Radio FX

[Warpsmasher]

Thread for discussion of all types, including radio waves as an ambient sound source. Methods, gear, settings, descriptions, implementations and explanations. And of course pics and videos of the dopest examples.
Favorite tools - Mics, pedals, amps, rack units, modules, VSTs and anything else. Lofi with the preamp fuzz, hifi with the Dolby bass. Narrow freq megaphone razor to Howard Stern vocal bass punch.
Paragraphic vs. parametric? Compressor yay/nay? Best filters? Soft or hard clipping? Best chain order for the fx used, etc.
Artifacts, radio tuning & static modulation - the wild west of these effects, approaching the blurry borders of synthesis. I once had a cheapo 19" fm rack receiver that I wanted to use that way, but I never got around to it, and I've always liked the Evaton RF Nomad, but the thread idea came after watching this:


There are a few really great renditions of this song that are all very different; I love the vocal effect on this one, and the overall lofi/demo feel, and also the way the guitar and vocals both cut through the mix:

[ognoy]

Manditory:

[coupleonapkins]

In praise of actual radios/tape & Max/MSP:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nH0-Ex4VnQ


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-39iieks2Q

But also:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFm7Q9-17w0

[moid]

If you don't mind me adding my own track here, my son and I made the below creation, a musical memory of a distant childhood; time spent turning the dial of a shortwave radio at night, picking up the distant European radio stations that faded in and out of the crackling ether... they are all gone now, but this lullaby is a celebration of their ghostly sounds.

https://mushroomsinshampoo.bandcamp.com/track/shortwave-lullaby

That said, I've always wanted a pedal that would slowly sweep through shortwave radio bands and fade in and out my guitar on top

[Heraclitus Akimbo]

I did one project using numbers stations/shortwave as a sound source, such as this track where I live-captured a couple Skyking massages while making ambient loops (first one's about 2:30 in):



Huge fan of the Wide-band Web Software-Defined Radio @ University of Twente. Works well enough on a phone browser as well, which is where I was pulling it from in that track.

Also bought a cheapie airplane band radio... cool for times when you want some background static with an occasional voice telling someone to tuen 20 degrees to the left or whatever.

[jrfox92]

Manditory:

Huh.
I could probably build one of these...

[BetterOffShred]

If you don't mind me adding my own track here, my son and I made the below creation, a musical memory of a distant childhood; time spent turning the dial of a shortwave radio at night, picking up the distant European radio stations that faded in and out of the crackling ether... they are all gone now, but this lullaby is a celebration of their ghostly sounds.

https://mushroomsinshampoo.bandcamp.com/track/shortwave-lullaby

That said, I've always wanted a pedal that would slowly sweep through shortwave radio bands and fade in and out my guitar on top

It's like a grainy and low-fi madness (in a good way) Stars of the Lid track thought it was great!

[gila_crisis]

did you ever heard about this very mini synth?

[D.o.S.]

This thread rules.

I'm assuming the Radio Music doesn't "actually" qualify, but it's a kick ass module and I love it and it deserves more love.

[fcknoise]

I love this.

Eventide Space has a ducking reverb that sounds a bit like radio static when it lingers. It's quite cool tbh.

That X1L3 song is great dude, thanks for this thread

[comesect2.0]

Still don't understand why there isn't a a.m./f.m radio pedal...just going from station to station is halarious..."join today! " half price-" "and JESUS! Said!-" "next up-" " call now" " I thought i was gonna die-" "are you looking for a vacation!?" ....a.m. radio cut up recordings are great.

[Warpsmasher]

This thread rules.

I'm assuming the Radio Music doesn't "actually" qualify, but it's a kick ass module and I love it and it deserves more love.

I think anything that does sample degradation easily counts, since it lo-fis the sounds and makes them sound like theyre coming from a distorted little radio speaker (I think that's where the name comes from maybe?) so, there's also the ISD sampler, and that new pedalbox version collab thing, and also the module from Recovery FX with the greeting card chip.
That reminds me, my favorite preset on the Magicstomp was called "small radio". Gonna have to recreate it on the RP360 soon.

[Heraclitus Akimbo]

did you ever heard about this very mini synth?

This sounds very, very cool.

Available here, apparently, for anyone digging around.

[Warpsmasher]

After spending a night making variations of the megaphone/telephone/harmonica mic effect for the RP360, I found that my good old vox wah all the way down still sounds best, especially by itself with nothing else, and everything else is extra. EQ pedals can get there too (isolate around 1k), but need lots of gain, and wah just does it better to my ears. I also love how old harmonica mics sound, but all I have right now is an SM58 and it's an effect I want several good variations of, so it's no wonder programmable multi-fx make the most sense for vocal effects. Fine tuned to the mic in use, with noise gate, multiple gain and filter/eq stages, and optional extras like reverb before the amp gain, chorus/vibrato, flanger etc.
In the modular, Trshmstr and Plague Bearer are my best analog modules for it, but the Roland FX can go next level, with multiple filters and gains, and even mixing in a little filtered white noise to add some radiolike authenticity to a vocal fx patch.

[JM Charcot]

The Koma Field Kit has a built in AM-FM radio tuner :
https://koma-elektronik.com/?product=field-kit

I made this quite industrial track with it and a bunch of pedals, it was for a compilation called Radio Nautilus :
https://norecords.bandcamp.com/track/korte-golven