So I'm a fan of glitchy type music and such, but i'd like to use hardware options rather than plugins / modern software.

A few pieces I have that approach some of the effects are units like my Digitech RDS delays with the ability to hold and change delay ranges.. and the Akai S612 I have is cool for the start / stop loop points being hardware sliders.

However one effect that I'd love to have access to is things like reverse and stutter type effects..

I know a stuttering effect can be simulated in many samplers with the quantizing / start point but i'm thinking realtime stuff.

The SP 303 has a bit rate changer so that achieves that effect, but wonder if there are other devices that do this.

realtime reverse is one thing i haven't found. i know there might be some loop pedals out there that can do reverse, but i was thinking something more rack based..

So I've come across some things that do these things but i wonder if there are other products out there that i simply never knew about..

Thanks!
Caleb

Some pedals that have been tempting me ... Catalinbread DISKMAN (he spells it mixed up ...) ... very cool. Red Panda Particle.

I know I get a lot of flak for mentioning these - but seriously, for experimental stuff, Line6 Pod's or M series offer a lot. They have various delays, including revese. But the power of them is that you can assign multiple parameters to an expression pedal or switch. So you could - for example - use a delay model 100% dry and no feedback, but when you want it to stutter or glitch or reverse you could switch to 100% wet and maximum feedback. With the Pod's you have multiple FX at once and a parallel chain, and the possibilities of how you can combine them and how you can control them become endless ... you can throw in pitch shifters, bit crushing, ring modulation, flanging ... endless synth design possibiities. If you don't like the amp models you don't have to use them, but I find them very useful too.

But very few people seem to have the ability to program these - I think they are easy, but some people just want simple pedals where everything is done for them.

The best way to do it is with eurorack. MI clouds is awesome with guitar. And there are many samplers that can be sequenced in glitchy ways. But you may not want to go down that rabbit hole.

Kaosspad

Hey these are some great suggestions. I've been thinking about a kaoss pad for awhile..

I definitely didn't know about those two pedals mentioned.. i have an old line 6 pod, but that pretty basic stuff.. if only i could get it to respond to midi clock.. then it would be amazing.. tap tempo.. come on guys it was right there!

Thanks, now I have some new things to hunt for if something comes along. The first two mentioned remind me of some of the cool software plugins i'd messed with before and yea having it be a dedicated piece of hardware is really nice.. don't have to load up software.. worry about it crashing.. assigning knobs.. etc..

You could diy some weird stuff for this if you are creative. I'm thinking wire up a hamster wheel with trs connections, so as the little guy runs contacts are made or lost, with varying sum/difference, maybe stereo pair to make it more interesting?
Tape loops would have been fun. I saw where the Beatles had a big loop crossing through a bunch of different tape machines. Pink Floyd used a mic stand to keep tension on the tape loop for money.

Eventide H3000/SE and the stutter algo does that.

A simple footswitch hooked to any rack effect that has the option of "mute on bypass" would give you a stutter effect. Using a soft switch or hand pressed button built into a little pedal box would be pretty awesome and simple to build. So, essentially a glorified "kill switch".

yea that's true.. i have my compressors setup with triggers to be routable to drum machines and a noise gate rack as well so they can be triggered by a drum machine or whatever.. so yea that's definitely good.. kinda like a tremolo effect that can be slaved to tempo..

but yea in my mind i'm thinking more "granular" type stuff.. the S612 gives some of that..

speaking of Akai S612.. are there any other hardware samplers anyone knows about that can tweak the start / stop points of a sample in real time like that?

I have several samplers and i need to mess with that as well.. the kind of Aphex Twin - Bucephalus Bouncing Ball.. type stuff..

I have an Boss SP-303 I bought thinking it's start / end knobs would do this, but the range of those knobs is more of a "fine tune" than complete start / end range which REALLY sucks because that would be incredible.. but i guess if a sample were short enough the fine tune could work.. i forgot to try that when i was dabbling with it.

I got a home-made Meyer Octavia that does some of that stuff. It can sound really broken at times too. It does a swelling thing at certain settings.

+1 on the Particle and Red Panda Bitmap

Microgranny

A buddy of mine (same guy that turned me on to the Akai S612) got one of the microgrannys and he reported that it didn't really handle the start / stop stuff very elegantly..

just glitchy (in a bad / everything sounds the same way) and from one of the videos i watched I kinda got the same impression.. but that said you're right it does do the start / stop feature.

An old (and quite easily/inexpensively found) Alesis Quadraverb?

Lexicon Vortex might do. I haven't tried the stutter effect with it yet but my Vortex came with a foot-switch that sits in the corner. If you are not stuck on HW then I highly recommend the free plugin Hysteresis by Glitch Machines. It's one of the most unique effect plugins I have every tried.

@ dwpthe3rd what effects does the quadraverb offer for glitchy? i always though the effect it had were pretty vanilla (delay, chorus, flange, reverb). I've thought about getting one so knowing it might have some interesting usage beyond the basics (i was more interested in it for shoegazer reverbs and such)

I have a midiverb III i need to play with also i got my hands on recently for cheap.. wonder if it might have some of the same potential glitchy stuff you're talking about.

I'll check the plugin out. i'm not totally against them.. i liked the "glitch" plugin as well which is nice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCgENwOytuA

but yea my whole point is to have real knobs dedicated to things rather than assigning a bunch of virtual stuff.. plus the crashing and so forth.. sure it's better these days maybe, but i find the modern DAW too much for me.. it's like too many possibilities.. i'm using Digital Performer 3 on OS9 on a 450mhz G4 sawtooth machine.. which is still a beast of a DAW if you ask me and it's something i used back in the day so I'm going back to that to work within those constraints and hey, maybe come up with a different sound than using the same digital software / hardware / plugins everyone else is using..

but yea for glitchy / experimental stuff I'm just considering the hardware options out there.. $200 for a pedal is no bueno for my budget but at least i know they exist and maybe find something used some day.. and that's the point of this thread!

Your OP made me think the Quadraverb might do what you require. (Maybe the sample/loop/trigger feature)? TBH my Alesis Quadraverb Plus has been sitting in a closet unused for more than 15 years (I'm not good at getting rid of unused gear), and I'm not certain it's capable of doing what you're looking for. As gear goes it was interesting and forward thinking when released, but the analog i/o only feature made it a bit noisy for vocal effects and one of the reasons I eventually set it aside.

oooo that is interesting. i never caught that it was able to sample.. a guy gave me one last year but it was broken (bad digital clipping and no economic path to finding a repair for it) but didn't get to get under the hood much with the bad input.

but yea your point of it being a 1.55 sec sampler.. IS interesting.. and it reminds me. I have a couple of ART products (multiverb III, nightbass) that i believe both have the sampling capability.. and while i did get the sampler to work with midi (at the time it was technically done on a SGE Mach II, that I no longer have, but all of those pieces back in that era I'm learning were basically the same internal engine)..

what i could never figure out was how to send a "reset trigger" to it that couldn't be a midi note.. i guess it had to be a CC.. might have to crack open the manual again and see.. the idea of having to manually do a sample before performing would not work well in a live situation.. i'm confident there is a way to tell it "start recording now" via midi.. this way a player could juse play.. or singer sing.. and just snap spots of sound from the audio as it goes in..

Thanks for that expanded response! I had no idea.. i also see the plus has ring modulation which is cool... one thing in my brief googling though with the QV+ is that there was no midi implementation stuff in the manual.. the idea of being able to assign cc's to various parameters would be really sweet and might put me in the market to find one for a good price. a local guy was selling one (not sure if it was a plus version) pretty cheap.. he might still have it.

Digital Performer has midi capability where you could set-up a bunch of patch or parameter changes. And like I mentioned; a simple kill switch can be made super cheap. Patch it into your effect in or out.

what do you mean by a "simple kill switch"? i'd be interested in knowing more about that..

and yea for DP3 it does seem to have plenty of MIDI CC capabilities and automation.. honestly going back to it (thinking it was simpler after using ableton and other new stuff)

In some ways i'm like what's really changed in the last 10+ years of DAW? other than perhaps sound quality of plugins.. seems like DP3 has everything I could ask for..

I'm regretting not buying a heathkit synth someone was selling on CL last week.. i'm not to current on my analog electronics but seeing what someone did with it on youtube i should have jumped on that..

I just grabbed the first site from google Kill Switch Pedal | Saturnworks Pedals | USA

Simply put, a button that disrupts the guitar (or other analog) signal. Lots of guys install them in their guitar, or use a pedal. I'm sure you could find a stereo version in pedal form.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_HJJEwmjgc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbfF1bU9JDQ

I would think programming some extreme midi automation in digital performer could give you amazing results.

very cool, what i'd like to do is figure out how to do that WITH an analog signal going to it.. a manual switch doesn't appeal to me but if a drum machine kick for example, could be sent to it and that signal act as the "press" event then yea i could see that being incredibly versatile! I'll have to think about that.. but then again.. I'm actually picking up a 4 channel Behringer MULTIGATE PRO XR4400 for $30 today which basically is exactly what the kill switch is and then some.. i have an older noise gate (forget the brand) that is 3/4 channels (one dead) but it was free so no complaints BUT it has a noisy transformer from age so I'm hoping this newer unit will help me remove one of my noisier units (i'm looking at you Digitech RDS's and ART Multiverb III.. I wish transformer replacement wasn't such a mystical process..

but yea man that noise gate was SOOOO fun.. you have control over the tolerance and such, much like a compressor.. AND a gate trigger input so you can drive a nice analog tremolo effect from a drum beat or other sound source..

rc 202 can do that extensively! sorry for kicking in so late!

The original glitchy random box was the sample and hold modules on the ARP 2500 and on.

Listen to Pete Townsend playing on the outro of Going Mobile. He pluged his guitar into his 2500 and used the random sample and hold module along with an envelope filter.

I know there are companies (like Pittsburg) that sell those hardware modules separately and Arturia’s VI ARP 2600 plug has it.

My only other encounter with random crazy boxes is a 6 bit fuzz box.

Pat

RC202 is interesting, the SP505 which I recently sold allowed live external audio in and did some of this too but i'd say a bit better than the RC202 because it just had more effects and options like it's stutter effect had a bunch of pattern options so it would do more than just 4/4 chopping. It responded to ext midi clock which i imagine the RC202 can do too.. didn't see it demo'd specifically but yea..

Yea that's where i first learned about the possibilities.. i had an octave kitten for awhile and it had external audio in which at the time in the 90's was unheard of in synths of that era.. good stuff.

Nobody has mentioned the Eventide H9, so I do... Love it. And not as pricey as the 19" Eventides.

does anyone know if any of the zoom pedals listen to midi clock? i have a G1on that I love honestly especially for the price, but it's LFO effects don't apparently listen to midi which sucks so bad.. heavy sample and hold effects that can't slave to external clock are just a sad waste of potential..

I'll have to check the eventide device. a bit out of my price range.. but it does look powerful and for eventide quality that's a bonus too.

I'm leaning towards simple / dedicated ideas too.. like i would love to see a hardware version of "glitch" where it is really designed to just do that.. with plenty of dedicated knobs and such.. but i guess no such beast exists yet.

i know that plugin still has some stuff that would require a screen to be 1:1 but the idea of the various effects / % of happening and being midi syncable are all things that a piece of hardware could do.

The Feral Glitch pedal looks great. It was a crowd funded thing so not sure what happened with it or if there are other alternatives by now. Check youtube also.

The Eventide starts at about 400,-. You don't have to buy the MAX, you can just choose the effects you want.
I bought it shortly after its release and still use it nearly daily. Can't say this about a lot of other cheaper effects I bought. IIRC even with the cheapest version, you get the effects that are special for the H9 for free.
For me Eventide is way ahead of most other digital effects units. Hard to describe. Compared to the price of the single pedal units, the H9 is dead cheap.
The huge advantage - for me - is that I would never have understood the way the effects work and I can manipulate them to my needs without the user-interface of the H9. It's really great what they have done with the apps. Disadvantage - for some - if you don't have an iPad or iPhone (I never tested the Mac or Windows apps), it doesn't make much sense. I have barely ever touched the unit itself - besides switching programs at live gigs.