I recently tried applying a comb filter to a drum loop (sampled from an old Korg DDD-1) in a track I was working on. What I got was really cool resonating deep low end by setting the filter to the root note of the song it glued perfectly with the rest of the tracks.
Truth be told though it was more trial&error than a concious effect choice, hence my question: any advice / vid on how and where to use the comb filter?
It can be nice to use it for harmonies, set the feedback toward either near fully positive or negative, works nice on vocals giving an almost robot/vocoder feel, but also fun on hihats, pads, bass, erm everything:joy:
1 Like
Oh and use an LFO on the pitch or tune to introduce a small amount of vibrato sounds nice too.
3 Likes
cool idea darenager! got any ready tracks that feature this?
I resampled a minor and a major C chord using 4 tracks all with the same 808 snare and comb filters tuned into the right intervals. 0, +3, +7 and +12 for minor, change the +3 to +4 for major. The snare was set to a very short decay so it didn’t ring to much, but still adds that snappy attack.
This was using that technique, it was my entry for the Wilhelm Scream science lab.
12 Likes
wow! like holy-shit-on-a-shingle wow!!
A technique I use with the Comb Filter is to add harmonic content to beating oscillators and/or tonal shading stops when creating drones using the Octatrack as an effects processor. To add further movement to the Comb Filter harmonic tone send the Feedback as a LFO Destination to oscillate between hard negative or hard positive values. The LFO Depth determines how much Feedback oscillation and the LFO Speed determines how fast the Feedback oscillates.
1 Like
^ what are tonal shading stops…?
Tonal shading is multiple oscillators set at different intervals. Generally 8va or 8vb octave stops (32’ 16’ 8’ 4’ 2’ 1’).
Cool, thanks!
Here’s another comb filter video, for some acid inspiration (not mine):
1 Like
I’ve had good results putting the comb filter on sounds that need more low end. Roll the freq way down low and you can get some nice beefing up type of FX.
+1 to that. I’ve been doing that intuitively ever since reading how the comb works 
I am just discovering the comb filter. I am really loving it so far.
darenager wrote
Oh and use an LFO on the pitch or tune to introduce a small amount of vibrato sounds nice too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6wKg30cy1w
This was using that technique, it was my entry for the Wilhelm Scream science lab.
Hey darenager
your Wilhelm Scream Track is so brilliant , ilove it…Are you really only using the Wilhelm Scream Sample for all those Sounds ? the Drums , the Melo etc. ?
Greetz from Bremen
1 Like
I love using the comb filter. I have no idea what exactly I am doing (!) so can’t really explain it other than:
- Take a sample - I like using vocal samples with the comb filter.
- Tweak various knobs
- Muck about with the LFO’s
- Strange synth sound created.
- Even better to assign the filter and LFOs to the cross fader to morph in and out
At the moment I roughly know where Im heading with a lot of the OT’s stuff but it still involves 90% of farting about and getting lucky!!!
1 Like
Comb filter is one of the OT best creative tools.
Here’s 2 seconds of white noise and judicious use of the comb filter with loads of parameter modulation (taken from one of the really old OT Labs)
- Take a sample - I like using vocal samples with the comb filter.
- Tweak various knobs
- Muck about with the LFO’s
- Strange synth sound created.
- Even better to assign the filter and LFOs to the cross fader to morph in and out
At the moment I roughly know where Im heading with a lot of the OT’s stuff but it still involves 90% of farting about and getting lucky!!!
that’s probably the best tutorial evar. 
This was using that technique, it was my entry for the Wilhelm Scream science lab.[/quote]
I knew it!!! Always liked that track and my guess had been comb filter for the bell-like melody line.
1 Like