The Electric Flute: A Beginner’s Guide to Playing with Effects

Playing with effects is a thing now. There are lots of places on the internet where you can find info how to do it. Seems a book needed to be published for the beginners in the area? Plus the “space” changes quite rapidly so most of the gear in there might not even be available in 6 months.

I’ll I will contribute to this is that how you get the flute sound INTO the effects box/chain is really what matters. Like if you are playing by yourself, a Shure SM58 would work just time plugging into an effects pedal. However, if you are going to play LIVE with other instruments, then this setup will cause problems.

BLEED…..ie the microphone picking up other sounds and then running that into the effects. You can mitigate it somewhat with putting a GATE before the signal reaches an effect, but it’s not a great way to do it. Plus, it pretty much kills your ability to play softly (as the gate needs to reach a certain threshold before it “opens”, and if the live group you play in is loud and there is a lot of bleed…..)

Then you get into microphones, microphone patterns, how well it rejects off axis, perhaps a close pickup, etc, etc, etc. It’s a rabbit hole, albeit a very fun rabbit hole.

BIGGEST PVC Pan Flute

Ok, I really like this channel that Nicolas Bras has. Towards the end of the video there is some playing by a Pan flute master, and it’s interesting to see that he plays NOT with the tips of his fingers. Great channel. You should subscribe to it.

An Interview with Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull

Great interview with Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull

It is hard to mention the Prog-Rock scene, which started in the late 60s to early 70s, without mentioning Jethro Tull. Not only is Jethro Tull an iconic genre-defining band, but they have an unmistakable sound. If a song of theirs graces your ears, it’s not long before you realize you’re listening to Tull.

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