Effect on "The Passions"

[mhecker]

Hello Owen,

I like your new album very much. I have one question: what effect are you using on "the Passions". I mean the weird detuning effect on the violins in the verse section of the song. It would be very nice of you to answer this question.
Looking forward to seeing you in Dresden!

martin

[Owen from Final Fantasy]

I assume you mean live, right? It's four detuners. The pitches scale from -5 -2 +2 +5 cents outward to -2 -1 +1 +2 semitones. The detuners are also connected to a S&H oscillator so they warble slightly.

It's a trick I use with Arcade Fire too, and control the range with an expression pedal. Full toe sounds like a thick, nice single violin. Slightly heel sounds like a string section. Full heel is the pitch-cloud.

The idea came from an 8-oscillator monosynth I was reading about, where the pitches would all warble and diverge-on-command, Trent Reznor was using it on The Social Network soundtrack. I thought I could affect the same sound with my rack unit.

[mhecker]

Thank you for you fast response.
So I understand you are using your AxeFX for this. Unfortunately, I can't find anything in my plugin folder to emulate your modular approach using 4 different detuners. There still seem to be things you can 't do in the box.
Another short one. How did you do this on the album? The same way?

Thank you again,

Martin

[Owen from Final Fantasy]

My Axe-FX (the first one, the Ultra) allows you two pitch shifters per patch, with two pitches per shifter. You can do it with the Eventide Pitchfactor as well.

On the album I used a string orchestra and aleatoric notation. To make the gestures more effective, I doubled them with approx. 10 tracks of ARP 2600 playing a cool, slightly warbling triangle wave. It was easy, I just changed the scale of the bend each take, it took only about half-an-hour.

[mhecker]

Thanks again for your reply! Loved the concert in Dresden!

Martin