Five Surprising Uses For An Envelope Filter
Dan Epstein
To paraphrase Akron’s legendary daughter Chrissie Hynde, EarthQuaker Devices’ new Spatial Delivery v3 is spatial, so spatial — and it’s gotta have some of your attention.
As its “v3” implies, this isn’t the first iteration of EQD’s voltage-controlled envelope filter to hit the scene, but it is the first Spatial Delivery to feature an expression pedal jack, as well as the first to feature six preset slots that are ready and waiting to contain the settings of your choice. Aside from the new preset selector knob, the controls on v3 are the same as before: there’s a Mode toggle switch for the pedal’s Up Sweep, Down Sweep and Sample & Hold functions, and knobs for Range, Resonance and Filter.
The Spatial Delivery is a voltage-controlled envelope filter, an effect better known to many as an auto-wah. But the term “auto-wah” is something of a misnomer, since the “auto” implies automaticity, and therefore that this a “set it and forget it” kind of pedal. Nothing could be further from the truth, however - because an envelope filter, perhaps more than any other effects pedal, truly gives back whatever you put into it.
Whereas a regular wah-wah pedal relies on foot movement to shape the tone, an envelope filter responds to the intensity - or lack thereof - of your guitar playing. The harder you hit the strings, the more pronounced the effect becomes, which is why envelope filters have long been a favorite of funk rhythm guitarists. It can be difficult to be subtle with a wah-wah pedal, but a player that knows their way around an envelope filter can go in a second from a sweetly percussive groove to full-on “bow-chicka-wow-wow” and back with nothing more than a slight adjustment in the force of their strumming hand. And for lead guitarists, a nicely dialed-in envelope filter can add an arresting vocal element to one’s choice of notes.
On the Spatial Delivery, the Range control informs how sensitive the pedal’s filter should be to any incoming information; the lower the Range is set, the harder you have to hit your strings to produce an effect, and the more slowly the effect will manifest. In Sample & Hold mode, where the filter is controlled by random voltage, the Range controls the speed of its output. The Filter control crossfades between high pass and low pass filters; turn it clockwise to carve off the high end, clockwise to carve off the low, and leave it right at Noon to leave all your guitar’s frequencies intact. The Resonance knob serves as the filter’s feedback control, opening up or limiting the filter voice as you and your guitar see fit.
While it must be said that a whole lotta bassists and keyboardists have unleashed all manner of creative possibilities via the first two incarnations of the Spatial Delivery, this blog entry has been written for all you guitarists out there, especially for those of you who are laboring under the mistaken impression that an envelope filter is a one-trick pony, or an effect that is solely the province of funkateers. Because there’s really no end to the voices and flavors you can achieve with the Spatial Delivery, especially once you start combining it with other pedals on your board.
Speaking of which, conventional wisdom says that you should always put an envelope filter at the beginning of your pedal chain, and that’s where I currently have it on mine. But I’m not the boss of you, so place it wherever - and set it however - you like. The Spatial Delivery might actually sound pretty cool coming after a dirt pedal or even a modulation pedal; you never know until you try it, right?
In any case, here are five distinctly non-funky sonic flavors that you can achieve with a guitar and the Spatial Delivery, just to give you a sense of how far this pedal can go beyond its admittedly impressive funk capabilities.
THE LIPPY LESLIE
For nearly sixty years now, guitarists have been playing through Leslie organ speakers – or effects boxes that simulate them – to get that warbly, wobbly, swirling rotating speaker sound like Jimi Hendrix got on “Little Wing,” Eric Clapton (or was it George Harrison?) got on Cream’s “Badge,” or Keith Richards got on the Rolling Stones’ “Let It Loose”. The Spatial Delivery can deliver a similarly lush effect, and some sassy sonic asides along with it. In Upward Sweep mode, set the Range control to 3 o’clock, turn the Resonance down to 9 o’clock, keep the Filter at Noon, and pick out a descending or ascending arpeggio. When you pick harder, the effect will “squawk” a bit, like it’s telling you to watch where you’re going or casting humorous aspersions on your choice of footwear. If you desire less of this lippy aspect, use this setting with two pickups engaged and the treble rolled off a bit; but if you want to really bring its feisty personality to the fore, switch to your bridge pickup and turn the treble all the way up!
THE TALKING SITAR
A 1967 radio ad for the Vox Wah-Wah claimed that it “can even make your guitar sound like a sitar!” Which was sort of true - by pushing the treadle all the way forward, you could emphasize the treble end of your guitar sound, lending an additional element of Eastern intrigue to droning, sitar-like runs. You can achieve a similar but even more expressive effect with the Spatial Delivery: With the pedal in Down Sweep mode, turn both the Resonance and Filter controls down all the way to 7 o’clock (thereby filtering out all the low-end frequencies), set the Range control at about 11 o’clock, and turn the treble of your guitar’s bridge pickup all the way up. The raging ragas and snake-charming six-string spells that result will have an unearthly vocal quality to them, like there’s a mysterious Jinn trying to make contact through your music, and you can further emphasize this effect by turning up the Range control.
FUTURE BLUES
The Spatial Delivery’s Sample & Hold mode is wonderfully loopy – all you need to do is hit a string, and all manner of random bleeps and burbles tumble forth - and easy to get lost in for hours, but it can also be difficult or guitar players to figure out how to incorporate it into their playing. (Synthesizer aficionados, on the other hand, have been using Sample and Hold technology for decades to generate complex clusters of notes and all kinds of other fun effects.) One good way to get a handle on the pedal’s S&H mode is to slow it down as much as possible, which entails turning the Range control all the way down to 7 o’clock. Set the Filter control at noon to let both the low and high frequencies through, and turn the Resonance control all the way up to 5 o’clock to really bring out the effect’s robotic flavors. Hit a note to start the effect moving, then find your space between the rhythmic blips and start playing. Try some slow, mournful pentatonic licks to get a call-and-response thing going with the effect, then add a little delay (or a lot) to the proceedings. It’s like you’re playing the blues on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise!
FUTURE FOLK
Once you’ve got the hang of that, increase the speed of the Sample & Hold effect by turning the Range control to Noon. Dial the Resonance back to around 2 o’clock, and bump the Filter control to 1 o’clock. With your guitar’s neck pickup selected and its tone knob dialed back, gently pluck a clean open chord and let it ring; when this unleashes a rhythmic series of bloops and bleeps from the pedal, start building a chordal or melodic pattern around them, and be amazed at the folky yet futuristic textures that result. Again, the addition of a delay - such as the Avalanche Run - can take the Spatial Delivery’s Sample & Hold function on some jaw-dropping sonic excursions. (Note: when in S&H mode, if any of the repeats that the pedal produces sound annoyingly harsh to your ears, try rolling off the treble on your guitar and/or switch over to the neck pickup. That’s usually all that’s required to tame the rowdy robots.)
INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT
As cool as the Spatial Delivery is on its own, it’s also fun to combine the pedal with other effects and hear the results, like the weird and wonky octave effect that can occur when you pair it with a raspy, vintage-style fuzz - like, say, a Park Fuzz Sound with its treble bumped up a hair. In Down Sweep mode, set the Range to 3 o’clock, set the Resonance at noon and dial the Filter down to 9 o’clock, and kick on the fuzz. Playing single-note leads up the neck produces a clanging, biting tone that’s nasty and abrasive enough in and of itself; but once you go down the neck, the notes start producing an out-of-tune octave effect that becomes more jarring the further down the scale you go. Whether used for unsettling effect against a lovely melodic backdrop, or to add an extra layer of jagged crud to a full-on noise assault, this particular combination is so deliciously awful that that it’s guaranteed to trigger an involuntary “stinkface” expression from anyone within a mile radius.
Guitar and bass demo.
Dan Epstein is an author, editor, journalist and guitarist based in New York's Hudson Valley. He writes about his latest musical obsessions at Jagged Time Lapse, and songs from his latest musical project The Corinthian Columns can be found at corinthiancolumns.bandcamp.com
