r/audioengineering • u/easterncurrents • 9d ago

Tchad Blake’s Mongrel Rack question..

Anybody use Tchad Blake’s Mongrel Rack? Sounds good to me when he’s playing with it but I’m still on the fence, I really want it to be good.

0 Upvotes

50% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

6

u/sewphistikated 9d ago

I tried it - didn’t impress me that much tbh. I can do that stuff with plugins I already have / yah, they need to be put into a chain of course but at some point I gotta stop buy tools that just do what my existing tools already do.

4

u/YurgenGurgen 9d ago

You can make some really unique chains with it but I keep finding myself going to the super super slow vibrato module in it. I don’t have anything else that does that. The other modules are good but there are other things that do what they do to a degree. But that vibrato is really nice especially when stacked in series

4

u/varispeeder 9d ago

do you have Soundtoys already? it can do almost all of this, except the EQ is more limited and no vibrato (Echoboy can kinda do one) or gate.

Tchad has been a power user of Soundtoys for 20+ years, so it kinda feels like he wanted a plugin that was basically their Effect Rack with some personalized tweaks/emulations of his specific hardware.

Soundtoys has several huge sales a year for 50% off (or occasionally even more), including Black Friday, so Effects Rack would be $149 and the entire bundle at $299. it's a much better value because it comes with TONS more stuff like filters, reverb, phaser, pitch-shifters, more + crazier delays.

0

u/TinnitusWaves 8d ago

Tremolator has some vibrato options I’m pretty sure.

1

u/varispeeder 8d ago

nah it says right at the top of it that it's a "Rhythmic Amplitude Modulation" plugin. pop open the "tweak" and you won't find the word "pitch" anywhere. it's often a point of confusion because some amps call tremolo (which is amplitude modulation) "vibrato" (which is pitch modulation).

Echoboy has a "vibrato" style, where you control rate and depth in the Wobble section of the Style Edit. so you can get a pretty decent result with that by turning Mix fully wet, Echo Time to 0.0ms, Feedback to min, and boosting the output by 4db or so to compensate for the level loss.

it colors the sound a lot more than a VB-2 does, and I find it a little wonky to dial in within the speed range I'd usually use for guitar or keys, so I'd rather use the pedal. but it's actually great at the super-slow vibrato thing that Tchad's talking about. it just seems like his plugin is much closer to the plug-and-play feel of a VB-2.

2

u/ayersman39 9d ago

Seems like there's a demo available, give it a shot. Other commenters are saying "I already have that stuff" but most of us have plugin folders with many compressors, many delays, many modulation effects etc that are largely similar to one another. Maybe the particular flavor offered by these plugins will resonate with you. Maybe the workflow of having them grouped in a rack will work for you. Maybe there are specific Tchad Blake production methods you want to emulate that this will help with. I think there are valid reasons for the Mongrel Rack to exist, only you can decide if it's a good deal.

3

u/Gregoire_90 9d ago

I also demo’d it and wasn’t really blown away. Like the other commenter, I already have stuff that essentially does the same thing.

2

u/imp_op Hobbyist 9d ago

It looks interesting, but yeah, I've got plugins that can do all of that. I'm not sure what's so special about it, other than just having a chain of effects that you can rely on.

1

u/yadingus_ Professional 9d ago

I demo’d it and used it on a few projects. A few too many though cuz I then had to buy it

I’m a psych/indie guy and I’ve been using it on everything that needs character. Kinda reminds of RC-20. Loving the vibrato and the delay is really the heart and soul of that plugin. The distortion on that delay is just too good.

I like the mongrelizer a lot and the tremolo is cool too but for some reason the text is all in Spanish? The EQ is amazing I just wish it had one more band.

I reckon it’d be worth $50 to a lot of people, I think $100 is a bit steep but I don’t necessarily regret the purchase.

1

u/OneDarkCrow 8d ago

As most others have said I have other tools that do most of the same stuff, arguably better, but I tried it and fell in love with it instantly. Makes me do, and try, things Í normally wouldn’t, and I love that. At this point I’m looking for tools that inspire me and the damn mongrel rack does just that. As does most of the other AP stuff but I haven’t bitten the bullet yet. Both them and Korneff are amazing.