Re: [Harp-L] Tremolo harmonicas

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Winslow Yerxa wrote:
<The true tremolo sound can only be achieved with a tremolo harmonica - ha-ha--ha pulsing, or the 'tremolo" setting on an amplifier <will not give you want you're looking for.
<
<You *can* use a pitch shifter to raise the pitch very slightly and get a sort-of tremolo. Feed your mic into two different tracks <(I''m assuming digital recording). Leave one channel alone, and on the other use a pitch shifter to raise the pitch slightly - by <just a few cents. Experiment until you find an effect that you (or the producer) like.
<
<The reasons a pitch shifter doesn't give a true tremolo is that tremolo is based on differences between actual frequencies, not <cents, and pitch shifters that I'm aware of don't give you that type of control. Also, you don't get the actual reeds interacting <inside the body of a musical instrument, which makes its own sound.
***

The Detune effect in the Digitech RP shifts pitch by cents, not semitones, and so can produce a convincing tremolo effect similar to the one you'd get with a tremolo harp.  In other words, a detune effect (whether produced by a Digitech device or any other) is a pitch shifter that 1) produces a parallel signal to the original, and 2) shifts the pitch of the parallel signal by very small amounts.  So I don't understand Winslow's comment that "tremolo is based on differences between actual frequencies, not cents," given that a cent refers to a frequency difference--specifically, a "cent" = 1/100 of the difference in frequencies between a given pitch and another pitch 1/2 step higher or lower.  No matter whether you produce a tremolo sound electronically or with two physical reeds beating at very slightly different rates, it's about frequencies shifted by cents.

In most musical contexts, "tremolo" refers to a pulsation in volume, as opposed to the pulsation produced by two tones that are very close (but not identical) in pitch.  However, be that as it may--a tremolo harmonica pulses according to the difference between two reeds that are close to, but not identical in, pitch, as opposed to anything to do with volume.

Anyway, the detune effect does the job when you don't have a tremolo harp around.  As with any electronic effect, the results are similar but not identical to the "real" thing.  (They're both actually "real", but not the same kind of real.)

Regards, Richard Hunter 

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