Fishman AFX Chorus: For When The Mars Volta Goes Camping
Though doctors always tell me there are no right answers in word association games, I think they just don't want to admit my prowess over my somewhat less associative contemporaries. However, it's hard to argue that "Fishman" is not the correct answer when the question is "quality acoustic effects."
Owen O'Malley puts some strumming through the Fishman AFX Chorus, and for some reason, my superior word associating abilities come up with the word "YOWZA" -- which, because of its absurdity, I reserve for only the most deserving of recipients.
OWEN O'MALLEY: Hi. Welcome back to Gearwire.Com. I'm Owen O'Malley. We are looking at the Fishman AFX, acoustic effects pedals. All of these pedals are true bypass, housed in a durable brushed steel casing. It's also real handsome, and they're all stereo effects. They've got stereo ins and outs, all 9-volt battery powered, lovely little compartment. This is the chorus pedal. Let's take a listen to this guy.
Okay, so we've got our AFX chorus hooked up and running in stereo, and we're playing through a Washburn D10SCE. It's just got a piezo transducer pickup at the bridge. Let's listen to our dry signal.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING ACOUSTIC GUITAR WITH THE FISHMAN AFX CHORUS BYPASSED]
Now, let's listen to the first setting here. We're on Chorus 1.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING ACOUSTIC GUITAR WITH THE FISHMAN AFX CHORUS ENGAGED, CHORUS 1 SETTING]
Now we affect the speed of our note here, not a very intense speed difference here but we do have three different types of choruses here so we'll go through them. We can affect the tone of the chorus from very bright to very dull. This is just our blend control here. Okay, let's move on to the next chorus. This is Chorus 2.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING ACOUSTIC GUITAR WITH THE FISHMAN AFX CHORUS ENGAGED, CHORUS 2 SETTING]
Sounds a little bit more like a CE2 and this one gets a little more detuned.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING ACOUSTIC GUITAR WITH THE FISHMAN AFX CHORUS ENGAGED, CHORUS 2 SETTING]
Let's move on to chorus 3. Even more a wider phasing pattern.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING ACOUSTIC GUITAR WITH THE FISHMAN AFX CHORUS ENGAGED, CHORUS 3 SETTING]
Now we move on to the non-chorus effects here. We've got a stereo tremolo, which is really cool. It can make you a little nauseous. Just a full 180-degree stereo phased tremolo.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING ACOUSTIC GUITAR WITH THE FISHMAN AFX CHORUS ENGAGED, STEREO TREMOLO SETTING]
Really good for long, held-out notes...
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING ACOUSTIC GUITAR WITH THE FISHMAN AFX CHORUS ENGAGED, STEREO TREMOLO SETTING]
...like so.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING ACOUSTIC GUITAR WITH THE FISHMAN AFX CHORUS ENGAGED, STEREO TREMOLO SETTING]
Let's move on. Now our tremolo is just a mono tremolo or, you know, both channels basically in phase.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING ACOUSTIC GUITAR WITH THE FISHMAN AFX CHORUS ENGAGED, MONO TREMOLO SETTING]
Now we've got our flanger on here too. This effect can get pretty intense.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING ACOUSTIC GUITAR WITH THE FISHMAN AFX CHORUS ENGAGED, FLANGER SETTING]
It's very warbly. Here's at its sort of least intense. You can still hear that.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING ACOUSTIC GUITAR WITH THE FISHMAN AFX CHORUS ENGAGED, FLANGER SETTING]
Tuned harmonic cycle floating on the top and then it really gets detuned if you flip it all the way up.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING ACOUSTIC GUITAR WITH THE FISHMAN AFX CHORUS ENGAGED, FLANGER SETTING]
[SOUNDS LIKE] Wank wah! All right, now let's move on to the flanger.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING ACOUSTIC GUITAR WITH THE FISHMAN AFX CHORUS ENGAGED, PHASER SETTING]
I'm sorry. This is the phaser we're on now. We've gone to the phaser.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING ACOUSTIC GUITAR WITH THE FISHMAN AFX CHORUS ENGAGED, PHASER SETTING]
Basically a simple version of the flanger.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING ACOUSTIC GUITAR WITH THE FISHMAN AFX CHORUS ENGAGED, PHASER SETTING]
Unplugged baby. And now our rotary speaker.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING ACOUSTIC GUITAR WITH THE FISHMAN AFX CHORUS ENGAGED, ROTARY SPEAKER SETTING]
Which can go from...
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING ACOUSTIC GUITAR WITH THE FISHMAN AFX CHORUS ENGAGED, ROTARY SPEAKER SETTING]
...subtle effect to slightly more effected.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING ACOUSTIC GUITAR WITH THE FISHMAN AFX CHORUS ENGAGED, ROTARY SPEAKER SETTING]
So there you go. That was the Fishman AFX Chorus. This has been Gearwire.Com, and I am and shall be Owen O'Malley.
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