Over the last weekend, I got myself a Digitech RP50, which is a guitar effects processor. Essentially, it takes the sound produced by the electric guitar and does fancy things to it, in predictable (although sometimes unpredictable) ways. The model I own is not the best in the business, being a modest entry-level version by Digitech, but I have to say that I am impressed with what it can do so far. I think I have to have a real reason to upgrade to the GNX series of guitar processors, which are the high-end of Digitech’s range. I haven’t programmed my own effects patches, which are the pieces of instructions that you can customise the effects processor with, in order to produce sounds that are your own custom-built effects. The RP50 does give one control over the level of each individual effect that you want in a patch, and allows you to combine as many as eight effects at once. These effects are signal processing techniques like noise gating, reverberation, delay, etc., which add a whole dimension to the sound.
Despite the several splendid effects I have been playing around with, there is one that caught my undivided attention today. Preset Number Thirty Six. I don’t want this to sound like manufactured pleasure because it isn’t – the pleasure of playing one of my favourite scales in Preset Thirty Six was my pleasure and I am firmly of the opinion I haven’t scratched the surface. A bit more about preset thirty six – it combines a custom amplifier model, noise gating, equalizer, delay and reverberation effects in an elegant proportion, leading to a sublime sound. The quality of the sound is also determined by the scale one plays to each effect, in addition to the number of bits that is used to store information when digitally processing sound. This brings in a level of artistry that is only cultivated by an elevated aesthetic sense, in my opinion – that one can mix a scale to a certain effect means one of two things – one has enough time on one’s hands (which is not wholly untrue in my case) but also that one can put one’s aesthetic sense to work. Here’s my second try, called the Tardy Thirty Six Replicas – the name comes from Thirty Six as well as from the Delay and Reverb effects used in the song:
Once I felt dissatisfied with this one and also playful enough to attempt a similar third recording, I recorded the following one, with more pronounced slides and somewhat more experimental passages. The grim and sometimes profound mood of the chosen scale still comes through, although the crescendo and the timed gallops made possible by the reverb-delay combination make both the recordings worth a listen. That the RP50 outputs 24 bit sound is surely a help, since this is a welcome feature for its price. This one’s called Temporally Tardy Thirty Six, “Temporally” obviously a pun on the delay effect:
Assuming that I have used the flat swaras of the raga without gamakas or specific prayogas (at least in the first recording), what do you think is the scale? Do the aesthetics of the guitar effects mask the scale? How do you think the effects could be better used?
In my music posts thus far, I have almost completely been concerned with the melody of the sounds produced from the guitar. All of these have been Carnatic melodies. Once I tried out the effects processor, the aesthetic aspect of the music – the most recognizable feature of the sound as it hits one’s ears, came to the forefront, and I discovered that there are ways of combining sounds that are altogether exciting, intellectual and lend a depth to the music. In a sense, I rediscovered what I had always liked. Some of Pink Floyd’s music was intellectual dense (as usual) but also aurally intriguing. Some of the numbers I remember where effects similar to the ones I have used, were used by Pink Floyd were notably Run Like Hell, Take It Back, Marooned and other numbers. These were absolutely brilliant in the lyrics, guitar and percussion as Pink Floyd nearly always are.
