This is an oldie, but the clearest example of the effect I'm trying to figure out- In the middle of Credence's "Suzie Q" there is an effect on the vocals that sounds like a mic going thru a phase shifter, or he's holding his nose and singing thru a traffic cone....!

The part in the song where he sings "Say that you'll be true" is the sound I'm referring to. Quite a lot of bands use this effect on their vocals now, but this is the only clearcut example i can think of.

Anybody have a clue?

I'm not sure how they did it on Suzy Q, but a common way to get that sound is to sing through a small guitar amp using a low end microphone. I've gotten a similar effect using a harp player type setup. A Green Bullet mic through a cranked small tube amp.

if you're referring to the overused "telephone" effect that folks are using nowadays, it's achieved by using either a bandpass filter (like a wah, but a little higher resonance) or a combination of high and lowpass filters.

Basically, you want to filter out all the highs and lows, leaving a relatively sharp frequency peak around 1KHz or thereabouts.

Singing through an amp sounds cool too. You get the limited frequency response of a guitar amp, combined with a little overdrive. Listen to Sonic Youth's cover of the Carpenters' "Superstar" for this effect.

Roger

I'm glad someone was able to interpret what I meant by using the "suzie Q" description!

Yep! It IS high and low-pass filters (used nowadays)! I was at the music store today, checking out some effects trying to get a similar sound, using the Digitech Vocal 300 vocal Effects pedalboard, which had a "telephone" setting as well as a "megaphone" setting. The description in the Digitech manual sounded like what I wanted. but It sucked! We played around with the gates and the tones, for an hour, but the "megaphone" and "telephone"settings all sounded the same-cheesy.

Then we traied a new Ibanez pedal-the L7 LoFi pedal. That was the one! It has high bandpass filters and low bandpass filters, which do the job almost to the letter. I hooked up a graphic equalizer in conjuntion with it, and there it was!
"Oh Suzie Q!"

Right on target Rogre! Thanks

Yep, I happened to hear Suzy Q on the radio yesterday and it is more of that radical EQ cut than the small amp effect. The Suzy Q effect has more of that 'megaphone' effect.
Good call.

Might be where the Q comes from

I came in late on this one, but you can get this with Eq only, a good parametric Eqs allows you to filter at the same time as you'd boost or cut chosen frequencies.

Glad you foudn a viabel solution for your need.

Confessed Pickaholic!

Yes, the song was supposedly originally called "Sue's EQ"

I know. Not funny.

Roger