know most around here don't.

[austin]

The Tremulus Lune, as suggested, is a good one.  It does attenuate the highs a bit for a "warm" sound and is fairly easy to build.

[blanik]

wich one of those listed above tremolos is best for a really choppy on-off effect (like the intro of that The Smiths song: "How soon is now")?

R.

[RaceDriver205]

Pretty much all tremolos are good for a really choppy on-off sound, once you wind the depth control to max.

[bwanasonic]

wich one of those listed above tremolos is best for a really choppy on-off effect (like the intro of that The Smiths song: "How soon is now")?

Keep in mind that the original recording is many tracks of Johnny Marr and Fender amp (twin reverb?) tremolo. No currently available stompbox is going to nail that sound. Not sure what Mr. Marr used live to get *close enough*, but I'm sure I've read about it, maybe even on this forum.

Kerry M

[petemoore]

 of course I can't actually tell them I'm doing that, just saying it is "warm".
 I think you're building it for someone. The lune has controls you need to find out what kinda dern trem you want. You might get the exact trem you want with "A tremolo', I don't know of a more versatile/~simple one than the Lune.
 Some kind of LP filtering can be added to any tremolo for 'warm'.