Well, wellity, I believe we have got there, if you choose the right delay on the ‘select’ button-wonderful mayhem ensures. Thank you so much, Flanging, metallic reverb, long echoes are all possible.
Dayum now this one is crashing when I open it;
macOS Catalina 10.15.7
System Integrity Protection: enabled
Crashed Thread: 0 Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGABRT) Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000039 Exception Note: EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY
VM Regions Near 0x39: *–> *
- Kernel Alloc Once 000000000c95b000-000000000c95d000 [ 8K] rw-/rwx SM=PRV *
Application Specific Information: abort() called
Well this one expands the sound palette even more, thank you so much for putting so much time into this project. Much appreciated!
One of these modules has a crashing bug?
I was Martin Hannetts Sound engineer from 1986-his death in 1991. he had one MTM, and strawberry studios had another permanently in the rack. They were very temperamental, but they were the quintessential Hannet sound (when they worked). No other FX unit does what an MTM (or the “Marshall time waster,” as New Order so affectionately used to call it) did. I’ve also been searching for a software version of this. As no one has resurrected the Intelligent devices creation yet. I’d like to think that I’ll find someone who cares about this unit enough to work on a version and If do I will post what I find here. Marshall Time Modulator by Intelligent Devices - Delay / Echo Plugin VST
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Wahey you worked with the mighty Martin, was he has creatively ‘weird’ as everyone made out or a genius? Well I have read the Martin and his equipment + Strawberry studios book and have been mesmerised by the amount of delays/reverbs and all the fxs he had. The AMS delays sound incredible and his underground echo chamber [did that exist?]. Thanks for showing interest in the crazy fx patches we try to recreate some of these hardware units.
Martin was indeed both maniacal and genius. Heroin would do that to anyone with a creative head on their shoulders. We used both the AMS and MTM to create Martins’s signature sound, which defined his creations. he had a specific way of working, which began in the pub across the road from Strawberry, and then when he was ready, we would start creating. Microphone placement and Microphone configuration were fundamental essences to the sound we made. M/S Pair was his go-to microphone configuration for drums and guitar ambiance. But he would break things down when the recording started to be the cleanest sound possible—sometimes making the drummer play just the bass drum and then the snare and then the Hi-Hats and then Toms and then crash And Ride cymbals—essentially creating an isolated drum machine version of a drummer. Guitars were pretty simple, and he would affect them later in the mix. he always liked the control of the sonics within the music even he was creating, although he had none for his hygiene. He stank of Heroin, sweat, and alcoholism, which you could smell even before he walked into the room. I don’t want to bash Martin; I’m just letting you understand the sensations of working with Martin. He was a caring, understanding human. He came to my 21st birthday party—a good friend and mentor. He was always sharing while protective and entertaining. I remember him sitting cross-legged/yoga style (as he often did) in the Vocal booth with the 2-inch tape chopping board (for editing 2" tape) with an 8 ball for cocaine lining up rails, apparently hiding from the Happy Mondays vowing not to come out until the lead singer had finished writing the lyrics for the song we were working on. I worked with him on his last ever session. he wasn’t well, spending most of the time sleeping on the floor under the mixing console. The underground Echo Chamber was an EMT Plate, commonplace in many High-End Studios. Essentially a large sheet of gold-plated steel within a king-sized bed box on its side with a speaker in the middle of the plate with two microphones at either end of the large plate. Which had rollers at Either end of the plate that could shorten and lengthen the decay of the reverberations. a wonderful creation and something else which martin excelled at utilizing. The Marshall time modulator was his favorite piece of kit, and he tried to use it on everything. From drum abience creation to guitar modulation, making it sound like the walls of a room were rushing in and out at a very rapid rate. Perfect if you are in the middle of a cocaine binge. do you work in music? Oh, by the way. Don’t believe everything you read in that book by Chris Hewitt He had Nothing to do with Strawberry and Hannett. he has just been attempting to insert himself into history. even going to the lengths of spraying random flight cases with a stencil of Martin Hannets name, to make money from nothing.
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Thank you so much for such wonderful information about a great and wonderful man. U learnt from a true master! No I don’t work in the music business but I do create or try to create replica’s of great sounding instruments and Fxs unit in VCV Rack. Not all of them successful. Can you remember how he did the ‘moving wall trick’ with MTM would love to be able to replicate that fx, have you any track audio of when he used that? We have a Reverb module [Soundstage], that can be modulated with CV to give the effect of the walls moving in and out.
Modulate the Size param on Plateau. It modulates smoothly as far as I can tell. also modulate the Diffuse one at same time (less diffusion as size decreases). Should get close if tweaked properly. That being said, I haven’t heard the original effect so this is just my take on how to start.
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Thanks so what would be best to modulate those with a LFO or another form of cv? True I’m sure Martin Hannett will have recorded the effect on one of his many tracks, he produced so many!
LFO, maybe one that can also be speed modulated, would be best methinks. More chaotic would be a Caudal from Vult, depends on your taste.
Thanks I’ll try Caudal as well. Just using FW BPM LFO and that seems to b doing something near, any other LFOs u recommend?
VCV’s LFO? Any that the frequency (aka speed) can be modulated, if you want the effect to vary.
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Hey, I’ve been looking around the web for a version of the VST. I’ve got a demo version from 2009 that I got from putting in a link into wayback machine from the gearspace thread from an Int Devices engineer. Lmk if you want me to send you a zip or something.
Well if it is possible to get the Vst version, it would be great.
Had the install, for some reason it only installed a 32 bit version. Tried using jBridge and it told me I needed iLok drivers for DRM. Couldn’t get a modern version of iLok of it to work so I tried a legacy install and it bricked my computer. Officially gave up.
Ok Jeff, thanks for trying it, shame it went to pieces-the iLok was always a pain! I’ll use the VCV versions on here kindly provided above.
This machine/plugin offers some interesting Delay based FX…
A Music Radar review (excerpts below) details some of the specs for the Intelligent Devices Marshall Time Modulator (MTM) VST ( so, NOT the original hardware specs):
Intelligent Devices Marshall Time Modulator review | MusicRadar
The Marshall Time Modulator is a classic analogue delay and modulation unit from the mid-'70s. Designed by the late Stephen St. Croix (aka Stephen Marshall), it became popular for its ability to produce deep flanging and crazy modulations.
Fundamental to the design are twin delay lines, dubbed A and B, coupled to modulation. The delays always retain a ratio to each other of either 1:2 or 1:4, depending on which of the six timing presets you plump for. These determine the range of delay times that can be dialled in with the Time Delay control.
So, for example, the first preset gives delay line A times between 0.2ms and 12ms, while delay line B will range from 0.4ms to 25ms - note that the ratio is (more or less) 1:2. The first three presets are short, ‘flanger’ settings while the others give a noticeable echo effect - the longest delay available is on line B (400ms).
MTM’s other key feature is modulation, adjusted via an LFO (0.1Hz to 10Hz) linked to a parameter called Time Mod (0 to 100%). With the latter cranked to its maximum setting, the delay time is modulated between the limits of its preset, while reducing it causes the delay time to ‘gravitate’ towards the value set with the Time Delay knob.
Finally, to round things off, there are controls for delay feedback amount, input/ output levels per delay line and wet/dry mix.
In addition to the improved layout and signal flow view, the MTM’s plug-in extends the original’s stereo capabilities and LFO options.
The plug-in comes in mono, stereo and mono-to-stereo configurations. The stereo options enable you to individually pan and phase reverse the delay lines, adding considerably to the effect’s potential. A panning control for the input signal acts as a left/right control in the mono-to-stereo plug-in and as a stereo width control in the full stereo version.
The LFO includes not just the original’s sine and square waves, but also saw, triangle, random and ‘SSC’ (Steve’s own custom shape). As you might imagine, the extra waveforms add new flavours to the MTM sound, particularly when combined with the stereo and phase reverse options.
The MTM plug-in is undoubtedly easier to comprehend than the oddball original, but the esoteric sonic nature of the hardware is intact. You can easily achieve thick, sweeping flange effects or pitch-modulated delays, then switch delay times and find yourself swamped in speaker-mashing feedback.
This is all part and parcel of the original design, and achieving a fine balance between delay time, level and feedback is the key to taming the beast. Beyond this, added features such as channel phase reverse and panning enable superb ethereal, spacious effects. MTM also excels at creating crazy spot effects from single impulses.
All this sounds like it could very well be achieved in VCV Rack. Although feedback is often a hard to control beast…
Thank you for this wonderful information. In some of the above posts there are examples of VCV Rack patches, those are very good starting points. Are you up for a challenge, see if you can get there to MTM Nirvana.
With the weekend looming, I might give it a try…