flanger comparison ADA 90s RI vs ibanez 10 series 'digital flanger"

[joegagan]

zac came over today
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLELLTqlyTM&fmt=7

[joegagan]

same lineup, more fuzz added. a very nicely modded russian big muff made roadready by zac zagar. ADA flanger also courtesy of zac.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4en_pAbGGxI

[StephenGiles]

Interesting comparison, even more interesting would be to compare without distortion!

[joegagan]

the only distortion except for the 2nd half of the second clip was amp distortion. Ac30 type circuit. that's about as clean as i get these days .

thank you for the listen!

[StephenGiles]

I generally play clean these days.

[Johan]

there are a lot of underrated pedals among those late 80's Ibanezes in my opinion. the only reoccurring problem with them being the all plastic input and output jacks that lack the support a barrel-and-nut type jack would give.
...my first stompbox was an ibanez LA-Metal...I hated it and its spikey, barbwirey sound, and saved for months and months ( I was in school at the time) to replace it with a ProCo RAT, wich I'd heard from a friend was the best distortion in the world, and my local music store wouldnt order for me unless I wanted to buy one, since they costed 4times your ordinary Boss/ibanez/dod-box....look for schematic for some cruel irony...
J

[joegagan]

johan, you are so right about the in and out jacks of those 10 series. funny thing, the same problem exists with 95% of the boss, ibanez, digitech, etc etc common pedals of the last 30 years, the dc power in jacks. a very common repair at music stores is to resolder the board mount dc in jacks because the power supply cord got stepped on by the singer ( never the guitarist, right?)

[Johan]

...I've been beating myself up for years for not buying a CD-10 when my local store had them on sale a million years ago..

[joegagan]

wow, i didn't even know these existed. delay champ, what a weird name. ibanez was in one of their 'serious pedal name 'periods during the 80s, that is pretty funny.

[John Lyons]

Cool. The Ibanez sounds pretty good even compared to the ADA.
Considering the price difference...

[joegagan]

thanks john-
zac and i agreed that this ibz is one of the best non ADA flanges we have heard. i would take this over the  70s MXR i used to have.

[John Lyons]

Both of them sounding really good, hollow that tweak-your-ear whacked out sound that sounds so cool.
Makes me want to check out an Ibanez. I never finished my ADA and ended up selling it. too many
projects. 

[DougH]

Flangerific!

I prefer the Ibanez, I think. ADA's always sound too "regeneration heavy" for my tastes. That clanky metallic sound gets old with me fast.

[12Bass]

FWIW, I tend to run my A/DA clone with the regeneration level very low (or off), unless I'm seeking extreme sounds.  I've got it tweaked so that the straight and delayed signals are very closely matched, so there's pronounced flanging on a full-bandwidth signal even with no added regeneration.  One potential criticism of the A/DA is that, unlike other flangers which have limited adjustment, the A/DA's controls allow for such a wide range of adjustment that it can be difficult to find the "sweet spots".

[StephenGiles]

FWIW, I tend to run my A/DA clone with the regeneration level very low (or off), unless I'm seeking extreme sounds.  I've got it tweaked so that the straight and delayed signals are very closely matched, so there's pronounced flanging on a full-bandwidth signal even with no added regeneration.  One potential criticism of the A/DA is that, unlike other flangers which have limited adjustment, the A/DA's controls allow for such a wide range of adjustment that it can be difficult to find the "sweet spots".

Interesting point, in a live situation perhaps any flanger would do the useful sounds in order to be heard above the other beasts in the band. But in your home studio or if you are trying to impress a new girlfriend then you need a flanger with all the tricks!

[oldschoolanalog]

ADA's always sound too "regeneration heavy" for my tastes. That clanky metallic sound gets old with me fast.

If your A/DA sounds "clanky metallic" probable causes are are too much regen and/or incorrect calibration. It can sound metallic at some settings. However, with enough time spent "learning the pedal", you can get very nice chorus, vibrato, leslie, and many other sweet ethereal sounds. The controls are MUCH more interactive than with other flangers. This makes for a steeper learning curve (hint: try backing off the range and using some of the shorter delay [manual] settings).
FWIW, the Ibanez is a nice sounding unit. Price seems right too!

But in your home studio or if you are trying to impress a new girlfriend then you need a flanger with all the tricks!

What I need is a new girlfriend "with all the tricks".
But that's a story for another day...

[DougH]

ADA's always sound too "regeneration heavy" for my tastes. That clanky metallic sound gets old with me fast.

If your A/DA sounds "clanky metallic" probable causes are are too much regen and/or incorrect calibration. It can sound metallic at some settings. However, with enough time spent "learning the pedal", you can get very nice chorus, vibrato, leslie, and many other sweet ethereal sounds. The controls are MUCH more interactive than with other flangers. This makes for a steeper learning curve (hint: try backing off the range and using some of the shorter delay [manual] settings).

Yes, I don't have one, but all the clips/vids/etc I've seen it always sounds that way. I know flangers can be tricky. I've been pretty happy with my Liqui-flange. That Ibanez sounds nice, though.

[12Bass]

Yes, I don't have one, but all the clips/vids/etc I've seen it always sounds that way.

From the videos I've seen, the people demonstrating often do not have much of an understanding of how the A/DA's controls function.  So, what you get is a bunch of exagerrated knob twisting and extreme settings that sound pretty crazy.  As mentioned earlier, it takes some time to learn how the controls interact.  It is not the sort of pedal which is preset for a small range of usable sounds.  Rather, it offers a very broad range of sounds which go from subtle to borderline insanity.  There are lots of musical sounds in there.  And it takes some time to learn how to find them....

[Mark Hammer]

ADA's always sound too "regeneration heavy" for my tastes. That clanky metallic sound gets old with me fast.

If your A/DA sounds "clanky metallic" probable causes are are too much regen and/or incorrect calibration. It can sound metallic at some settings. However, with enough time spent "learning the pedal", you can get very nice chorus, vibrato, leslie, and many other sweet ethereal sounds. The controls are MUCH more interactive than with other flangers. This makes for a steeper learning curve (hint: try backing off the range and using some of the shorter delay [manual] settings).

Yes, I don't have one, but all the clips/vids/etc I've seen it always sounds that way. I know flangers can be tricky. I've been pretty happy with my Liqui-flange. That Ibanez sounds nice, though.

Most people will become attracted to flangers because they have heard recorded examples that used flanging as post-production on a multi-source wide-bandwidth signal (Listen to the Music, Itchy-Coo Park, The Big Hurt, Sky Pilot, yadda yadda).  In those contexts, very little, if any, regeneration/feedback was used, was needed, or could even be produced.  So, when they switch to demos or uses involving one stinking guitar, the effect never seems dramatic enough in the absence of excessive amounts of feedback.
.

[joegagan]

great posts!
in defense of zac, he was twisting the knobs, i believe he is quite the ADA afficianado. i think he did a pretty good job of showing the more musical aspects of both pedals. me, i is a flanger neophyte. more or less. but it was fun to record those vids!