The C4 can be a bit daunting at first, but after spending some time with it and watching an excellent video shared by @DaveT it all made perfect sense. I have a MF-101 patch programmed, along with many many many others that can take the place of filters, octaves, tremolos, filters, wahs, other Source Audio pedals and a ton more.
If you sit with the C4 and this video it really opens up the possibilities. You can for sure go down the rabbit hole of synths and spend years experimenting and programming the thing, but you also don’t have to. You can grab everyone else’s work online and put it in your pedal and done.
As for the minutia around the C4 missing nuances that the MoogerFooger or other pedals have and it doesn’t….does it matter if you really have no idea what they are? I find these guys are generally deep into pedal geekdom and nothing that really matters to the average beginner (or many others for that matter). This pedal can be controlled by an expression pedal to boot.
C4s can be found used for $200 or less even all the time.
I also have the MXR and basically leave it in the classic funky filter settings so its always there to jam with. These are solid and cheap and plentiful used so even cheaper, and can generally be had for under $100. No expression pedal input here.
And then I have the Iron Ether Xerograph filter as well. Why? Do I need it? No. It is a different take on the filter and does some really odd and wacky stuff. I was intrigued by it watching Josh’s pedalboard tour video. It makes a lot of very cool “chompy” sounds and is a different take on the classic filter, and, it can be controlled by an expression pedal for even more fun.
I agree. Maybe the real thing would be nice for capturing some special nuance when recording but 90%+ is going to be way more than anyone in a bar would ever notice.
Yep, this one has a lot of fans also. There were a bunch of really great pedals I left out of the original post.
No, filters are more fundamental than that. They are built in to every synthesizer, usually more than one, and for general use there’s a ton of them as well, but none that I own are really trying to emulate a specific pedal. Some on the synthesizers do try and emulate a specific filter though.
The one I use most with bass is Kilohearts’ filter snapin:
Simple, and does the job nicely. If I want to use it like an envelope filter pedal I would use it inside SnapHeap or Multipass and modulate it with an envelope or LFO (or both).
Like anything else, some people do geek out over filter plugins too, of course.
In that neuro app deep dive video he said he was able to get it close to the Moog LF pedal, but hadn’t spent the time to really dial it in. No verdict on how close he was ultimately able to get. Even if pretty darn close, the analogue purist preference will always also exist. He also pointed out that the Moog pedal can be noisy as a trade off. Not to mention that the Moog pedal is way more than double the price of the C4. I almost bought the Moog when it was still in production and now I’m sorry I didn’t.
Because of this thread my C4 arrived last week, but it was intercepted and wrapped for Christmas so I haven’t played yet.
I’ll probably sell the MXR envelope if this sounds at all funky. I’m really looking forward to the filter frequency tracking the note most of all.
I also ordered the SuperEgo Plus , mostly for the note latch sustain pedal effect.
I love bass, but other than a bass that plays great, I have paid little to no attention to gear.
So, sadly, this does not make sense to me.
The pedal has a very unavoidable preamp in it, so it’s unavoidable. If you’re using it in line with other pedals, it’s part of your signal.
I use it as a way to make things super funky and Bootsy-esque.
It’s on all the time in conjunction with my MXR sub-octave-bass-fuzz to get a real dirty synth vibe.
The Source Audio Spectrum is exactly the same as the C4 but the main difference is that the knobs have fixed functions while on the C4 you can appoint each knob to different functions.
So if you are planning to only do enveloppe filters the spectrum may be easier but I would get the C4 because it has more community presets. But you can load them on both anyway.
I noticed that you also have a Moogerfooger MF-101. I also noticed that, as this board developed, you replaced it with a second Iron Ether Xerograph. Also, you removed the MXR envelope filter.
Would you mind talking about what you were going for that you made all these changes?
I read the Iron Ether Xerograph can get pretty darn close to the MF-101.
Hey Eric! Yeah, I actually have two MF-101s, I had the foresight to get an extra when they were going out of production. Guess I’ll sit on that a few more years and retire, lol!
However, I swapped it out for the second Xerograph eventually, because -
The Moog is huuuuuuuuge and pedalboard real estate is precious
The Moog is noissyyyyyyy and the Xerograph isn’t
The Xerograph does a very good facsimile of an analog resonant LPF, it was very adequate for my purposes
I had two on the board because I need two different sounds and it doesn’t have presets or MIDI in
And I love the MXR! Still one of my fav little auto envelope pedals. Just didn’t need it for that particular band, but I still take it out for fun. You can get nice funky wah sounds, but it’ll also do some cool resonance sweepy sh*t if you run fuzz into it
Probably not clear what’s going on there, I have an envelope modulating the filter cutoff, with a high Q. This is the simplest envelope filter you could possibly make. Took a few seconds.
Sounds pretty awesome with a chorus on it as well:
It’s been almost a year since I created this topic. Just thought I’d come back and check in with it.
I still haven’t acquired an envelope filter. Too many pedals, too little time.
I’m still lusting after either a Proton v4 by 3 Leaf Audio or Micro-Tron IV by Mu-Tron. They are both so smooth and pleasing to the ear.
However, I will probably end up starting with an MXR Bass Envelope Filter.
Much more affordable than either and when it comes to the Proton, much more available. So few Proton’s are made that people on TalkBass usually post them for trade instead of for sale. Using them to acquire other very rare pedals that don’t typically come up for sale. The rare pedal market is a weird place.
so I haven’t played yet.
, mostly for the note latch sustain pedal effect.
