I think one of the major problems with most "slow gear" type pedals is that they are essentially noise gates with a retarded attack.
The weakness of the approach is that the gate control is simply level sensing - the gate is open as long as the signal is above the gate's threshold which means that the signal must drop below said threshold for the unit to trigger another swell.
the net effect I've always found strange...to get a the swelling, fluid sound, one has to play if not staccato at least in a very articulated manner (so that the signal drops below threshold).
I believe, back in the day, EHX did an analog implementation of a "look ahead" strategy (sometimes done digitally now in compressors, etc) to detect signal peaks related to pick attack which would retrigger, thereby resetting the envelope.
This allows the player to do legato lines and still have the unit track the actual picking as the control for the swells
rocktron touts "pluck detection" on their upper end prophesy units, but there isn't a lot of solid info (even after writing them) and none of there lower line appears to contain the technology.
any other thoughts on units that might retrigger
Comments
You have to learn a bit of 'technique' to get your foot coordination going but it's far, far more flexible and expressive than any slow gear style effect.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
an interesting side note , automation opens the door to polyphony (certain bos products such as the VG-8, WP2-0, etc have poly slow gear) --
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
One area I'd find it particularly useful is rounding the bass side of the Chapman stick (it tends to have a very 'articulate' bass sound - especially the newer railboard), but also applies to guitar.
if it were just a slow bloom, then any volume control would work - and even the typical autoswells would not be too bad as there would be significant gaps between plucks
unfortunately, the hex processing is pretty much restricted to Roland at this time, so I have little hope for that (monophonic is one area where pluck detection can help...each articulation during an arpeggiation can retrigger, scrubbing the attack even though the entire sound swells monophonically )
On guitar I'll use a VG-8 as it has hex processing, which helps quite a bit (I play fingerstyle, not with plectrum)
but for stick...I don't find it works quite as well (and the stick can benefit from the effect more) -- not to mention with two sides....(though I think the bass side benefits from that sort of treatment more )
I think it has uses elsewhere, with more traditional swells (hence the old EHX unit) too though