Craig Anderton
Well-known member
This tip is excerpted from the upcoming v1.1 free update of the The Huge Book of Fender Studio Pro Tips & Tricks v1.0.
For a new twist on the flanging sound, we'll use mid-side processing to apply flanging to only a stereo signal’s sides. Unlike traditional flanging, this doesn’t diffuse the center—and it produces a wide, animated stereo image. Manual or LFO-based automatic flanging modes are available. Here’s how to use the Macro Controls (fig. 10.17):
Figure 1: Modernist Flanger Macro Controls.
Figure 2: Alter the flanging manually, and record the moves as automation, to complement the music artistically with the flanging effect.
Fig. 3 shows the FX Chain Routing Window—there’s more than you might expect.
Figure 3: FX Chain Routing Window.
Note: Collapsing to mono cancels the flanging effect. This is expected with mid-side techniques, because the whole point of mid-side miking is to collapse perfectly to mono by leaving only the mid. Given how little playback occurs in mono, this probably doesn’t matter but please be aware of this possibility.
For a new twist on the flanging sound, we'll use mid-side processing to apply flanging to only a stereo signal’s sides. Unlike traditional flanging, this doesn’t diffuse the center—and it produces a wide, animated stereo image. Manual or LFO-based automatic flanging modes are available. Here’s how to use the Macro Controls (fig. 10.17):
Figure 1: Modernist Flanger Macro Controls.
- ManualFlange controls the flanging sweep. I prefer manual control, because you can “play” the flanging to complement the music. When using ManualFlange, set AutoDepth to 0.00.
- +/- Flange toggles between positive (default) and negative flanging (button turns blue).
- AutoDepth determines the LFO depth for automatic flanging. To obtain the maximum automatic flanging effect, set the ManualFlange parameter to 1.00. However, to add more variations to the automatic sweep, you can alter the ManualFlange control.
- AutoSpeed edits the LFO speed.
- Flange Depth sets the mix of dry and flanged audio in the sides.
- Mid Level and Side Level control the mid and side levels, respectively.
How It Works
Fig. 3 shows the FX Chain Routing Window—there’s more than you might expect.
Figure 3: FX Chain Routing Window.
- Mixtool MS Enc encodes the audio into Mid and Sides. The mid goes through the Mid Mixtool to allow for mid level adjustment.
- The Side flows to two Analog Delays in parallel. Parallel delays are necessary to create the through-zero, vintage tape flanging effect.
- Varying Analog Delay 1’s Factor parameter controls the flanging effect itself. For automatic flanging, the two Analog Delay LFOs run at slightly different speeds to avoid an overly periodic effect.
- The Mixtool PosNeg inverts the phase to provide the negative flanging sound.
- Side Mixtool controls the side level, while Mixtool MS Dec decodes the mid-side audio back to stereo.
Note: Collapsing to mono cancels the flanging effect. This is expected with mid-side techniques, because the whole point of mid-side miking is to collapse perfectly to mono by leaving only the mid. Given how little playback occurs in mono, this probably doesn’t matter but please be aware of this possibility.
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