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Many Worlds - Catalinbread

Mar 8, 2022

From the manual:

The Many Worlds by Catalinbread is an eight-stage phaser with eight selectable phase control parameters, six LFOs and two envelope-dependent phase shift modes.

I was pleasantly surprised when I first plugged into the Many Worlds. Just on a “vanilla” sine LFO, I could hear Red Hot Chili Peppers vibes from the By the Way era.

Each of the eight selectable waveforms from the rotary switch give you a distinct sound. I like when a modulation pedal can be used with a “broad stroke” approach like that. Psychedelic, watery, lush, funky – it’s all in this box.

Due to the secondary functions of the knobs the Many Worlds has a little bit of a learning curve.

For the five “simple” LFOs (sine, square, triangle, saw, reverse saw) we just have the FREQ, DEPTH, FDBK and MIX knobs. Turning up the internal feedback (FDBK) makes the phaser sound more intense and drippy.

In the two envelope modes, you control the phasing with your picking attack. The SENS knob seems to have a sweet spot depending on your guitar and the rest of your signal chain.

In “Battle Mode”, there are two LFOs modulating each other. The DEPTH knob is now also a FREQ knob that controls the second LFO. Set one frequency low and one high, and you get a rhythmic fading in and out of the fast phasing. Set them close to each other and the phasing gets more warbly and unpredictable.

I had fun recording with this. The sounds I got from it inspired me to play guitar. To be honest, I would enjoy the Many Worlds even with just the sine LFO (so as a One World, get it?).

Signal Chain

Rhythm and lead guitar that have the Many Worlds in the signal chain have minimal compression and limiting to make them sit better in the mix.

For the backing track, I applied more EQing, compression and plugins. Nothing crazy because I don’t really know what I’m doing here 😅

Rhythm guitar (panned slightly left):

  • Epiphone SG Special with Lollar Firebird pickups (neck pickup)
  • Keeley Compressor Mini (both knobs at noon)
  • Many Worlds
  • Strymon Iridium (Chime)

Lead guitar (panned slightly right):

Ambient background swells (2 takes, hard-panned left and right):

Fake bass:

  • Epiphone SG, tuned down 1/2 step (both pickups)
  • Directly into Focusrite Scarlett 2i2
  • FreeAMP plugin from Klevgrand to add a tiny bit of saturation
  • Stock GarageBand amp sim (Flip-top amp)
  • A good amount of EQ and compression to make it sound more like a bass

Drums:

  • GarageBand Drummer (learning to love this because I hate programming drums)
  • Kit: “Scientific Method”
  • Drummer: Graham (Experimental Songwriter)
  • Some EQ, compression and again FreeAMP to add some character and saturation

Links

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