[sdiy] slightly OT: dilemma: where to put tremolo - in amp or alone in a box?

[Michael Bacich]

On Nov 16, 2006, at 7:55 PM, anthony wrote:

> This adds another variable to my query sort of. Should flangers and  
> phasers be BEFORE the tremolo?

In my opinion, it won't make any difference in the sound, either way  
-- except if your phaser or flanger is noisy, in which case, the  
tremolo would modulate the volume of the background noise (but this  
is probably an insigificant factor, relative to the overall volume of  
the system).

I do prefer to put phasers/flangers/etc. after any distortions,  
overdrives, and overdriven preamp stages, because the distortion adds  
more harmonics to the signal, which gives the phaser/flanger a more  
interesting waveform to play with.  As an example, a synth filter  
will give a much more dramatic effect with a harmonically-rich  
sawtooth wave than it will with a sine or triangle wave.  Distortions  
also tend to sound crappy and smeary when fed with a pitch-modulated  
signal, anyway.  They sound better with a straight, unmodulated  
guitar signal.