Dual tremolo's

[Narcosynthesis]

I am wandering what you would reccomend as circuits for building two tremolo's...

The plan is for a single box with the two circuits in series (basically two trem pedals plugged in after each other) to give you the option of two different speed settings - so getting to run a fast trem, slow trem, or both at the same time.

I was thinking two copies of the same circuit, but I guess you could get two different ones (so one slightly better for one 'sound' of trem) - but then again using them together might clash a bit more than two of the same

The other bits I would want to look at would be rocker controlled speed on at least one side, and also have the option for at least one side to get very fast stuttery sounds

Any ideas on what to look at in particular? I know ggg has a few different designs to look at for one, and there are probably a couple more out there...

David

[Seljer]

Go check out the Tremulus Lune, tons and tons of hacks for the circuit have allready been documented
http://www.commonsound.com/kits/doku.php?id=commonsound:tremulus

[petemoore]

  The Lune is like Trem-Land-traverser, goes most places a trem can go.
  I thought about putting a second speed pot, switchable between them, for doing 'Too Much To Dream', one for milder slower, [verse=A...G...A...G...Dm...A...Dm...E!!!A...Dm...A...Dm...A...Dm...E...] and one for chorus section [A...G...F...G...A...G...F...G...] fast/starque.
  Two tremolo's in a row...can be cool...very 'effectey', neat when just 'glimpses' of the signal are let through on less that completely repetitive occasions. Another nice mod for trem would be the one speed control on a rocker treadle controller.

[moosapotamus]

Check out the Panneur, too...
http://www.commonsound.com/kits/doku.php?id=commonsound:panneur

It's basically a dual lune. You could wire the two audio sections in series or parallel.

~ Charlie

[Mark Hammer]

Two tremolos in series sounds different than a single tremolo with multiple sources of modulation.  You can do the experiment at home with just about any two modulation pedals.  Stick two in series, and you'll find that there are many instances where one is dominating the other and you simply can't tell which one is overriding which.  Indeed, with dual tremolos, one can simply cancel out the audible effect of the other if the two speeds are highly discrepant.  Better to mix two control/LFO signals and use them to drive a common gain element.  That way, you can implement a modulation balance control and adjust how much each source is steering the sound with one single pot.  Adjusting it on two separate pedals is a royal PITA.

[Narcosynthesis]

I was going for two separate pedals as I have played about with using two in series and liked the results having one set very fast and the other modulating it can give a very cool sound - plus it gives me two totally independant settings for speed and depth and so on, though the mods for the tremulus lune seem quite cool

anywhere sell boards for them? the plan on that link is using card and wiring it freehand...

David

[moosapotamus]

tonepad has pcb's for the lune...
http://tonepad.com/project.asp?id=42
... with two of them, you could try all sorts of different configurations.

I think Mark is probably right about just summing two control signals (LFO's). Really simplifies the build, too.

~ Charlie

[Mark Hammer]

I shouldn't be THAT quick to put dual tremolos down.  Using them in parallel can be VERY interesting, and certainly using a single gain stage with multiple mixed-together modulation sources will never be able to mimic stereo effects.

That being said, dual LFOs and one gain stage does simplify the build.

[Rodgre]

I also think that two tremolo circuits is a way-cool idea. In fact, I tried out the new Gig-FX Chopper pedal yesterday, which is just that. It's two trems, a mono cascaded into a panning trem. It gives you the ability to select a few options for some unique sounds, but after trying it out, I was left thinking that I could build the same thing, plus add many other usable features for about a quarter of what the Chopper costs ($250).

The first cool trick with two trems that comes to mind is having one being fast and the other being slow and shallow so you get a slow pulse of a fluttering tremolo. You could also benefit from having the two separate LFOs be able to control different aspects of the effect. For example, disable the tremolo effect of the second trem, but have it's LFO controlling the DEPTH of the first trem for an alternative to my above description: a tremolo whose effect fades in and out. eeeeeeeeee e e e E E E E E e e e e eeeeeeeeeee e e e e E E E E e e eeeeee.......

Roger

[moosapotamus]

Cool ideas, Roger.
While we're at it, why not also put in an envelope detector that increases the speed of one of those LFO's as you play harder (and, slows down as notes fade out). I'll bet the one I posted in this thread would work...
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=50290.0

~ Charlie