This Week’s Preset: Mobius – “Freak Minus”

For this week’s preset, I wanted to make something for electric bass. What I came up with is an envelope controlled frequency shifter. I used the Quadrature mod machine, set for the Negative Frequency Shifter Mode, which shows up on the LED display as “F-SHFT,” thus the patch name “Freak Minus.” Please check out the audio clip below and see what you think!

Listen here:

For the example audio clip, I used a Fender Jazz bass (neck pickup) plugged straight into Mobius. Mobius is then running into BigSky (just for the cabinet emulation, otherwise BigSky is bypassed – no patch is active). The drum loop is from Propellerhead Reason.

Preset details:

The image below shows the knob settings and parameters that I used in the audio clip.

A frequency shifter can sound similar to a ring modulator, and achieves its sound by offsetting all frequencies present in the input signal by the same amount of Hertz. The Negative Frequency Shifter offsets the frequencies in a negative direction. The character of the sound is very dependent on the SHIFT setting (which determines the frequency offset amount), so I’ve mapped SHIFT to the Parameter 2 knob for easy access. At very low SHIFT values, you can get an effect similar to subtle phase shifting.

Here’s something interesting that you will find if you dig into this patch: The Speed and Depth controls are pretty self-explanatory when using an LFO to modulate the SHIFT parameter, but here I am using the Envelope waveshape to modulate the SHIFT parameter. So the SHIFT value will vary depending on the strength of the input signal (rather than being modulated by an LFO). The Depth knob, instead of controlling the depth of the LFO, controls the depth or range of the envelope. The Speed knob essentially controls the release time of the envelope. I have it set pretty slow in the example file, as you can hear at the end of the clip when I let the last note ring out.

Download the preset:

Using the Strymon Librarian? Download the “Freak Minus” preset and load it into your Mobius.

What do you think?

Made your own tweaks to this preset? Post them below or tag them #StrymonPreset online. Are there other preset types that you’d like to see in upcoming blog posts? Let us know what you think. Thanks!