As a guitar player, I love tremolo. As the owner of a vintage Magnatone M10A with real vibrato and a Fender Princeton Reverb with tremolo, I find the vibe of a shimmering sound to be intoxicating. When I got my hands on the Goodhertz Trem Control, I was excited to see what it could do compared to the real thing. Well, it not only delivered on the goods but exceeded them. Labeled as “classic tremolo for the 21st century,” Trem Control features both Primary and Advanced controls, allowing for a huge variety of shaking.
Tempo can be set either manually, tapped or synced to BPM, and for Shape, you can adjust Depth, Wave, Bias and Symmetry, which controls the symmetry of the modulations’ rise and fall. Tube Color can go from 0 to 200 percent, and there are a number of Trem types, including Harmonic, Bass, Air and even Mid/Side, which modulates the mid and side out-of-phase when used in stereo. Some of the Advanced Controls include Phase Offset, Stereo Phase, Swing, Volume Comp for constant RMS level (regardless of tremolo Depth), Tube Noise Gain, and even an HQ mode where quality is prioritized over CPU use.
The best place to start is with the presets. Even the Historical presets include record references, such as Pops Staples as heard on “Uncloudy Day” (1961), Led Zeppelin’s “No Quarter” (1973), Pink Floyd’s “Money” (1973), Lionel Hampton and the Just Jazz All Stars on “Stardust” (1956), as well as Leo, Leslie-esque, Reverse Pulses, Broken Digital and 16th Harmonics.
Review: Goodhertz Megaverb Plug-In, by Rich Tozzoli, Feb. 1, 2019
I’ve used it not only on guitar but on keyboards, cymbal FX, strings and even drum and percussion loops. It’s a remarkably flexible, creative tool. If tremolo is your thing, it should be in your computer.
Goodhertz • www.goodhertz.co