Below are the pedal settings for Effectology Episode 20: “The Caribbean Steel Drum Effect.”

The steel drum sound is produced using a combination of pitch shifting and flanging with the modulation stopped.

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Pitch shifting can be done with either a HOG or POG pedal. An octave above is created and filtered to remove the top frequencies. When using the HOG, the attack slider is adjusted to reduce the sustain of the guitar signal. This helps emulate the percussive nature of a steel drum.

The pitch shifted signal is then feed into a Poly Chorus pedal in the filter matrix mode. The filter matrix mode is basically flanging with the sweep disabled. This produces the metallic resonance of a metal tube or drum.

Playing staccato or with very short notes helps emulate the steel drum sound even further.

Below are the settings for the bass part.

The maracas or shaker sound was produced by sliding an EHX manual across the guitar strings. Using EQ to lower the bass and increase the middle frequencies helps shape the sound.

The opening drone sound was recorded in two parts. The surf or ocean wave sound is white noise from a Big Muff fuzz manually filtered by a Micro Synthesizer pedal.

The chord pad sound is a chord frozen using a HOG pedal in freeze mode and looped in a Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai. A second or different chord was frozen and looped on top of the first chord, producing a cluster of notes or what’s called a poly-chord.

Thanks for watching
Bill Ruppert

how about the electric mistress in filter matrix? would that create sort of the same idea?

I’ll try it out and report back. mainly the question is, are the filter matrix modes on the polychorus and the electric mistress similar in function / sound ?

YEAH MON! Irie, Bill! All good, yes Sir! As always, Bill, another great clip. I have a neighbor, a few houses down, who always plays his Steel Drums loud & proud. I can not wait to give him this Guitar sound back. I have a Hog but no Poly Chorus; I will try it with my Flanger Hoax. Wish me luck. If you read on the Internet that a New York Guitar player was murdered by a Jamaican Steel Drummer, don’t feel bad Bill, it was not your fault, yeah Mon!