Synth Up Your Sound part 2: Sweeping and Gliding

Digitech Whammy Pedal

"What up with this guy and synths?"  I know.  I like options, what can I say?  One of the things that I dig about synths are the real-time performance effects available to juice-up a riff.  Let's take a look at two of the classic synthesiser aspects that give them "that" sound:


Pitch Wheel
The pitch wheel on the Minimoog was a revelation.  It added enormous expressiveness to the instrument by letting players use the notes “In-between” the keys and beyond allowing keyboardists to manipulate notes in ways that only guitarists, brass and vocalists did before.

Morpheus Bomber

How to get it
The Whammy pedal is the pitch wheel of the guitar world.  Sometimes called Pitch Glide, you can set it depending on how much above or below the note that you want do things never before possible on the guitar. It’s sometimes hard to say if a piece of gear will become a classic but due to  almost instant popularity amongst players across the spectrum, the Whammy, and it’s copy-cats, are here to stay.





Filter Sounds
The Minimoog’s LPF( low pass filter) is a crucial element to sound creation as well as a dramatic performance effect.  The Minimoog's famed filter can be slowly swept or set for high sensitivity.

Mutron Master

EHX Riddle: Qballs

How to get it
The quick answer, a wah pedal.  Although not a LPF, a wah pedal works in a similar manor. Most players put there wahs towards the beginning of their signal chain but for a more pronounced filter voice, try it closer to the end.  It might be a bit much for your SRV covers but better suited for making spaceship sounds.
There are also envelope filters which translate your attack and create an array of vowel tones.

It should be noted that the LPF can also be controlled with the Minimoogs LFO(Low Frequency Oscillator) but that is a whole post in itself.