Mel9 shoegaze/post rock

[VREEEEVROOOOOW]

Anyone tried Mel9 in a shoegaze/post-rock setting? I'd love to hear something like MONO or Sigur Rós with this pedal.

Here's a shoegaze-y track I found on YouTube that I thought was really cool:
[youtube][/youtube]

[moid]

My son and I used the Mel 9 on two tracks from our last release - we used the cello setting (which is highly addictive by the way). I'm not sure if we count as post rock or shoe gaze although we are instrumental and use far too many effects pedals, so maybe?

https://mushroomsinshampoo.bandcamp.com ... ng-the-sun

https://mushroomsinshampoo.bandcamp.com ... un-at-dawn

Our next album is likely to have a lot of flute in it courtesy of the Mel 9... that is another addictive setting...

[VREEEEVROOOOOW]

I'm looking for people who throw some dirt at the pedal, but your songs were cool too! I particularly liked what you had going on at the beginning of the second track (the album title track). Reminds me of Chords of Orion, who's got a YouTube demonstration of the pedal, as well as song "ambient guitar meditations" with it. I've included the demo + one of the meditations below.

[youtube][/youtube]

[youtube][/youtube]

It's probably a great pedal for ambient stuff, just needs a bit of reverb.

[moid]

Yes it's awesome with reverb Mind you, I tend to find almost everything I do gets reverb added on top so I'm not the most impartial of judges of this effect! Thanks for the kind words. Yes the Chords of Orion chap makes some lovely sounds, he made a track somewhere using the clarinet setting that was great (I haven't been able to work out what to put that with yet) I mostly use flute and cello and strings, sometimes the brass into reverse reverb then chorus and step phaser sounds wonderful too.

When you say you want to hear it with dirt - what setting on the Mel 9 and did you want the dirt beforehand or afterwards? If you put it beforehand then the pedal tries to transpose it into the notes you are playing (so you don't hear the dirt unless you blend it in on the pedal), and it's pretty clever at doing this - you can get it to play a bit glitchily by using very gated oscillating fuzz, but it doesn't sound great in my opinion - it just sounds 'off' like sea sick vibrato bends... but that might be what you want? If you put dirt afterwards that can be good sometimes - if you give me some ideas of the sort of settings you want to hear I can try and ask my son to play something decent tomorrow (or if he's too busy playing with his friends I can butcher some notes for you) and I'll stick it on soundcloud if you like.

[VREEEEVROOOOOW]

Personally, I'm interested in something like:

mel9 orchestra (or flute, or cello, or... gosh, they all sound just great, don't they?) -> gated reverb -> low-gain warm dirt (something like mxr distortion+) -> shimmer reverb -> high-gain white noise dirt (something like danelectro fab tone) -> some delay stuff.

So the mel9 into gated (or some not 100% wet reverse) reverb into dirt, and then maybe some shimmer reverb (like the rv-5/6). And then some really high-gain dirt after that again. Then just add like three delay pedals like Slowdive does, haha. Just various combinations like that with mel9 going into reverb going into dirt, or mel9 into dirt into reverb, &c., would be really cool to hear. Maybe some tremolo picked stuff?


I'd be interested in using the mel9 orchestra (& other settings) for something like this:
http://monoofjapan.bandcamp.com/track/unseen-harbor

Both the parts w/o dirt, & the ones w/ dirt. Check out the 9:00 mark for what I'm specifically talking about w/o dirt, and 12:10 for w/ dirt. I'm real curious about what this would sound like with the mel9 in front of everything.

Anyway, thanks for offering! I'm looking forward to listening if you're able to put together something.

[frodog]

Listening to that Mono track right now. I think to achieve something similar you'd need a rack EQ in there to subtract frequencies, if you want to keep the Mel9 subtle. The other guitarist in my band uses one sometimes, mostly the string and choir settings. We play loud psych/metal, and the Mel9 injects a real gothy vibe to that when used, but it's definitely not subtle or dynamic like Mono, it sounds more like a synth. That's the problem for me with those EHX pedals, they sound very in-yr-face and artificial - which may not be a bad thing - but it's very hard/impossible hard to make it sit in the mix and sound realistic. Unless you're talking about doing it in a DAW setting. However, I do think these emulation pedals (having tested Ravish, B/C9, Mel9) are cool, only wish they were a bit more user/listener-friendly.

[VREEEEVROOOOOW]

Oh, I didn't mean to emulate MONO's tone. I just meant that I'm curious how that style of playing, reverb, & dirt, would sound with a mel9 in front of it all. You may be right about the EQ regardless though.

Another style I'd like to hear would be something like the guitar beginning at the 7:53 mark of this track:
[youtube][/youtube]

[StivBrigggs]

My favourite mode is Flute for sure, Cello 2nd.

I find the Mel 9 doesn't take too kindly to overdrive and fuzz.
It's also picky about power and what order its placed on a board.

Great pedal for instant British production in the vein of Beatles, King Crimson, Pink Floyd etc.

[rustywire]

Thanks for making this thread. I have been checking listings weekly, since spring for that like-new $180/trade maybe. I want one for (fretless) J-bass-with-flatwounds board, to really push its tracking. It should drop right in, the intent is first or 2nd in the chain (depending on how it plays with the sb7) for post dubbycore dreamlike spacegaze noise pop skrrrrrt zippidy doo dah wah with the rah rah:

Thinking I remove the placeholder tb loop, move the vibe and sb7 to the back row so the mel9+comp+density hulk stay up front and ready to stunt, with room for a(nother?) BitQuest

[Confuzzled]

I'm looking for people who throw some dirt at the pedal, but your songs were cool too! I particularly liked what you had going on at the beginning of the second track (the album title track). Reminds me of Chords of Orion, who's got a YouTube demonstration of the pedal, as well as song "ambient guitar meditations" with it. I've included the demo + one of the meditations below.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QTpcbtunZs[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAj7NqcL2tk[/youtube]

It's probably a great pedal for ambient stuff, just needs a bit of reverb.

Does he use a half capo and a full capo?

[Confuzzled]

My favourite mode is Flute for sure, Cello 2nd.

I find the Mel 9 doesn't take too kindly to overdrive and fuzz.
It's also picky about power and what order its placed on a board.

Great pedal for instant British production in the vein of Beatles, King Crimson, Pink Floyd etc.

I've had one for over a year and haven't used it much because I want to re-wire my board and I'm thinking of placing it first in the chain then whammy, wah, dirt and my super ego in the middle and delays/reverb towards the end.

[moid]

Personally, I'm interested in something like:

mel9 orchestra (or flute, or cello, or... gosh, they all sound just great, don't they?) -> gated reverb -> low-gain warm dirt (something like mxr distortion+) -> shimmer reverb -> high-gain white noise dirt (something like danelectro fab tone) -> some delay stuff.

So the mel9 into gated (or some not 100% wet reverse) reverb into dirt, and then maybe some shimmer reverb (like the rv-5/6). And then some really high-gain dirt after that again. Then just add like three delay pedals like Slowdive does, haha. Just various combinations like that with mel9 going into reverb going into dirt, or mel9 into dirt into reverb, &c., would be really cool to hear. Maybe some tremolo picked stuff?


I'd be interested in using the mel9 orchestra (& other settings) for something like this:
http://monoofjapan.bandcamp.com/track/unseen-harbor

Both the parts w/o dirt, & the ones w/ dirt. Check out the 9:00 mark for what I'm specifically talking about w/o dirt, and 12:10 for w/ dirt. I'm real curious about what this would sound like with the mel9 in front of everything.

Anyway, thanks for offering! I'm looking forward to listening if you're able to put together something.

OK here we go - first of all, this is me playing (so it's fairly crap E minor pentatonic noodling; my son decided he wanted to go and see his grandmother this afternoon instead and I can't play anything like Mono!) and secondly it sounds a bit too noisy... I'm not sure if this is the sound you thought you'd get (maybe it is what you want?). I have tried to make the pedal chain you suggested and tried various distortions (I don't have many of these types of pedal and they all sound horrible in this chain and I don't like distortions much either). I have put the distorted sound on the left channel and the original Mel9 sound on the right channel so you can compare - on some settings a 50/50 blend is quite good, but I think I need a better distortion pedal to get the effects you want. I tried the following distortion pedals: Caline Tantrum (clone of an EHX Metal Muff, it is fucking horrible, sounds like hiss and bees, never buy this pedal), a Digitech Grunge (also awful, although you can get rid of more of the hiss), DOD Death Metal Distortion (which can be a great sound, but not in this setup and it was either shrieking hiss - almost feedback - or off), the Grit setting on my Philosopher's Tone (super hissy and thin) and finally a Digitech The Weapon on mode 2 distortion which is a terrible sound normally but was the least hissy / least horrible to my ears. And I say this as someone who loves Fennesz / Tim Hecker / Jefru Cantu Ledesma - the distortion near the end of the chain is too hissy and you can't hear any music anymore.

I recorded four blasts of sound, the first two are the orchestra mode - the first has distortion the second has it turned off. The second two are the flute with distortion on first and off second. I added markers on the track so you should see where the changes take place. I didn't record the cello or strings because with the amount of other pedals the signal sounded the same whatever I played!

https://soundcloud.com/mushroomsinshamp ... distortion

Here is the pedal chain


hi res image here:
https://imgur.com/IS93fJJ

Mel9>AB Splitter>Right Channel straight to DAW (mel9 signal only). Left Channel into Digitech Digiverb on Gated Reverb ( I tried reverse reverb and there was a hint of a swell effect but you need to turn off most of the effects to hear it!) > Caline Orange Burst (mild warm overdrive) >Biyang Tri Reverb >Mooer Pitchbox set to 50% blend and 1 octave up (I don't have a pedal that does shimmer reverb so this is my poor man's way to make shimmer reverb) >Digitech The Weapon > Digitech Digidelay (Tape delay) > Vox Double Deca Analogue delay with short and long delays activated for extra Shoegaze

I hope it's cooler where you are, I am sweating like crazy, all my musical equipment is in the hottest room in my house

[moid]

Sorry I have no idea what is going wrong with the image; it is displaying about four times larger than it is... weird I blame the heat!

[VREEEEVROOOOOW]

Woah! Talk about going the extra mile! This is so cool! Thanks so much!

OK, so with distortion it mostly sounds... well... terrible! But in a pretty cool way. However, it's hardly versatile, is it? Unless you're making Psychocandy again (which isn't an altogether bad idea), it's hard to see how to do anything except japanoise with this. So I think perhaps my... enthusiasm for it was somewhat misplaced. I still think it's a great pedal for ambient and... well, non-distorted stuff. But with distortion it's kinda useless beyond stuff like MBV's holocaust. Maybe if you thought Filosofem was too polished, this is the pedal chain for you?

I concede I still kinda want one...

P.S.
It's way too hot here too!

[moid]

No problem, I'm glad it... helped? I do love this pedal though - for me it was the most expensive pedal I've ever bought, but I've used it on at least half the tracks I've recorded since I got it at Christmas. You do have to be careful to make sure you're not becoming prog rock with it though... the urge to add a flute solo to everything is very strong

Psychocandy is very good for this sound, definitely! MBV destruction suits it well too, I agree. I had to listen to Filosofem, never heard that before... black metal isn't my sort of thing though...although soundcloud suggested black metal as a tag for these tracks, so maybe I am indeed one with our dark lord and should play power chords slowly for the rest of the evening?

One last blast for you (before I dismantle this setup and play with chorus pedals instead!) - I took the distortion pedal out and in its place I put a clone of a Seppuku Octave Drone (extremely fierce fuzz pedal, I turned the filter setting off) and this to me seems more post rock ish... I also turned off the Biyang Trireverb (who would've thought there is such a thing as too much reverb?)... anyway it sounds like this:
https://soundcloud.com/mushroomsinshamp ... rone-flute

Noise on left channel, original Mel 9 Flute on right channel

It's almost midnight here and it is still 23 degrees C! Apparently tomorrow will be hotter Can you send some cold arctic blasts down here please? I was not bred to survive these temperatures!