NPDx2: Low-Budget/High-Gain

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MrShake
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NPDx2: Low-Budget/High-Gain

Post by MrShake » Mon Oct 03, 2022 10:07 am

I'll spare you the details but landed a much-needed new job last week, so mini-splurged.

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I'm a fuzz guy, not a high-gain guy, but a seller offered me a deal on the noise gate and the pair were $40. Like, come on, right? Obviously, I had to try the Swedish Chainsaw sound, but am having fun dinking around.

Initial impressions are that my streak of perfectly-solid Sonicake pedals continues, and was surprised the HM300 wasn't the over-the-top gain monster I'd expected on its own, but sounds pretty great regardless.

Since I'm a shoegazer, not a thrasher, anyone have any suggestions for "best applications for an 'HM-2' in a shoegaze milieu"? I mean, yeah, I'm twisting knobs and experimenting, but would love to hear what longtime users consider to be sweet spots.

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del
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Re: NPDx2: Low-Budget/High-Gain

Post by del » Mon Oct 03, 2022 2:56 pm

MrShake wrote:
Mon Oct 03, 2022 10:07 am

Since I'm a shoegazer, not a thrasher, anyone have any suggestions for "best applications for an 'HM-2' in a shoegaze milieu"? I mean, yeah, I'm twisting knobs and experimenting, but would love to hear what longtime users consider to be sweet spots.
My first plan would be to max the tones, set the dirt somewhere between 9:00 and Noon, and put it after a splashy reverb. See what happens from there! :freako:
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JSett
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Re: NPDx2: Low-Budget/High-Gain

Post by JSett » Mon Oct 03, 2022 9:01 pm

The HM-2 is a much-wasted pedal these days thanks to people only thinking it's good for that chainsaw sound - which is, objectively, a fairly shitty sound. YMMV of course.

I have owned and used one for quite some time though and there's some actually very handy tones available in it. With the bass and treble just past halfway you have a couple of key sounds within the gain knob...just above minimum gets you into a crispy overdrive and then pushing it up from there anywhere up to about 12 o'clock on the dial and you're in ProCo Rat territory. Great for doom/metal with the option to push the tone dials up for more scoop or push the bass more for extra heavy sounds. As I'm sure you've seen now, those tone controls have a huge range and small adjustments make a big difference. Past 12 o'clock on the gain dial gets super distorted and almost counterproductive IMHO.

For a shoegazey sound I'd say gain about 10-11 o'clock, tone knobs about halfway or just past (depending on guitar and amp settings) and volume to suit. Feed that into a reverb (or reverb into it) plus some modulation and you're golden.
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Re: NPDx2: Low-Budget/High-Gain

Post by JackFawkes » Mon Oct 03, 2022 10:47 pm

An HM-2 clone is one of my three favorite distortion pedals! (The other two being a Soldano GTO clone and a Big Muff clone)
But even though I like a lot of shoegaze, I haven't really ever tried to replicate much of it, so I wouldn't be able to give any genre-specific advice.
As for HM-2 advice in general though, I agree with johnnysomersett that there are more sounds in it than the everything dimed "buzzsaw"... for example, on mine I get a pretty awesome heavy sound by turning the Level down from a 10 to around 5, Low down from a 10 to around a 7, leave High at 10, and Gain down from a 10 to around 6. I also sometimes like it set even more tame too; like Level at 7, Low at 5, High at 10, Gain at like 1.5.
Though of course those settings will likely need to dial in a bit different with your own gear.

Jack
Last edited by JackFawkes on Fri Oct 07, 2022 10:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: NPDx2: Low-Budget/High-Gain

Post by MrShake » Tue Oct 04, 2022 3:55 am

Thanks, gang! This is all helpful - those tone knobs ARE pretty potent (ha! wordplay!), so finding some "traditional" starting points helped.

I was expecting a Metal Zone, I guess, but yeah, a Rat is what this sort of reminded me of... one with wide-sweep EQ controls.

The chainsaw sound IS fun, but definitely doesn't represent what it seems this pedal can do. I'm glad got it - hearing that people like Swervedriver and MBV made use of them certainly made it seem like a fun color to paint with. I'm a Rat+fuzz guy overall, so I don't see this making my main board for a wall of noise, but it's definitely going to remain within easy reach for experimentation or layering into recordings. It's really capable of some HEFT, when dialed in right.

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